Photography by Yuvie Styles.
Editors Note: This story originally appeared in the July 2023 issue of the Oak Cliff Advocate. The print issue incorrectly stated that Barbee was responsible for flower bed plantings in Lake Cliff Park. Barbee was involved in the Lake Cliff Park flowerbeds from 2007-2017.
Barbara Barbee has lived in Brazil, France, England, Belgium, the District of Columbia and New York City, but Oak Cliff is where the 82-year-old feels she has left her most important legacy.
A Sunset High School alumnae, Barbee set out to see the world, only to return to Oak Cliff in 1995 where she moved back into the Beverly Hills home she was raised in. But as Barbee settled into retirement, she knew she was only getting started on her life’s purpose.
“I retired so I could get busy,” Barbee says.
Hardly any time passed between Barbee’s homecoming and her first civic mission: repaving North Barnett Avenue, where the house she’d inherited from her mother stood. A petition drive was held, and the street was repaved.
Two years later, Barbee became a founding member of the Beverly Hills Neighborhood Association.
With the power of a neighborhood association behind her, the city was hit with a wave of Barbee-approved petitions. More street repavings, street lights, four-way stops and speed bumps began to trickle into the neighborhood.
Barbee even helped the group secure a school zone on Jefferson Boulevard for George Peabody Elementary School.
“When I decided to keep my little house over here in Beverly Hills, I decided that we needed to really make people understand that Oak Cliff is unique,” Barbee says. “I can’t imagine why anybody would want to live anyplace in Dallas except Oak Cliff.”
When neighbors began discussing founding an organization that would focus on Oak Cliff parks, Barbee was all in. She became a founding member of Friends of Oak Cliff Parks and has served on the board for the last 21 years.
Her resume also includes everything from her involvement with the Old Oak Cliff Conservation League and Oak Cliff Earth Day to just about every garden club that has existed south of I-30 — not to mention an eight-year stint as the District 1 Park and Recreation Board member.
Barbee began serving on the park board in 2013 at the request of Scott Griggs, who served as the District 1 city council member at the time. She was pleased to accept the job because she believes the park department and city libraries provide the most impact to residents but are often overlooked by city officials.
“A lot of people serve on the parks board that haven’t been on their knees in the dirt. I have been for 20 years,” Barbee says. “So that’s what I’ve been doing. Getting dirt under my fingernails and pushing people to do what they were hired to do.”
While on the park board, Barbee advocated for bond money for improvements to District 1 parks, and she often spoke about the necessity for increased public sanitation in the city parks.
She says the topic may be “an ugly thing to be thinking about,” but it became her consistent rallying cry during park meetings.
“This is really important,” Barbee says. “I’ve lived all over the world, and I’ve seen that we were falling very short as far as public sanitation in the parks was concerned.”
Barbee served the maximum-allowed eight-year term on the park board, but if anyone saw the end of her park board days as a second retirement or an excuse to slow down, she certainly did not.
Instead she has been “pounding the pavement,” dedicating her time to committees for Oak Cliff Earth Day and Friends of Oak Cliff Parks. The organizations combine her love of gardening with her natural tendency for leadership and her passion for Oak Cliff.
Barbee is responsible for the recently approved application for a historic marker from the Texas Historical Commission that will designate Kiest Memorial Garden as historically significant.
“I don’t really know how I end up with those jobs,” Barbee says.
Friends of Oak Cliff Parks is waiting to receive the marker from the foundry so it can be displayed in the garden, she says. When the marker arrives, she will probably find herself spearheading the party planning committee for a neighborhood-wide dedication ceremony.
Barbee’s legacy is not one that will be seen through bronze statues or a name engraved into a marble marker.
Instead, it exists in park flower beds and speed bumps slowing traffic in the streets of Beverly Hills. Her legacy can be seen during neighborhood park cleanups and funding for park bathrooms.
And she hasn’t slowed down yet, so why start now?
“I guess I’ll just keep fussing, which seems to be what I do best,” Barbee says.
