Barbara Ann Askew, 88, a longtime Granby resident, passed away on October 28 in Greenwood, S.C. Barbara was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and attended the University of Connecticut and Owens State College where she earned her RN. She and her husband John moved to Granby and their three children, J. Richard, Susan and David were raised here. She worked for several years as a nurse in Dr. Peter Barwick’s office where many Granby residents came to know her.
Barb also found ways to volunteer, including serving as the president of the Friends of Granby Public Library and supporting the Salmon Brook Historical Society. Her love of books and history led to her collaboration with Carol Laun, curator of the historical society, as editorial readers of Mark Williams history of Granby, A Tempest in a Small Town. However, Barb’s long-lasting legacy is in the history of The Granby Drummer.
Her involvement began in the late 1960s when The New England Association of Schools advised the town that the high school’s accreditation would be withdrawn if a library, classrooms and other services weren’t built. The $3.3M price tag carried a “hefty” tax increase.
Taxpayers rejected budgets that included the project in three consecutive referendums. As a concerned parent, Barb joined “The Loose Group,” that was organized to inform naysayers of the impacts on the community if accreditation was withdrawn. It mailed a fact-filled pamphlet to every household that cited lowered real estate values, a decreased town credit rating and the impact to the town’s reputation as negative consequences of an unaccredited high school. It worked. The proposal passed at a fourth referendum. The new facilities opened in the fall of 1971.
Positive community feedback spurred the group to continue providing the town with reliable and timely information. In 1970 Citizens for a Better Granby was created to publish The Granby Drummer, a monthly all-volunteer newspaper. Barbara and Jean Switzer were the paper’s first editors for the September 1970 issue. Fifty-four years later, the Drummer continues to serve the community.
She also served as president of CBG from 1996 through 2000. When in 1999 GMHS science teacher Bruce Boehm asked CBG for a donation to help finance grant applications for an ecology center at GMMS and GMHS and to meet a matching gift, the board created the Drummer Fund. Its first grant was $10,000 to help get the ecology center get off the ground. The Granby Education Foundation later undertook a fundraising campaign ($350,000) to build The Salmon Brook Ecology Center that was dedicated in 2004.
Barb remained a dedicated UConn women’s basketball fan even after she retired to South Carolina in 2001. There she jumped into volunteer work with the Oconee County Friends of the Library, serving as president from 2006–2016 and initiating several educational programs.
Barb leaves behind her children John Richard (Margaret) Askew, Susan (Carlos) Torres, and David (Jo-Ann) Askew, seven grandchildren, and nine great grandchildren
The board members of CBG, and Drummer volunteers express our sympathy to the Askew family, and Barb’s friends and cohorts. Granby residents offer thanks for her contributions to our town.
A celebration of Barb’s life will be held on Friday, Dec. 27 from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Lost Acres Vineyard in North Granby. Donations may be sent to The Granby Drummer, PO Box 165, Granby CT 06035.