Barbara Joan Mabe

At 98, Barbara Joan (Litchfield) Mabe, life-long Ellicott City resident, passed away peacefully in her home on October 17, 2024. She was predeceased by her parents William and Helen (Volckman) Litchfield, and her siblings, sisters Irma (aka Pat) and Helen, and brothers Chester, Gordon, Howard (aka Buddy), Calvin (aka Mook), and Jimmy.

She is predeceased by her husband Jasper and two grandsons, Chris Mabe and Michael Campbell.

She is survived by children Jack (Sharon), Mitzi, Lisa (Bob) Hennessee, Jim (Joyce), Dale (Tommy) Collins, and Brenda (Nancy); by grandchildren Tina (Charlie) Ridgley, Jay (Rebecca), Holly and  Becky Collins; by great-grandchildren Charlie (Ashley) Ridgley, Justin (Rachel) Ridgley, Savannah Grace Campbell, Vaeda Audrey and Lincoln Henry, and by great-great grandchild Lucas Michael Ridgley.

Barbara Litchfield’s formal education included graduating in 1944 from Ellicott City High School. Also, at sixteen, she joined World War II’s beloved “Rosie the Riveter” program (Glen L. Martin Company in Essex and Middle River) to help assemble B-29 bombers.

While raising her six children, she found a job as a carrier with The News American, delivering newspapers in Catonsville. Her pre-school daughter Brenda didn’t want to start school, so much had she liked “working” with her mother. When Barbara’s husband saw how profitable the paper business was, he quit his own jobs, and they acquired and shared a very large route with The Baltimore Sun, together serving much of Howard County. Leaving his much-enjoyed job at The Enchanted Forest, their son Jack agreed to help them learn their routes, and over the years, the entire family got involved in various capacities. Throwing the hefty papers from the car window, strategically placing them in yards, she developed quite a strong left arm, which in the final stretch of years, would sometimes result in her sudden and unconscious hurling of any object in her left hand. She kept care-givers busy!

Barbara was surrounded by the most graceful home-health care workers, and even in her toughest days, charmed each person who had the gift of meeting her. With a profound mothering spirit, she managed to “adopt” two of them, Lily and Chris, over this past year, as they in turn shared a remarkable bond with her. Our Ellie tended her for nearly the past ten years, and though for shorter terms, “guardians” Diane, Beryl, and Michelle enhanced Barbara’s life in a variety of remarkable ways.

Barbara, who also went by Barb, Barbra, Bobbi, Bob, Mommy, Mom, Momma, and Mom-Mom, touched many lives, whether during her fervently spiritual days with Women’s Aglow and churches of Presbyterian, Pentecostal, and Catholic faith, or with the gifts she was able to share through her hands, delighting others with her artistic skill.

She expressed her creative spirit in sewing clothes for her young daughters, cheering her sons at Little League games (as well as daughters on the Panthers), preparing festive meals, tending gardens of flowers and vegetables, and keeping the home full of pets, most memorably her protective German Shepherd Duke. She enhanced her children’s physical health by getting them to Red Cross swimming lessons at Kramer’s Pool, by encouraging them to explore Nature via walking fields and woods surrounding their home, and by supporting their participation in scouting, camping, biking, dancing--generally urging them to keep active. Barbara’s passion moved her to draw, paint, and write in ways that inspired and lifted others with her contemplations. She revered all Being.

The simplest summary of her life is that she loved and was loved.

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