Mary and Jody Barber
Mary and Jody Barber, A WHKP Station Editorial, July 9, 2008
When word came the other week that Mary Barber had died at the age of 86, a flood of memories…a couple of generations worth in fact…washed over those of us…who’d known her, worked with her, served the community with her, and who’d enjoyed our beloved town …and life in general…WITH her. As we wrote her obituary for our radio station, with our own commentary on her life, we thought of the most appropriate, fitting, and proper ways for our community to honor…and to remember…Mary Douglass Barber. Mary was a “contributor”, a “doer” in everything from the Planning Board to Garden Clubs…and she did her “doing” with a grace, style, and beautiful elegance…typical of Mary, of her family, and to a large extent of her more “genteel” generation. In our opinion, Mary’s greatest contribution was in the beautification of Downtown Hendersonville. As we’ve pointed out before, Mary’s death came the same week the last extension of Main Street’s classic “serpentine” pattern was completed. Mary, her husband Jody, downtown merchants like D.B. Keith, public servants like police chief Bill Powers, and civic leaders like Duke Power’s Sam McGuirt and WHKP’s Kermit Edney…all had a hand in that courageous and visionary decision to “re-design” Hendersonville’s wide and tree-lined Main Street. With the influx of “malls” and “shopping centers”, our Main Street was almost dead those 30 years ago. That handful did their “civic CPR” on our “downtown”…and Downtown Hendersonville survives and thrives today. Give Mary the credit for the trees, the shrubs, the hanging baskets, the planters…the thousands of Springtime tulips and the lovely plants and blossoms…all belonging to each one of our VERY unique “four seasons”, up and down our Main Street. So…it seems “fitting and proper” that Mary’s, and husband Jody’s, NAMES and perhaps their YEARS of service to “Downtown Hendersonville”, their committees, titles, and venues of service to our community…all be engraved on a gold plaque (or on whatever MATCHES the nearest décor…for Mary would have insisted it all “match”!)…and that plaque be affixed to the closest planter to the corner of Sixth Avenue and Main Street, where the Barber family ran their stores, where they helped “make”, photographed, and recorded our “history”, lived their lives, did their business, and gave their gifts of service…to the City of Hendersonville for almost 100 years. WHKP is suggesting such a special plaque to the mayor, city manager, and to city council…and that the Barber family be properly and publicly recognized on the day of that plaque’s installation or dedication. Mary and Jody’s friend, Kermit Edney, in his book Kermit Edney Remembers…had mentioned a possible Hollywood-like “Walk of Fame” on our Main Street…with the first two stars belonging to Jody and Mary. Mary’s death the other week at the age of 86…reminded us that an appropriate recognition for her, and for Jody, is LONG over-due. We hope our city officials will consider this suggestion…and hopefully, maybe, sometime SOON, we’ll see the “Barber’s plaque”…on a planter full of beautiful flowers, flowers like Mary would have chosen and planted, near the street corner that was “home” to “the Barber’s” for almost a century. By…Larry Freeman, WHKP News and Program Director
