Barbara Pearl Meritt was born on May 19, 1936, on a farm near Peru, Nebraska, just a quarter mile from the Missouri River. Shortly after, the family moved east of Peru where they lived for the next six years. Barbara and her sister, Elva, attended Honey Creek School for the rest of the year. This was near the end of the depression and Barbara walked a mile and a half to catch the school bus. Taken from a dedication written by Barbara in February 1960, “A neighbor boy would walk with her, which was comforting as a kindergartner in the dark winter mornings. Some mornings, the kids would make snow caves to wait on the school bus”. Barbara graduated the 8th grade as the only student at Honey Creek. Finally, in 1948, electricity was installed in the community and phones went from crank style to dial. It all seemed so modern. The sisters later attended Walnut Grove (Woodsiding) District 16 school.
The family had a farm sale on February 15, 1951, and on February 19th they started their trek to Colorado, arriving the next afternoon in Lindon. Their impression of Colorado was that of disappointment. “Such wide-open spaces, very few trees and you could see so far it would nearly put your eyes out”. Barbara attended the Lindon School, two miles east and two miles south of the present-day Lindon. There were about 30 kids in the high school and twice that many in grade school. They rode in a car school bus for the six and a half miles to school, driven by Johnny Rielly the first year. Mrs. Ray Chandler drove for a couple of years and then Mrs. Norris drove Barbara’s last year of school. Barbara graduated in 1954 alongside the only boy, Kenneth Adams, in her class. Barabara’s high school principal was Mr. Ed Uptegrove. To help pay expenses, Barbara worked during the summers at a café in Anton. Her senior year she took an art course and finished, receiving her certificate in 1956.
That first summer in Colorado, Elvis Meritt, Barbara’s father, worked with his uncle, Raymond Meritt, and then in the winter he started working for Ben Gay, a cattleman and farmer. As Barbara said “It was at this time, she first met young Richard Ohr, who in the future was to be my husband, as he also worked for Mr. Gay. Richard recounted later he had noticed this family who had moved in from Nebraska and the skinny long-legged girl with long brown hair peddling a bicycle on the dirt road in front of the house. She immediately caught his eye! The Meritt family lived in four different houses in their first four years in Colorado. The last house was a half mile north of Lindon. At this time Sam Templeton lived with the family. Sammy had a car and would give the kids rides and the whole family loved Sammy playing his guitar and singing to them all. During Barbara’s high school days, and her sister Elva’s grade school years, they both enjoyed being cheerleaders for the Lindon Wolfpack basketball team.
After graduating from high school, Barbara worked in Akron as a cook for a couple of weeks in a café and then came back to Lindon to work as a cook and housekeeper in the home of a former schoolteacher. Barbara took in laundry to help pay for her art courses. In the fall of 1955, she started working for Mrs. Elma McCracken as a cook in a café in Anton.
John “Richard” Ohr married Barbara on January 27, 1956, in Denver by the Reverend Ludvigsen, the pastor from Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Anton. Richard’s aunt Minni Fredericksen and her husband Jim were their attendants in a little Lutheran church of Altara, Colorado. The next day they purchased their household supplies and came home to the farm southwest of Lindon. The fall of 1956 they were asked to come to the Woodrow School, southwest of the present day town of Woodrow about 20 miles form home to be the lunchroom cooks and custodians. They did this for two years.
Barbara was expecting that spring, so they moved back to the farm south of Lindon and Richard continued to do custom farming and rented Mrs. Helen Adolf’s farm near Lindon. On August 30, 1959, their son Gerry Bret was born in Brush. Unfortunately, early that morning Richard didn’t have enough gas to get to Brush, so at 3am, Richard and Barbara drove to the Lindon Mercantile and Richard honked his horn waking up Ray and Lois McBeth. From inside the store, Ray turned on the island lights and gas pump. Richard filled up his car as Barbara patiently waited. Once full, Ray and Lois waved from the window of the store, shut off the pump and were back in bed as Richard rushed off to Brush.
In 1958, Richard’s parents put their Lindon farm into the Soil Bank and then purchased the Golden Pheasant Café, Motel, Campground and Gas Station, three miles west of Yuma on Highway 34. Richard and Barbara took care of the livestock and farm, then decided to open the Golden Pheasant in December of 1959 until April of 1960. In August of 1960, Barbara started working at the new Meadowlark Café & Motel in Lindon for Donald and Ruth Scott. In 1964, Richard, Barbara and Gerry moved to Glendive, Montana where Richard worked for the Permian Corp in the oil field. Four years later, the family moved back to the farm in Colorado. Barbara continued to help Richard on the farm until his passing July 4th 1984 just one day before his 55th birthday..
In 1985 Barbara moved to Akron and started working for Woodie Bondhus at Skogmos clothing store on Main Street. She joined the Peace Lutheran Church around that same time. In 1986 Barbara married Richard Masters and they started Master Excavating LLC doing work in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska and Kansas. Richard Masters passed away in 1991, yet Barbara continued the business for the following 30 years as the sole owner doing the books, locates and managing employees until the fall of 2021. At this time, Barbara sold the business equipment to her longtime employee Elton Florain. Barbara was 85 years old at this point in her life.
During those 33 previous years, Barbara enjoyed caring for and growing several nundred African Violets, cake decorating, sewing for others, being a member of the Sisters of the Heart Sorority and the Extension Club Xi Delta Zeta. She loved taking tickets at the Washington County Fair and being a 4-H leader, sharing her knowledge in cake decorating, leather craft and sewing. In 2024 Barbara’s cousin Gayle Lynds, book author, had researched and discovered that Barbara and her family were descendants of three individuals on the Mayflower from 1620.
In 2023 Barbara moved back to the family farm to live with her son Gerry. After struggling with dementia for four years, Barbara passed away at the Akron Nursing Home on March 9th, 2025, where she had resided for the last two months of her life.
A funeral service was held Saturday, March 29, 2025 at 10:00 a.m. at the Peace Lutheran Church of Akron. Interment followed at the Akron Cemetery. Memorial donations may be made to the Peace Lutheran Church.