Barbara Sue Barnes Taylor

My mother, Barbara Sue Barnes Taylor, was born in Olympia on March 13, 1937, the only child of Charles Ernest and Doris Barnes. Barbara was a descendant of both the John Barnes and John Bolster pioneer Olympia families. Barbara passed on May 3, 2026, in Olympia.

Barbara attended Lincoln grade school, Olympia High School (class of 55), and the University of Puget Sound.

 Sadly, Barbara’s life was marred with tragedies. Her father Ernie passed when she was 8 years old, a grief she never overcame. Her mother, Doris, passed when Barbara was in her thirties. Her husband, Jerry, passed when she was 54. Most tragically, her daughter Kara passed at the age of 45.

 After Ernie’s death, Doris single-handedly supported her daughter, as well as her own mother, and various branches of her family. They lived across from the Capitol on 13th Street in multiple homes that Doris owned. After college, Barbara helped her mother run Barnes Floral and Seed Co., an historical Olympia business started in 1903 by Barbara’s great-grandparents.

 In 1961, Barbara married Gerald (Jerry) Taylor in the garden of her mother’s home. 1962 marked the birth of their daughter Kristil, and 1967 the birth of their daughter Karalee.

After Doris’s death in 1974, Barb and Jerry took over Barnes Floral, expanding it eventually to three locations. Jerry died unexpectedly in 1992, and Barbara and Kristil reduced the business back to its original location in downtown Olympia, in a building built by her grandfather, John Barnes. Barbara continued to work six days a week into her late 70s.

 Barbara loved the Pacific Northwest, clam digging at the bay and at the ocean. She traveled much of the world, her favorite trip being New Zealand. Barbara also hut to hut hiked the European alps, and loved spending January in Mazatlan. 

Barb and Jerry’s gardens were legendary and their daughters dreaded Sunday when they got to weed or can vegetables all day. They produced most of their own food and it was a labor of love (for Barb and Jerry). 

Barb was quirky and eccentric, loved art and nature. There was not an arrangement she could not make, a vegetable she could not grow, nor a clam she could not dig. 

She has now joined those she loved the most and grieved heavily, her father, her mother, Jerry, and most of all, Kara. She is survived by her daughter, Kristil Taylor, four grandchildren: Ariel Taylor, Taylor Boster, Zachary Saplan and Angelia Saplan, and two great-grandchildren, Abigail and Oriana Saplan. 

Sometime this summer there will be a celebration of life, Barb style, at her beloved cabin built originally by her father in 1920, her favorite place on earth.