Barbara Ann Guynup, 92, of Wellsville, NY peacefully passed away on June 23rd at a memory care facility in Ormand Beach, Florida. Her eldest daughter Polly was by her side.
Barbara was born on April 9th, 1929 to Lawrence & Eva Grimes in Wellsville, NY. She and her younger siblings, Joannie and Donald Grimes saw Wellsville grow and change in the 1930’s & 1940’s. Her old scrapbook is filled with photo’s and clippings of not just wartime news and the 1946 flood, but of school events, fashion, and rural wisdom.
After graduating from Wellsville High School in 1947 went on to study Retail Design at RIT. It was there she met the love of her life Carl Guynup. After graduation, they moved to Haddon Heights, New Jersey and started a family. Barbara & Carl have 5 children, Polly, Ann, Amy, Peter, and Stephen.
Barbara’s life as a devoted wife and mother was turned upside in 1976 when her husband Carl passed away. Determined, she worked a pair of 40 hour a week jobs and applied her retail design skills hand-making cards and crafts. In 1985, with her youngest child now at RIT, she returned to Wellsville. She and Carl had bought a home in need of work in the 1960’s out in Hallsport on Billings Hill. She spent the following years doing arts, crafts, and enjoying life with high school friends Jean and Wilbur Hollie and neighbor Mary Aldridge.
In 2006 a stoke, her second, changed her life again. Her youngest son Stephen took care of her from then until 2019. Strokes effect everyone differently, for Barbara the condition was Aphasia. Thankfully, she never lost her memory or sense of who she was. Instead, she became somewhat child-like. She had a new found, wide-eyed wonder of the world around her sense about her, mixed with the occasionally awkward inability to do life’s common tasks like making coffee. Overall, she was happy and a joy to be around. In 2019, she moved to a well-regarded memory care facility in Ormand Beach, Florida, near her daughter Polly.
The family requests that all flowers and notes are sent to her son Stephen Guynup at 1566 Billings Hill Road, Wellsville, NY 14895. There will be a family memorial service this coming Spring at the Grimes family cemetery in Port Allegany PA.
