Barbara Riley

Barbara Anne Riley was born in Spokane Washington and grew up in Westford Massachusetts. She graduated from the Stoneleigh Prospect Hill School for Girls ('64) and attended UMass Amherst where she was an English major. An avid participant in the cultural revolution of the 60s, Barbara wrote poetry and lived in communes in Leverett Massachusetts, San Francisco, Berkley CA, and Colorado. Her career was in newpapers (The Amherst Record, The Cape Codder) and real estate. Living in Orleans Massachusetts for several years, Barbara knew much of the history of the cape, loved its terrain, birds and flowers. She loved her friends and family there, always faithful and loyal to all. She is survived by a sister, Susan Riley Clarke, a niece Megan Bethany Hart, and nephew Josua Riley Kortright.

A celebration of her life will take place at the Brewster VFW social club on Sunday August 12, 3-8pm.

Ex Libris

Now quiet swings this day to dark and ends

its function for all time. For many lying

still, it’s been a noisy tumbril to

eternity. Both destination and conveyance

were unfair, but their complaints

are never heard by us. For those who live,

it was a time of light, short or long,

brightly etched upon the plates of our minds,

to be reproduced in later years,

prefaced by that solemn utterance:

“Now there was a day…”

John J. Riley