On the day of Barbara Weimer Dehlinger’s birth – September 2, 1932 – her grandfather, Leo Anderson, carried her up and down Penn Avenue in Oberlin, Kansas to introduce her to the world. Barbara died in Oberlin on July 13, 2024, of natural causes including complications from Parkinson’s disease. She was 91 years old.
After spending her childhood in Cambridge, Nebraska and Green River, Wyoming, Barbara graduated from Colorado Women’s College in Denver and from Northwestern University in Evanston Illinois. She also earned a Master’s in Education from Southern Oregon University. For thirty years she was a high school and middle school history and English teacher as well as one of the first female school administrators in the Klamath County School District in Klamath Falls, Oregon, where she retired as vice-principal of Henley Middle School. Upon her retirement, she returned to Oberlin, a place she greatly loved. She was an active member of the Oberlin Covenant Church and served on the board of the Decatur County Museum.
Barbara’s keen interest in the world, particularly politics and current events, took her to the White House to meet Harry Truman in the Oval Office through Girl’s Nation. She appeared on the Voice of America radio program and remembered being greatly moved when she heard Eleanor Roosevelt speak in Chicago. In recent years, travels to Germany, South Africa, and the United Kingdom provided her with plenty of fond memories and experiences. While describing her life as “simply amazing”, she derived her greatest contentment from reading a book in the sunroom of her Oberlin home, where she could gaze out over the surrounding pasture and Sappa Creek.
She is survived by her daughter, Keven Anne Tacchini (Ernie) and her son, Ky Dehlinger (Jim Rondone); her three grandsons, Sam (Heather), Skyler (Courtney), and Connor (Mallory), and nine great grandchildren. Her husband, Sam Dehlinger, and her parents Fern and Russ Weimer, her grandparents Ethel and Everett Smith, and her great uncle George Smith, all predeceased her.
A private service will be held at a later date. Memorial contributions may be made to The Decatur County Museum, 258 S. Penn Avenue, Oberlin, KS 67749 or to Gateway Friends Foundation Fund (supporting the arts and civic programs in NW Kansas) www.gnwkcf.org or to a charity of your choice. Condolences can be left at www.plumergobber.com.