Barbara Joan Brown was born in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1941 to two New Englanders: Ernestine Browning Brown and Chester Brown, a landscape architect. Bara grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and earned a degree in Religion from Wellesley College in 1963.
Bara participated in two projects of the American Friends Service Committee: one in East Harlem for occupational and art therapy in 1961 and the other in Maine in 1962 for people with mental disabilities. At the latter she met Alfred French, whom she married at a Quaker wedding in Northfield, Minnesota in the summer of 1963.
Bara and Al moved to Kansas City, where Al attended medical school while Bara earned her master's degree in English and worked as a typist. They enjoyed camping and canoeing. When Al did his internship in Iowa, Bara volunteered at Scattergood Friends School. There their daughter Alicia was born.
In 1970 the family moved to Sacramento for Al's residency. Their second child, Aaron, was born in 1971. The family first attended Sacramento Friends Meeting.
Bara and Al's marriage ended, and Bara and the children lived for a year near Oroville, California, in a commune which prepared and sold vegetarian soy burgers up and down the west coast. They moved back to Sacramento. Bara took classes at Sacramento City College in etching and lithography; she kept some of her pieces for the rest of her life.
In 1978 Bara and Ardelle Pearsall created an organic farm on three-quarters of an acre on Dewey Boulevard, on the hill of Fruitridge Avenue in Sacramento. They sold produce and eggs to local stores and restaurants.
Bara decided to continue her education. She was admitted to an architecture program at the California College of Arts and Crafts and commuted to San Francisco for three years. She worked in the private field for 15 years, learning the regulations for industrial buildings and solving problems to bring them up to code. She later worked for Caltrans.
In the 1990's Bara was briefly married to David Van Niekerk, whom she had met in the Sierra Club. Bara was fascinated by her visits to South Africa with him.
In about 2014 Bara again began attending the Sacramento Friends Meeting. She became a member in February 2017. Bara served as clerk of the Oversight Committee and the Finance Committee. Friends remember with gratitude her assistance to them in times of need. She often served as a greeter, even to the last Sunday she attended meeting. Her warmth and friendliness were a pleasure to old Friends and an encouraging welcome to newcomers.
Bara loved to travel. Her destinations included England, the Greek islands, the Aleutian Islands, Iceland, Ireland, Greenland, the Grand Canyon and Panama.
Friends who visited Bara found a variety of beautiful art on the walls, pieces she had created and art she collected. Even with a tiny patio she acquired several pots and continued to grow vegetables.
In looking back over her life, Bara realized she had bounced from one thing to another, but that gave her no regrets. She faced her final illness with courage and tenacity. Bara died at home on March 7, 2020.