Barbara P Maher's Obituary
Barbara Phyllis Maher left us on Friday, November 22, 2024. Having overcome some serious health issues over the years, she demonstrated her fortitude by remarkably attaining the age of 91. With the exception of a tough last few months, she lived a happy and satisfying life.
Barbara was born in Jersey City, NJ. The daughter of Samuel and Margaret (Kutzleb) Friedman, she grew up with her younger brother Pete in Cliffside Park and, later, Teaneck. She graduated from Teaneck High School in 1951.
On the path to becoming a registered nurse, Barbara studied at and graduated in 1954 from the Englewood Hospital School of Nursing (NJ). She worked for several years at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital (NY), but spent the vast majority of her career at Hackensack University Medical Center (NJ). While she loved helping bring new life into the world as a delivery room nurse, most of her tenure at Hackensack was in the Emergency Department. Working the night shift, 11-7, she saw it all. Retirement in the late ‘90s was, for Barbara, a welcome respite. She moved to Ocean County, where she enjoyed thirteen eventful years before finally relocating to the Poconos.
Widowed from her late husband Robert E. Maher at the age of 39, Barbara proved her mettle by bringing up her sons John and Robert Jr. on her own. (Parents Sam and Marge had both died in the early ‘60s.) Her hard work enabled her to send both her boys to college.
Throughout her life, Barbara loved her dogs. They brought her much joy. For several years she was active as a breeder of cocker spaniels; this avocation produced more than a couple of American Kennel Club champions. For ease of grooming, Barbara switched her personal pets from cockers to pugs. Rocco the pug survives her and lives with John.
In her retirement Barbara indulged her passion for travel. She visited the western U.S. and Canada, Hawaii, the Canadian Maritime Provinces, Mexico, the Caribbean, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Australia, and New Zealand.
Barbara always looked forward to watching Jeopardy, and was a voracious reader (never being without a book). She passed this love of learning on to her family.
Barbara is survived by her sons John and Bob, grandsons Bobby and Tommy, daughter-in-law MaryAnne, her brother Pete, and sister-in-law Mary Jo. All will miss her for her love, wit, generosity, and ready sense of humor.
“Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”
-Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)
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