Barbara Asch: Not a Member of the Internet

“I’ve got a couple friends who are members of the internet. 
They are complete fiends on that thing. 
Personally, I have no interest.”

Ten years ago – in April 2015 – our friend Barbara Asch was launched into the cyber stratosphere.

Humans of New York featured her on their Instagram and Facebook pages. The post was picked up by Tumblr and Twitter users and received tens of thousands of shares, likes, and comments.

Her friends celebrated with a party and had T-shirts made.

Today would have been her 100th birthday. I’ve put this post together as a way of remembering her.

Her remark about being “a member of the internet” seemed to strike a generational chord – and of course, it wasn’t entirely true. I remember her being shown an online museum exhibit. “It’s like a magic carpet,” she said.

Cute and Adorable

Many of the hundreds of online comments were along the lines of “Adorable,” “So cute,” and “Sweet” – all the usual clichés applied to presumed harmless “little old ladies.” But I think it would be fair to say that those who knew and loved Barbara would not choose those as the first words to describe her.

“Like a couple of yuppies,” she said to us dismissively when we ran into her on the Bowery one Saturday afternoon.  Decades ago now. 

 We had committed the crime of buying a lamp. Did such remarks matter? Not really. It was all part of the package.  

In our household, we affectionately gave Barbara a middle name “goddammit”  because of her frequent use of that term to condemn all things and people that infuriated her.  We told her about it and she laughed. Barbara “G” Asch was not backwards in coming forward and could laugh at herself. 

A Well-Stocked Mind

Barbara had a mischievous sense of humor, a lively, well-stocked mind and a deep capacity for paying attention. She was opinionated, direct, and sometimes impatient and irascible. Fools were not to be tolerated and sometimes the world had just too many of them. That temper could be triggered by a variety of life’s frustrations. Although, it seemed, most could be forgiven fairly quickly.  The follies of our politicians not so easily. 

Often late to a gathering but usually the last to leave, she had a gift for conversation: she was genuinely curious, and her attention made you feel interesting in return. It’s a rare gift – to make someone feel that what they say matters, that they are worth listening to.

She had a lifelong interest in art and literature, a deep appreciation for the natural world, and a great love of animals. Her last cat was Harry, and who can forget the forever barking Andy – rescued from the Long Island Expressway.

With her own art she used techniques of assemblage and collage to turn found objects, abandoned toys, driftwood, and lost things into evocative pieces. There are many people who knew her far better than I did that could describe her work far more accurately.  I do know that creating art was what she did and defined her sense of what and who she was. 

School

Barbara was born in Richmond, Virginia, and she never lost her childhood accent. She attended Julia Richman High School in New York City when it was still an all-girls school, and then went on to Riverdale Country School for Girls (now merged with the boys’ school as Riverdale Country School).

She recalled loving the bus ride from Manhattan and playing left back on the field hockey team. She had vivid memories of two wonderful teachers: Miss Hovey and Mrs. Dawson. She didn’t remember what Miss Hovey was supposed to teach, but she did recall that she conveyed to her students a lasting love of art and art history. Mrs. Dawson, she said, changed her life.

After Riverdale, she went on to Wheaton – then a women’s college – as a member of the Class of 1947.

College

At Wheaton – Bobbie, as she was known – played an leading role in all three college publications.

She wrote short stories (some of which she illustrated) and poetry for the literary magazine Rushlight, where she also served as literary editor. Her work addressed serious themes: one story explores the injustice of eviction, another delves into racial tension.

The November 1944 issue includes Pandemonium, a short stream-of-consciousness monologue inspired by Wilfred Owen, set in the chaos of trench warfare. In May 1947, she published A House in the Suburbs – a disturbing tale of domestic abuse.

She was editor of the yearbook Nike, and cartoonist, assistant editor, and finally associate editor of The Wheaton News.

All three of these publications are now available online and make for fascinating reading. Bobbie Asch was clearly a force to be reckoned with!

The Internet Archive includes a warning with Nike: “Some of the language and images that appear in the Nike yearbooks of Wheaton College are racist, hurtful, and discriminatory.” I can only imagine what Barbara would have said about that. I didn’t find much that was objectionable – unless you count the simple fact that the past is another country, and they did things differently there.

As an example see at the end of the post the advertisement from the 1947 Yearbook. And look at this yearbook farewell from the class of 1946.

Barbara’s years at Wheaton bridged the final years of WWII and the first years of peace. A more careful reading of the yearbooks would probably reveal how student life changed as the war ended – how the return of men to college campuses and the uptick in engagement announcements signaled a world getting back to “normal.” I wonder what Barbara would have said about those shifts. I wish I could ask her.

It’s clear that Barbara was quite a presence on campus. In addition to her publishing work, she played tennis, made decorations for the Valentine Soph Hop, once fell on a slippery floor, was politically engaged, and well-informed. She took on the big issues of the time. That much is evident from the editorials she wrote. You can read three of them at the end of the post. 

In a jokey composite portrait of the “typical graduate of 1947,” she is named as one of those who:

“Intellectually, and of most importance… did much to advocate the housing of a Negro in a Modern Art Center under a world government, and to arouse the interest of a liberal campus in these issues.”

The editorials suggest someone who intellectually engaged, well-informed, passionate about the things that concerned her, and unafraid to say what she thought. That never changed.

I first met Barbara in 1980. Probably because she was born in the summer,  I remember many birthday gatherings out on Long Island where Barbara spent the summer and swam the length of Little Fresh Pond.  

Barbara was one of those people known as a” character” – a one-of-a-kind. May we all live to know and love such people. 

There are many friends and family – who knew Barbara much better than I did. I join all of you in saying

“Happy 100th Birthday Barbara. We miss you.”

__________________________________________________________________________

This ad from the 1947 yearbook gives a flavor of the era. 

Editorial in The Wheaton News, September 1946

November 1946 

March 1947