Barbara breathed her last at home in our living room in a hospital bed under excellent palliative care. Many of our family had surrounded her in the days beforehand sharing prayers and memories. And then, on a Sunday night, sacred day of the week in our story, she left us.

We feel ripped inside and yet at peace thanks to the grace of God in whom we have trusted all the way. You see, Barbara married a Baptist minister and gave herself wholly to sharing God’s purposes for us with her marvellous gifts of caring and kindness. She was the best asset I ever had.

Barbara began in Winchester, Ontario, elder daughter of two from Eldon and Nellie Fennell, Feed and Grain Dealer for this rural area south of Ottawa and active members of the local United Church. Thanks to a friend’s encouragement, she decided to pursue post high school at McMaster University in Hamilton - still small and Baptist owned with a reputation for excellence. And that’s where students for Baptist ministry were educated.

Barbara met Bruce Neal at McMaster in the Fall of 1949. Both were smitten, and married in August of 1953, a year after Barbara’s BA graduation. She went to work for the Hamilton Children’s Aid Society while Bruce completed his studies in the McMaster Divinity College.

They went to Chicago for two years of graduate studies at the University of Chicago where Barb got a position as a receptionist in the “Lying In Hospital” (maternity plus) on campus. Predictably, our first child (Susan) was born in Illinois.

On return to Canada, Bruce began five years in Christian Education and Youth Leadership for the Baptists of Ontario and Quebec and Barbara enjoyed making home in our first little house - in Scarborough - with the addition of two more children (Janice and Jeffrey).

A little weary of travelling on the job and a desire to belong and serve in one place at a time, Bruce became Minister of Christian Education in Yorkminster Park Baptist Church in Toronto. Small-town Barbara’s warmth and caring won her way into the welcome and affections of these urban folk at a transition time in that Church’s story. And, while we were there, we added two more little girls (Sharon and Jennifer).

From then on, we pastored three churches:
James Street Baptist Church in downtown Hamilton for seven years,
Walmer Road Baptist Church in central Toronto for twelve years,
Lorne Park Baptist Church in Mississauga for eleven plus years. … at which time in 1995 we retired in the house which we had bought when we came to Mississauga.
Since then we have become very much part of Kingsway Baptist Church in
Etobicoke.

Barbara’s capacity to love, to share, to give is legendary. First with our family. She was the heart and key to our family relationships by her consistent loving, trusting, open affections. But equally so with countless other persons through the years - in full variety: students and seniors, singles and strangers, face to face or telephoned, in study group or over a casserole. She would give you time to listen, encourage, make her faith obvious in her very being.

And the things she loved to do drew us into her joy: walking beneath the trees, watching birds on the wing,, picnics by the lake, playing games with little ones and reading books. It was her idea to find ourselves a summer cottage of our own which blessed us for 40 years among the pines and poplars of Lake Shawenegog in North Frontenac Township.

She was uniquely special to all of us who miss her: five children - Susan (Rev. Dale Soble), Janice (Rodney Stephen), Jeffrey (Ellen Toompuu), Sharon (d. Scott Gregory), Jennifer (Darrin Smith); ten grandchildren - Nicholas (Erin), Katie (Gary), Nathaniel (Krista), Maggie (Andrew), Trevor (Nina), Kelsey, Adrian (Spencer), Ian, Ada, Adelaide; and seven great-grandchildren - William, Henry, Beckett, Spencer, Amelia, Declan, Naomi; plus Barbara’s sister Kathleen (d.Roy) and her family and Bruce’s brother Ralph (d.Dorothy) and his family.

She was the love of my life, a wondrous gift of God’s grace. What a privilege to share a whole lifetime with her!

A Service of Thanksgiving will be held on Saturday, January 25th in Kingsway Baptist Church, Bloor Street West at Montgomery Road, Etobicoke, at 2:00 p.m., preceded by visitation at 1:00 p.m. and a reception afterward.

If you wish to make a gift in memory of Barbara, may we suggest: Birds Canada - because she loved the sight and sound of flickering, flying birds Canadian Foodgrains Bank - because Bruce was one of the co-founders 40 years ago and she cared deeply for the hungry of the world Kingsway Baptist Church - because it’s reaching out to others as it grows.
- Bruce W. Neal