(1932-2022)

I will always remember her as an avid Southern conversationalist, with many a story to tell – always ready for a listening ear and always with her special style and smile.

Sister Jo Gaugier’s remembrance of Sister Frances Barfield concluded with that paragraph written about a woman who was indeed well acquainted with the South, given that Sister Frances was born in Pensacola, Florida, and spent virtually all of her ministerial life in either Florida, Louisiana, or South Carolina.

Frances Louise Barfield was born on July 22, 1932, to Theresa (Post) Streeter, who had married Earl Streeter when she was sixteen and Earl was twenty-six. They moved from their native Gainesville, Florida, to Pensacola, where Earl worked as a mechanic at the Naval Air Station. The couple had two children: Theresa in 1926 and then Frances. By the time Frances was born, however, Earl had deserted the family.

Her mother remarried when Frances was three years old, to David Coulson Barfield, a teacher at Pensacola High School who was “a good and kindly man,” Sister Frances wrote in her autobiography. Four more children came into the family: David, Jesse, Albert, and Genevieve, and David also adopted Frances and her sister.

Read more about Sister Frances (PDF) 

Memorial gifts may be made to Adrian Dominican Sisters, 1257 East Siena Heights Drive, Adrian, Michigan, 49221. 

 

 

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