by Jim Brennan

Last week we ran an obituary on Barbara L. Russell, a needlepoint expert and owner of the former Barbara Russell Designs, a retail needlepoint store at 8409 Germantown Ave. for 35 years. Mrs. Russell died at age 78 on June 11 at Temple University Hospital. Barbara’s friend, Jim Brennan, a resident of Flourtown, sent us the following article last Friday.

If Barbara were sitting here watching me write this, she’d scratch every sad, soggy, sentimental word, so in respect for her memory and our friendship, I will keep it light.

It took no time for Barbara to become a close friend of mine. Poet, writer, community activist, artist, entrepreneur and most importantly, friend, her independent spirit and strong character left an imprint on my life.

I met Barbara at my first poetry workshop in Chestnut Hill. I was entranced the moment I first walked into her home, which I called “The Museum,” in her beloved enclave of Druim Moir. I found myself surrounded with art; sculptures made from whalebone, a gilded grand piano, a two-foot stuffed diamondback rattler and a large painting of her son as a boy sitting on a slate roof at sunset watching geese fly south hung above the mantle.

Barbara’s original needlepoint, which was her passion as well as her business, filled her home. I’d sink into her sofa with pillows under either arm sporting needlepoint designs of her two Dandie Dinmont Terriers, Baxter and Fiona.

Barbara welcomed me into her life with openness and humility. In the short time we were friends, I learned more about her than I know about people I’ve known my entire life. She shared with me stories of growing up on a farm in New Jersey and settling in Philadelphia, her activism during racial tensions of the 1960s, her travels, business experiences and extensive social connections.

Barbara invited my wife, Joanne, and me to a jazz concert at the Woodmere Art Museum one Friday night. She knew the band leader, and at intermission over a glass of red wine she introduced us to the Museum Director. I shook my head and said to Joanne, “Barbara knows everyone.”

I would always tell Joanne about Barbara’s home, and one night after a poetry reading Barbara invited us in for a glass of wine and showed Joanne around her “Museum” while Baxter and Fiona sniffed our ankles and played.

I’m going to miss the rides we’d take to West Philly for readings and workshops — our conversations about poetry, life, the memoir she was writing. My Jeep will be quiet for a little while, but I have a sense it won’t be long before I hear her hearty laugh again, and I’ll ask her to steady my writing hand from the other side.

One of the conversations we’d have driving to and from West Philly was about putting our poetry collections together. I went back and read poems that Barbara had submitted to be workshopped with our group, and I am taking the liberty to publish the first poem from Barbara’s collection. This poem makes me smile because it is based on a poetry reading we coordinated in Fairmont Park on Forbidden Drive at the historic Valley Green Inn. It was the first week of April, and we had a blizzard. It is called “Valley Green”:

“Modest inn for travelers on Forbidden Drive began life in colonial times; meeting place on open front porch; laughter of children playing near ducks splashing; woods plunging down surrounding embankments meet creek water; thirst quenching.

“Snowflakes in April, large flat-laced flakes, delicacy undone by gravity; bare trees silhouetted behind white-patterned curtain; ghost beauty still wanting to be seen.

“Poets gather to give words response as fox tilts his head to listen.”

Jim Brennan is an author, fellow poet and friend of Barbara Russell’s. Jim joined a poetry workshop that met at Barbara’s home when he lived in Chestnut Hill that was the beginning of a close friendship that included poetry readings, jazz concerts and nights of storytelling over a glass of wine.