Chestnut Hill resident Barbara Gaines Winkelman, an author of 15 children’s books and writing teacher for 10 years who wrote the Citizen Canine column for the Local in 2021, appeared as a guest on TV’s “Late Night with David Letterman,” and was a wife and mother who in recent years helped to arrange travel for kidney dialysis patients as part of the Davita Kidney Care Company, died Aug. 7 at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center of a traumatic brain injury suffered in a freak accident. She was 64.
Winkelman and her husband, Bill, celebrated her upcoming July 2 birthday by traveling to Italy on vacation, leaving the U.S. on June 27 and planning to stay for two weeks. “We were in northern Italy riding bikes on a really hot day,” Bill told the Local last week. “Barbara passed out on her bike and fell on the pavement. She was unconscious. We were able to get her medevaced to a hospital in Italy, where she was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and stayed for two weeks. Then we were able to get her medevaced to Philadelphia.
“She was in a coma for three weeks at Penn Presbyterian Hospital. It was a freak thing. She was wearing a helmet while riding the bike and had been in good health. She was on blood thinner medication, but that was not the cause of death. She was vivacious, smart and wonderful. We had a service at Germantown Friends School, and people sat shiva [a Jewish mourning ritual following a burial] for her.”
Winkelman, who wrote the Citizen Canine column in 2021 for the Local about fascinating local dogs and their owners, was a Long Island native and University of Pennsylvania graduate (1983, English major). Her father was a dentist, and her mother was a teacher. Two of her siblings are medical doctors, and a third is a learning specialist.
After Penn, she worked in the accounting department of a New York law firm for two years, then went to law school at Yeshiva University in New York City. She worked in divorce law and elder law for a general practice firm in Connecticut for three years, then decided that a career in the law was not for her. “When I was deciding on a career,” Barbara told the Local in 2021, “I just did not think it through well enough.”
Barbara then became the editor of an American Lawyers Management Services periodical, which later folded, but a friend, Katherine Tegen, asked her to edit children’s books for Hyperion, which produces Disney-related publications.
“I started writing text for one because the illustrator wasn’t doing much of that,” Barbara told the Local. “Katherine liked it and said I should be writing children’s books. She wanted to start a new series using Winnie-the-Pooh characters. So many bosses are not generous, but she certainly was.”
Winkelman was 42 when she wrote her last book. Her husband, Bill, a University of Pennsylvania Wharton School graduate and East Falls native, got a management job with Starbucks, so the couple moved to Seattle in 1998. He developed the “Starbucks card” and later worked for Microsoft. For the last six years, he has owned a franchise in a company that helps people with career transitions.
Bill and Barbara married in 1988 and lived in Westport, Conn., before going to Seattle, where they lived for 20 years. In 2018, they came back to Philadelphia by driving 3,000 miles because they did not want to put their dog, a Westie named Lucy, on a plane. (In recent years, they have had a Poodle/Bichon mix, Ruth Bader Puppy.) In 2003, Barbara earned a master’s degree in teaching at Seattle University and taught writing in the Seattle area for 10 years. Barbara also had a blog, “Warning: No Spoilers!”
Regarding her Citizen Canine column in the Local, there is a very old joke in which a child who failed to turn in his homework tells his teacher that “the dog ate my homework.” Believe it or not, Winkelman sent me an email in 2021 (I still have it in my computer) after she was sent a check to pay for an article. She wrote, “Ruth (her puppy) ate half of the check that I received from the Local for my Husky article. I can’t deposit it in its current condition. What should I do?”
I replied, “I suggest that you feed her regular dog food instead of checks.” (The check was promptly replaced.)
Bill and Barbara came back to Philadelphia because all of their family members live on the East Coast. Survivors include two children — A.J., 32, who lives in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Hannah, 29, who lives in Boston. Donations in Barbara’s memory may be sent to the American Civil Liberties Union, P.O. Box 60173, Philadelphia, PA 19102.
Bill told us, “My message to everyone is to hug the people you love and treasure every day because you never know what will happen.”
Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.
