Barbara L Chase

Barbara “Barbie” Learnard Chase, most recently of Scituate, MA, passed away with grace and peace at 81 years of age just before 5 p.m. on July 20, 2015 -- right on schedule for “drinky-winky time” somewhere over the rainbow.

Born in 1933 in Boston, she was the youngest child of Edward Heath Learnard and Beatrice Lane Learnard of Newton, MA. She grew up sailing in Chatham, a town she considered home for the rest of her life. She was a graduate of Dana Hall School and received her Bachelor’s degree from Smith College. As a young woman, she traveled extensively and worked in Paris and Washington DC for the Strategic Headquarters of the Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE). It was in Washington that she met her husband-to-be. Together they moved to Argentina, where they added two daughters to their family, followed by a third after they had moved back to the U.S and settled in Marshfield, MA. They retired to Chatham in the 1990s, where she worked part-time for the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History.

She loved the outdoors, birding, gardening, and the little known but time-honored Chatham sport of peering surreptitiously into other people’s houses during the off-season. She was a conservationist, both of the natural world and of traditional Cape Cod architecture. She was a proud Democrat, an ardent, lifelong Red Sox fan and a dedicated birthday card sender.

She was frequently barefoot, fond of creating nicknames and happiest on a trip to the Outer Beach. She loved to antique and was a very talented decorator. Left to her own devices, she would subsist entirely on tomatoes, artichoke hearts, little necks and hermits. She was the connective tissue for a huge network of family and friends, spanning several generations and she will be terribly missed.

She was predeceased by her husband of 42 years, Colonel James Edward Chase, (Ret, U.S. Army) and by her brother, Henry Heath Learnard III. She is survived by more family and friends than we can count including her sister, Ann Learnard Bowman (spouse Hamilton Busser Bowman) of Duxbury, three daughters, Beatrice Lane Chase of Newton, MA (spouse Frederick L. Leighton, Jr.), Eunice Learnard Emerson Chase of Portland, Oregon and Annie Hamilton Learnard Chase of Cambridge, MA (spouse Benjamin S. Jones), along with granddaughter Matilda Learnard Leighton, step-granddaughters Olivia Cookman Jones and Sophie Silliman Jones, three cherished nieces and their families, and two beloved flat-faced dogs, Maud and Mabel.

A memorial service will be held at Grace Church, 76 Eldredge St, Newton, on Friday, July 31, 2015 at 10:30 a.m. In lieu of flowers, tax-deductible donations may be made in her name to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Donor Services, P.O. Box 4072, Pittsfield, MA 01202, 888-557-7177, www.lls.org