Lansdale, PA, 1923 – 2023
Barbara Rosalie Buehler was the daughter of the late Rosalie (Vollrath) and Martin H. Buehler, 2nd, and was raised in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia. She graduated in 1941 from the Germantown Friends School, where she answered to the nickname “Bobbie, edited the school handbook, served on the editorial board of the student literary magazine, played field hockey and sang alto in the glee club. Her first summer after graduation, she met her future husband Ed at a dance at the Philadelphia Cricket Club. Several weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Ed’s ship was ordered to the Pacific, and though still only 18, Barbara accepted his proposal of marriage with only a few days notice. The rushed ceremony was performed by the captain of Ed’s ship near dockside in Tampa, FL, the entire wedding party consisting only of the couple’s two mothers and one aunt. Later in the war, while living with Ed at a navy base along the Georgia coastline, Barbara complete training and volunteered as an aircraft spotter with the civilian Ground Observer Corps.
For many years (1950-82) Barbara lived with her family in Haddonfield, NJ where she volunteered with the auxiliary at Cooper Hospital in nearby Camden, NJ. In the early 1960’s she chaired the committee that organized the Cooper Hospital Mart & Horse Show, a major annual fundraising event. It gave her deep pride when the funds raised from that regional charity event were used to equip the new intensive care unit at the hospital, and Barbara volunteered in that upgraded unit by visiting and befriending critically ill patients. Barbara also volunteered at the First Presbyterian Church in Haddonfield, and regularly recruited blood donors for the Red Cross by telephone, sometimes placing over 50 recruiting calls in support of an upcoming blood drive. She was also active in the NJ chapter of The Questers, a group that studied antiques and historic preservation.
Barbara and Ed traveled extensively overseas, including a memorable hunting safari in Africa. She was an avid, life-long bird-watcher, applying the same observational skills with binoculars and the same accurate recordkeeping on her sightings that she had previously used as an aircraft spotter during the war. Barbara and Ed maintained a family summer home near Hawley, PA. Culminating 70 years of marriage, they lived their last, happy years together at Meadowood Senior Living, an assisted living facility near Philadelphia, where Barbara was Ed’s primary caregiver during the last five years of his life. Barbara was also predeceased by a brother, Martin H. Buehler, 3rd (Bud of Waynesboro, VA. Barbara is survived by two sisters, Margery English of Lafayette Hill, PA and Florence (Pat) Pfeiffer of Lower Gwynedd, PA; two sons, Edward, Jr. (Elizabeth) of Morgan’s Point Resort, TX and Geoffrey (Susan) of Westfield, NJ; six grandchildren, Edward Ill, Catherine (Stephen), Daniel (Elizabeth), Tyler, Kelly (Cole) and Russell; and many cousins, nieces and nephews.
A memorial service will be planned later this summer.
