Dr. Gertrude Barber National Institute
CV NEWS FEED // The U.S. bishops have approved advancing the cause for beatification and canonization of a woman who stands as the pioneer of special education for children and adults with learning disabilities in America.
Bishop Edward Lohse of Kalamazoo, Michigan, spoke this week to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) at its fall plenary session on the exemplary life and work of 20th-century Servant of God Gertrude Barber, who founded a center dedicated to educating and assisting children and adults with learning impairments, paving the way for what is known today as special education. Bishop Lohse’s remarks follow below.
Bishop Edward Lohse on the life and work of Servant of God Gertrude Barber:
Gertrude Agnes Barber was born in Erie [Pennsylvania] on September 16, 1911, to Catherine Cantwell Barber, an immigrant from Ireland, and John Barber. She was raised in a pious Catholic household, which placed a great value on faith and education, two things she treasured her whole life.
Dr. Barber began her professional career as a teacher for the City of Erie Public School District. She earned a doctoral degree in education and became a school psychologist and administrator. It was during this time working in the city school system that Dr. Barber recognized God’s call for her life.
One of her duties as a school psychologist was to assess children with special needs and then explain to their parents that these children could not be educated at the school and had to be withdrawn.
Dr. Barber was deeply affected as she saw parents face the agony of either keeping their children at home without access to an education or sending them away to a distant institution where they would be segregated from the world and apart from their families. Dr. Barber was determined to find another way.
A life-long member of St. Anne Parish in Erie, and inspired by her deep Catholic faith in Jesus Christ, she saw these individuals as children of God who deserve the opportunity to develop to their fullest potential in a loving and supportive environment without the need to leave their parents and siblings.
The founding of a special education center
Entrusting this undertaking to the providence of God, Dr. Barber began meeting with parents of children with special needs. In 1952, in a room borrowed from the local YMCA, she opened the first class for children with intellectual disabilities where they could receive the assistance they needed without being sent away. She soon started offering classes for children with vision and hearing impairments and opened training programs for adults with intellectual disabilities at locations around Erie.
She founded the Dr. Gertrude A. Barber Center to facilitate this loving and nurturing care of individuals with special needs. In 1971, she left her job at the Erie School District to become the full-time administrator at the Center. Her organization soon expanded its mission to include services that span an entire lifetime, from early intervention therapies for infants and toddlers, a school serving children from 24 area school districts, adult training and job placement services, recreational programs, and group homes for adults, and a retirement center for adults in their senior years.
Under her leadership, mental health services were also initiated to meet behavioral challenges for children, adults, and families, and services extended beyond the original scope to include those who needed residential care.
She responded to requests from locations throughout the state, opening adult residential group homes and adult day services across Erie County as well as in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas. It must be said, though, that Dr. Barber’s life was not a continuous trajectory of success.
At a young age, while her mother was visiting family in Ireland, she eloped with a man with whom she had fallen in love, but the marriage was an unhappy one and ended quickly in divorce. She never sought to remarry, instead spending the rest of her life giving full attention to her mission of advocating for those with special needs. Those who worked closely with Dr. Barber were struck by her kindness, determination, humility, piety, and strength of character.
A legacy of love
Her spirituality was simple. She saw all people as children of God and sought to treat them with the dignity they deserved. Dr. Barber died suddenly on April 29, 2000.
Her legacy continues to be carried out today as her organization, now called the Barber National Institute, employs nearly 3,000 people who provide a range of services for more than 6,000 children and adults with intellectual and physical disabilities and behavioral health challenges across Pennsylvania with services and support offered to their families as well.
Dr. Barber’s life and witness call us to remember and honor the presence of Christ, even in the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters, and to see reflected in them the beauty of a loving creator. Dr. Barber’s example challenges us to love these individuals with the love of God himself.
Her example gives hope and support to families who struggle with how to care for their members with special needs. Her teachings inspire us to recognize the dignity and beauty of those who are most vulnerable among us, and to recognize the presence of Christ in them, calling us to put into action the Lord’s own words, “Whatsoever you do to the least of these little ones, you do to me.”
Hers is a legacy which inspires others to seek holiness through service, bowing humbly before the mystery of divine love bestowed equally upon all our brothers and sisters.
