July 1941 – March 2022

Barbara was born on July 22, 1941 to Gladys and Wilbur Shook, in Boise, Idaho.  Her first notable accomplishment was to take over her mother’s violin lessons at age 3. The violin was to be her life-long career. She performed on local television shows for talented children, winning so many first place prizes that the station made her quit, and gave her a “Grand Prize”. But her notoriety led her to be recognized by nationally known teachers, who recommended that she study in San Francisco with Noam Blinder, who was Isaac Stern’s teacher. She went to San Francisco alone at 16 years of age, doing various odd jobs to pay for her lessons. Russian refugees helped her financially. She was able to qualify for admission to Oberlin Conservatory in order to continue her studies. Again to supplement her grant, she had to work jobs such as the breakfast line. She spent Summers at the Dartmouth Music Festival, meeting some life-long friends who may be with us today. 

She had developed by this time a promising solo career. Unfortunately, she still needed to eat. She took a job with the Houston Symphony, soon catching the eye of the conductor Larry Foster, who did everything he could to help her career.

Symphonies in general are strapped financially. The HSO locked out the musiciansin 1975-76. She was recuited to play at the first year of the Texas Renaissance Festival in 1976, where she met her husband, Tim Cleghorn who was playing. the Renaissance Lute. They were married in 1977 in Boise, Idaho. Fortunately, her parents and brother Walter approved.

At first, Symphony life was fairly enjoyable, but after several years and changes in management, it was not so pleasant. For every seat, there were 20 very well qualified would-be players. And the management was noting who was getting older, and costing them more money. A change in the health coverage prompted Barbara to resign. Fortunately her husband was working as a NASA physicist with good health coverage for both of them.

While still at the Houston Symphony, she played occasionally with the Galveston Orchestra, a community orchestra that hired HSO members to help the community amateur players. She did solo playing there, such as Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy, and the Sibelius Violin Concerto. She also did Mahler’s Symphony #1 and Brahms Symphony #3, all with Richard Pickar conducting. She did other performances, such as Schubert’s Fantasia in C-Major, with Christine Schaffer on Piano.

Her violin career ended effectively when the Galveston Symphony stopped being a community orchestra and became a “student training” orchestra. The founding conductor, Richard Pickar, who had supported Barbara through-out, retired. Barbara then learned that she had the gene defect. This led first to breast cancer and then to ovarian, which went to her brain. She survived all three, attesting to the excellence of the Houston Medical Community.

Unfortunately, when the Covid pandemic struck, the numbers overwhelmed the medical profession, and those with less life-threatening problems lost the level of intensive-care treatment that the Covid patients had. The former were often sent home just to clear a bed for the sicker people. Barbara lost the treatment of a physical therapist because she required cleaning, which took all of his time rather than  physical therapy. She became bed-bound, not strong enough to even to walk with a walker. She faded, and finally passed away on March 12, 2022. As always, there will be “what-ifs”, but it is certain that she is loved now and forever.