Anthony Barker

The Barker Surname

My Uncle Tony recalled that his grandmother, Lucy Burr Wadhams, thought of her husband [Abram Barker] as a “Johnny-come-lately” without the deep historical connection to America (and Goshen specifically) of her lineage. My Uncle Tony mused that the family name was associated with a carnival barker, yet it seems more likely that the surname derived fromContinue reading “The Barker Surname”

Gabriele D’Annunzio

Before he died, my uncle Tony gifted me his first Italian edition of Il Fuoco (The Flame, 1900), signed by Gabriele D’Annunzio himself. I regret that I didn’t record where or why he acquired the book. He did teach himself Italian, but I don’t know if he mastered it sufficiently to read the original. IContinue reading “Gabriele D’Annunzio”

Anthony Barker died April 3, 2022. I was able to visit him the week prior. He had been released from the hospital to the assisted living facility that he shared with his wife, Betty. He was on hospice with a prognostication of three more months. Although he was thinner and frailer than I had everContinue reading “Anthony Barker”