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Published on December 19, 2024
Barbara (Fitts) Cairns ’59 retired in 1999 after nearly 40 years of teaching around the world and serving as an elementary school principal in Canal Zone, Panama. But retired doesn’t seem like the right word to describe her life.
This year she has published her 12th book, “Jacob Joins the Cow Cavalry,” a young adult historical novel about the Civil War; tutored at a preschool; volunteered as a docent at Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park near her home in Florida; and planned a trip to South Africa. For her 86th birthday in February 2023, she went skydiving. “Thirteen of my friends went to watch, but nobody else wanted to go up,” she said.
Her activities as a state park docent are equally adventurous. At 7 a.m. on her volunteer days, she is the human side of sensory enrichment for the park’s wildlife. “I play soccer with a bobcat,” she said.
Growing up in Hampton, CT, she wanted to be a veterinarian. A pastor at the church where she taught Sunday School convinced her that she had talent as a teacher, and she enrolled at Willimantic State Teacher’s College, as Eastern was then known. “It was the best decision I ever made,” she said.
After graduating in 1959 she attended Lexington School for the Deaf during the day and in the evenings earned a master’s degree in special education for the deaf and hard-of-hearing at Columbia University. She taught for seven years in Seattle, then joined the Defense Department schools, teaching in Labrador, Canada (where she learned to fly solo in a Cessna), Bamberg, Germany, (where she met her English husband), and Panama.
After retiring in 1999, she traveled widely, including a trip to Kenya and Tanzania, fulfilling a childhood dream to go to Africa. Since her husband’s death three years ago, she has traveled with the Lady Journey Seekers and the Road Scholars. She also belongs to a couple of writers’ groups.
Her lifestyle advice? “You live a lot, you love a lot and you laugh a lot,” she said. “There’s too much negativity in the world.”
Written by Lucinda Weiss