San Rafael, CA

It was a sad February 26th of 2024 when Barbara Lynn Johnston-Walsh lost her long battle with Ovarian Cancer. Barbara was born October 7, 1950, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and grew up in Oakville, Ontario.

Her Brother, Mark, and her sister-in-law, Pat, live in Oakville with their sons Scott and Brad and were in contact with Barb regularly.

Barbara graduated from T A Blakelock High School with what would be her lifelong friends Jane and Jan and enrolled in the nursing program at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. She graduated from that program and worked in Pediatrics and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Barbara loved to travel and while traveling in Europe, she met her future husband Larry on a train on the way to Oktoberfest. There were six of them in the second-class cabin, four Canadian girls and two American boys. The group found rooms in the same pensione and had so much fun at Oktoberfest that the group went on to Vienna. After Vienna the group members all went their separate ways but Larry had asked Barbara for her phone number. When Larry came back to the US and took a job in New York he called Barbara. They went back and forth between Toronto and Manhattan. Eventually they settled on moving to California together and married on May 8th, 1978, at a beautiful ceremony at Old St. Hilary’s in Tiburon, CA. After a few years they decided to start a family and had two children, Sarah currently living in Dallas, TX and Cameron and his wife Naomi in Portland, OR.

Barb worked at UCSF Medical Center, following her passion for babies and after the 1989 earthquake not wanting a bridge between her and her family began work at Marin General Hospital in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, where she worked until her retirement in 2022. Barbara’s work in the NICU touched many families, and though she received endless expressions of gratitude, Barbara remained humble and devoted to her job.

Barbara’s other passions and hobbies included gardening (roses and orchids especially), watching the Giants (she was able to meet her 2nd love Brandon Crawford in 2023), and traveling. Most recently in 2023, Barbara reconnected after twenty-seven years with family and her ancestral homeland of Orkney.

Barbara was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2018 and is survived by husband Larry, brother Mark, children Sarah, Cameron, Sister-in-Law Sharon Arnold and Max, her beloved chocolate Labrador retriever.