Glenna Barkan, 94, died on March 22, 2021, at the Linden, an assisted living facility in Dedham, where she spent the last 16 months of her life.
She was born Glenna Frances Kelley on July 30, 1926, in Amesbury to Rex and Helen Kelley, who instilled in her a love of birdwatching and baseball. As a girl, she was an avid reader, played piano, and was a frequent moviegoer, attending weekly or more, accumulating an impressive collection of movie stars’ autographed photos. She grew up skiing on “Po Hill” with her younger brother, David, and was active on her basketball team, the Amazons. She worked at her grandfather’s pharmacy and soda fountain, and had a job assembling walkie-talkies during WWII. Graduating from Amesbury High School in 1944, Glenna went on to attend Jackson College for Women, the coordinate college to Tufts, where she majored in English, but admitted to spending much of her time there playing bridge, knitting, dating, and exploring Boston.
Having graduated from Jackson in 1948, she met her future husband, Benedict Barkan, in November of that year on an alumni trip with the Tufts Mountain Club to New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Ben and Glenna were married in Amesbury a year later, honeymooning in New York City over the long Veterans’ Day weekend.
Glenna’s first professional job was as a teacher at the Massachusetts Hospital School in Canton. Ben’s work as a traffic engineer took them to Providence, R.I., and then to Syracuse, N.Y., where children Chris and Susan were born, followed by a move to the New Haven, Conn., area, settling in the town of Branford, where daughter Sally was later born. They would live in Branford for over 45 years.
Glenna and Ben enjoyed gardening as well as hiking, camping, and skiing throughout New England. They belonged to the Seaside Swingers square dance club, were active in the Branford Folk Music Society, and Trinity Episcopal Church, where Glenna sang in the choir and volunteered much of her time. They were ardent theatergoers, most notably as season-ticket subscribers to the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven for over 25 years, as well as Goodspeed Opera House. In later years, they took numerous long road trips around the U.S. in their small recreational vehicle.
Glenna’s great joy was her children. She was a devoted, involved mother, serving as a Girl Scout troop leader and a supportive swim team mom. She loved children, in general — always a welcoming host with an open-door policy toward her kids’ friends and the neighborhood.
She would work as an assistant to faculty in the Yale Child Study Center, and for the Branford Review newspaper, going on to write a beloved weekly column for the Indian Neck neighborhood for years.
Glenna’s sense of service to her community was a lifelong value she lived by: giving back through service projects at Trinity Church, the Branford Garden Club, as a Girl Scout troop leader, volunteering for AIDS Project New Haven and the Branford Land Trust, to name just a few.
Glenna had always done handwork: knitting, sewing clothes for her children and herself, but in the late 1970s she was introduced to quilting, which would become a lifelong passion. She was a prolific quilter, making countless quilts for family and friends, for donation, and for fundraising raffles. Glenna also helmed a project to create Branford’s Historical Quilt, in honor of the town’s 350th anniversary in 1994.
Ben and Glenna started coming to the Vineyard in 1979 for vacations, buying a condo in Hidden Cove in 1993. In 1997 they bought their home on Pondview Drive in Oak Bluffs. They divided their time between Connecticut and the Vineyard, spending an increasing amount of time on the Vineyard until November 2003, when they moved here full-time.
Glenna, as usual, became very involved in her new community: joining the Island Community Chorus, swimming early mornings with the Polar Bears in Oak Bluffs, volunteering at COMSOG, Felix Neck, and St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, joining knitting and rug-hooking groups, and starting a quilt group at the Oak Bluffs Senior Center. She would teach quilting and lead the group in the making of quilts to be raffled off to raise money for fuel assistance, taking the quilt around to all the street fairs and the Ag Fair to sell tickets, raising thousands of dollars for those in need. She received an award as the Cape and Islands senior citizen of the year for her work. Eventually, the quilters would go on to meet in members’ homes, and make and donate dozens of children’s and baby quilts to the Red Stocking Fund.
When Ben died suddenly in late 2004, it was devastating to Glenna. She would eventually rally, however, and return to her lifelong involvement in community, service, stamp collecting, and her never-ending curiosity about the world.
Glenna loved birds and nature, doing crossword puzzles, movies, “Seinfeld,” “Hamilton,” the ocean, fried clams, lobster, martinis, and cats.
Sister of the late David Kelley of Manitowoc, Wisc., she is survived by her children, Christopher Barkan and his wife, Libby, of Champaign, Ill., Susan Barkan of Seattle, Wash., and Sally Barkan of Roslindale, grandchildren Charlotte, Phoebe, and Eliza Barkan; nieces Heidi and Moira Kelley; great-nephew Henry Creedy; and her beloved cat, Peaches.
Her ashes will be interred in Oak Bluffs, beside Ben.
A memorial service and reception are scheduled for Saturday, March 19, at noon at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Edgartown. All are welcome!
Donations in Glenna’s name may be made to the Coalition to Create the M.V. Housing Bank, the Red Stocking Fund, Second Chance Animal Rescue of Martha’s Vineyard, or Felix Neck.
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