Barbara Jo DiBernard
Barbara DiBernard, daughter of Josephine (Esposito) DiBernard and Vincent DiBernard, was born in Dover, NJ. Her grandparents Anna (Togano) DiBernard and Cesario DiBernard, and Incarnata (Ceddia) Esposito and Luigi Esposito, all immigrated from southern Italy, and Barbara was very proud of her Italian heritage (manifested mostly through food, including her signature baked ziti and Christmas cookies). She left this life on September 19, 2023.
She graduated from Wilson College and SUNY Binghamton and spent her adult life as a teacher at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, an identity that was very important to her. In a life-changing event, she was asked to teach women’s literature, and spent the rest of her career teaching women’s literature and lesbian literature through the Women’s & Gender Studies Program.
Barbara and Judith Gibson became life partners in 1988 and married on June 15, 2015, the day the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. They had a wonderful life in their accessible light-filled home designed and built by Lee Schriever, hosting many gatherings, watching birds, with flowers blooming inside and outside all year long.
Barbara was also a traveler, drawn mostly to oceans and birds. She and Judith visited the sandhill cranes every year, and birded in the Nebraska Sandhills, South Carolina, Arizona, and New Mexico, as well as locally. Some of Barbara’s most memorable trips were to Baja, Alaska, Midway Atoll, Belize, and Micronesia.
Her lesbian identity was also central to Barbara’s life and work. She was active in lesbian politics and found a spiritual home at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival.
Barbara has an extended circle of friends, including many former students. She is survived by her spouse Judith Gibson; her daughter Sarah Gibson; her sister Joan Stopa; her niece Lauren Stopa Fitzpatrick (Kevin) and great-niece Nora Fitzpatrick; her niece Stefanie Stopa Marchetti (Tony), and great-niece and nephew Sarah and Josh Marchetti; and her nephew Justin Stopa.
Much appreciation goes to HoriSun Hospice nurses and others who provided warm and generous care to Barbara and her family.
Barbara requested cremation. There will be no services.
Memorial gifts may be sent to ACLU Nebraska, the Lesbian Herstory Archives, or the UNL Women’s & Gender Studies Program.
To leave a condolence please use the form below.
Funeral Home assisting is Aspen Mortuary, 4822 Cleveland Avenue, Lincoln, NE 68504. To view an on-line obituary or email condolences please visit Aspen Mortuary’s website at www.aspenaftercare.com.
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Accreditations
Condolences for Barbara Jo DiBernard
On behalf of the Department of English at the University of Nebraska and in my capacity as its current chair, I want to express our deepest condolences to Barbara’s family and friends. For decades, Barbara was a tremendous–and tremendously important–colleague in the department and on campus, a pillar of the community, beloved by her students. I personally knew her as a very kind, generous, and caring colleague, whose commitments to social justice centered everything she did. This is a tremendous loss for all of us–but we are so grateful to have been able to enjoy her gifts as a teacher, scholar, and engaged colleague-citizen who guided the department with her presence, sharp intellect, and warmth.
I last saw Barbara at the celebration of the Nebraska Historical Marker celebrating Lou Crompton (like Barbara, an Emeritus Professor in our department) on June 20 this year, where we briefly talked about the recently created Zero Street book series award named in her honor and initiated by its co-editor, Timothy Schaffert, in collaboration with our department. In her own humble way, she seemed moved by the gesture—the idea that her name would be indelibly associated with a book series committed to LGBTQ+ literary fiction. Zero Street, having already published the first winner of the Barbara DiBernard Book Prize, will celebrate Barbara’s life at the series’ official launch on November 2 at Indigo Bridge Books in Lincoln. Everyone is welcome.
Judith: I am so sorry for our loss. I say our loss because she was a dear friend and we too shall miss her greatly. Best, Thom
All of us at Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center and Audubon Great Plains want to express our very heartfelt condolences to Barbara’s family, partner, and friends. Barbara was a long-time volunteer on the prairie helping thousands of children explore birds and bugs in the tallgrass. She also assisted with Lincoln’s Christmas Bird Count for countless years. Her passion for birds and conservation reached so many and her work on LGBTQIA+ rights are still so important and impactful for so many Nebraskans. We will miss you, Barbara, as do the birds you loved so much. We are all so lucky to get to know you and explore along side you.
I am so sorry to hear that Barbara has died. She was a very talented and caring woman. She was my advisor in college. Blessings to her family.
Oh, I am so saddened with this news, but so grateful that our paths crossed while we both were living. I became a better person because I knew Barbara. I met her when I signed up for one of her classes at the University of Nebraska. I changed my major to Women’s Studies and the rest is history. She was my mentor and one of the reasons I became an activist politically for the subjects I am most passionate about.
We shared a love for Nature and beautiful flowers. After my mother died, I gave Barbara some of my mother’s iris plants. She nurtured them and sent me many photos of them when they were blooming.
I send my sincere sympathies to Judy and all of Barbara’s family. May your memories bring peace and comfort to you at this time. Sending you love and hugs.
Barbara will be missed so much by those who had the great fortune to know her.
Melba Cope
My deepest condolences to Judy and Barbara’s family and friends. Barbara was an amazing colleague and advocate. I am proud to have known her and worked with her over the years, including as a member of the Committee on GLBT Concerns. I appreciate the time we also traveled to Oakland, CA to co-present “Making It Up As We Go: Creating Change at a Conservative State University” (1999). Barbara was generous and committed to creating change through teaching, presenting, writing, and advocacy. We also visited Mama Bear’s, a woman’s bookstore and ate at an Ethiopian restaurant, traveling by city bus. Thank you Barbara for all you did to help make this world a better place. May your loved ones’ memories help to keep them warm and feeling your love as they remember you. <3
Tom and I are deeply saddened by the loss of our dear friend, Barbara, who has been in our lives for over 40 years. Barbara was a treasured colleague of mine in the English Department and the Women’s/Gender Studies Program at UNL We were so uplifted by Barbara’s friendship and that of her longtime partner and spouse, Judith Gibson. Judy, we extend to you our heartfelt condolences. Your love for each other was palpable annd incredibly special. Barbara was a gem, a sparkling diamond who will be badly missed. It’s hard to believe she’s gone, and in some ways, she will never be gone. Judy, you are in our hearts. We send you all our love, Maureen Honey and Tom Kiefer
Oh Barbara, you will be missed. It was always so lovely to see in the best of all places — the Ross, the Prairie, the rest area just east of Kearney (or was it Grand Island?) with the little lake where the snow geese liked to congregate on their mass springtime migrations. The world was a better place with you in it. So glad I got to be a part of your journey.
I met Barbara at UNL. She was my women’s studies professor. Later in life, I served with her on the Board of Directors at Open Harvest. 20 years later, she handed me a paper that I wrote in one of her classes.
I couldn’t believe she had saved the paper for all those years. She had such a deep caring for her students, for her community, for mother nature, and for human rights and justice. She had a smile that would light up the whole room. Her eyes twinkled. And I think that’s what I’m going to remember most when I picture her face-is her joyful, youthful, twinkling eyes.
Damn I’m going to miss her.
We are heartbroken to learn that Barbara has passed and send love and condolences to you, Judy, and to all who share the privilege of calling her friend. She was one of the kindest, warm, insightful and quietly fierce colleagues and friends we have known. We loved every visit and spirited conversation, especially those coffees at the Mill during Farmer’s Market, knowing our touchstone was there. May her laughter and memory bring joy. Barbara diBernard, presente.
From the time I assisted Barb with proofreading as a graduate student to recent encounters at Spring Creek Prairie, I have always had the greatest respect for her knowledge and her character. And she was so kind and always cheerful! Our heartfelt condolences to you, Judy, and to her family and friends.
Ah, Barbara. Goodbye and thank you. Miss you.
How does one find words to express the profundity of Barbara’s deep-seeded lessons on language, power, and women. One finds the words of women that were shared with her over and over.
Two poems for the late Barbara DiBernard, the coolest lesbian that ever lived:
“A Geology Lesson,” by Judy Grahn
Here, the sea strains to climb up on the land
and the wind blows dust in a single direction.
The trees bend themselves all one way
and volcanoes explode often
Why is this? Many years back
a woman of strong purpose
passed through this section
and everything else tried to follow.
And by Pat Parker, “I Kumquat You”
Someone said
to say
I love you
is corny.
Dear Judy, my sincere condolences to you and your family and friends. What a loss. I am lucky to have known such a fine person as Barbara. I particularly remember one fine day on the Calamus River, and hunting for Evelyn Sharp’s gravesite. She will be missed by many.
Folks like Barbara are the light in the world, so not only has the light dimmed for those of us who knew her, it’s dimmed for that wider world. I much respected her calm presence and wise insights in Women & Gender Studies affiliate faculty meetings, and enjoyed serendipitously greeting her now and then as she walked on the MoPac trail and I approached on my bike, or crossing paths at Gere Library. What a gem! Sincere condolences to Judith and to all Barbara’s family and friends.
What a friend we all had in Barbara! My heart goes out to Judy, Sarah, and Barbara’s family–and her community. Barbara and I were college roommates for three years and friends ever since. We both came out as lesbians after college and shared similar politics in our respective towns, Lincoln, NE and Durham, NC. Over the years Barbara and I kayaked in Baja and Alaska and visited occasionally, sometimes on Cape Cod. I will miss our sustaining and enjoyable monthly phone conversations that began in October 2018 and continued until September 2023. Because of her generosity of spirit, I have the sense that we’ll all continue to feel Barbara’s presence in our lives in some way.
Barbara was my professor when I was in the doctoral program at UNL. She was a superb teacher, and I learned much from her Lesbian Literature class – things that I’ve passed on to my own students. She was warm and welcoming, and her office was always open to her students. Barbara was special – we certainly need more people like her, but she was an original. She will be sorely missed.
Per Audre Lorde: “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” Barbara taught me, and countless other students, that text. And I am still here today, in part, because of that text. To Judy, friends, and family, I am heartbroken for your loss. And to Barbara, thank you for everything, and safe journey.
I hope that everybody has at least one teacher like Dr. Barbara DiBernard in their lives who stands out as one who inspired you to read, write and explore. I was fortunate to be a student in two of her university classes. Barbara made a difference. May she rest in peace.
I will remember Barbara for her courage and integrity and for the delight she took in simple joys—gardening, cooking, birding, and so many treasured relationship. Barbara taught us all a lot about living authentically and in the process changed her world in ways that will matter for many years to come.
I first met Barbara at the Fallbrook Y outdoor swimming pool doing something we both were passionate about, swimming. Over the years we became friends and especially loved the early morning swims. She would swim almost everyday and would swim the same distance, 2,000 yds. every time. She had a warm smile that would light up my day. I will miss that smile and her friendship.
It is with great sadness that I learn of the passing of a dear friend. Barbara was the most positive, loving, caring person anyone would want in your circle. My condolences to her family and hoping you’re all remembering the wonderful memories. I know I am. With hugs, Vicki.
Deepest sympathy to the family and friends of this amazing woman and most beloved professor.
Judith & family, please accept my condolences. I am so sadden to read of Barbara’s passing. We were only aquaintences really… 31 years ago my husband & I bought our dream home on Park Avenue from Barbara. We were the first to arrive at the open house & knew instantly we wanted to live here. Barbara took us around the house, pointing out the pros & cons (much appreciated) but my favorite part, as a fellow gardner, was her taking us out into the yard & pointing out the native wild flowers & other plants in the garden. I could tell she loved the house & the property & nature in general. In my mind she will always be part of the house. Speedy journey to the next phase Barbara <3
Barbara was chair of Women’s Studies at UNL when I began teaching Women Writers at NWU in the 90s. She organized dinners and workshops, welcoming those of us outside UNL. She shared her syllabi with me and inspired my feminist pedagogy. She was an outstanding role model for women in higher education, showing the connections between what we did in the classroom and what matters in the larger world. I’m grateful to have learned from her example.
The community sorely misses such a vital strong woman. Hoping family and friends can find comfort as her memory remain in our hearts! Peace!
My relationship with Barbara got off to an inauspicious start. I missed her first Lesbian Literature class because I thought it only met once a week, not twice. I brought a Tupperware full of pasta to eat during the second class. As I walked up to the front of the class to find out what I had missed the first day, the container of pasta slid off the desk and all over the classroom floor.
Within a few months of this incident, Barbara and I were friends. How did this happen? Maybe, as a fellow Italian American, she simply recognized a pasta addiction when she saw it. More likely, it was her generosity. We started meeting at Bread and Cup for lunch, going on walks in the prairie, and volunteering at Lincoln Literacy. Barbara would indelibly define my grad school years. From her class, I learned not only about Lesbian Literature, but about how to teach. I learned to treat each student’s writing like a private conversation, like Barbara did. I learned to keep my course content flexibly responsive to cultural shifts and student interests, like Barbara did. I learned that it’s less important to be the authority than to create a classroom community in which everyone feels their voice matters. From Barbara’s coffee cart, I learned the almost transcendent power of food to elevate a space from one of coercion to communion. By the end of the course, when Barbara gave every student a handwritten postcard with an image that reminded her of them, I had decided that I wanted to model both my teaching and my life on Barbara’s.
Barbara and I continued to keep in touch after I left Lincoln; she sent me a birthday card not long before her death. Barbara’s influence is part of the fabric of my days. When I get tired of my students or discouraged about teaching, I remember Barbara’s steadfast commitment to the incremental change that can come with a carefully facilitated series of discussions over the course of a semester. I remember that relationships matter more than anything, that I should seek to be present in whatever ways students present themselves, even if it’s not exactly what I’d envisioned. I remember that my presence in my local community matters, that I can impact the quality of life for others like she did. I remember to show up, and care, and laugh.
I am sorry we all lost Barbara sooner than we should have. I am sorriest of all for Judy. But I am also grateful. I am grateful for the full life that Barbara lived, and I am grateful that I had the powerful honor of intersecting with it.