Barbara Taylor Lehmann died at home with her family in Port Aransas on April 17, 2009. She was 82. Although she never smoked, she fought lung cancer for nearly years.

Lehmann was born March 27, 1927 in Syracuse, NY, and graduated from high school in Syracuse with a New York State full tuition scholarship to Syracuse University. To pay for college, she worked on B-24 bombers in 1945, a manufacturing line in 1946, and the City Health Lab in 1947.

Spring quarter 1946 she took physics 1 lab under instructor Bill Lehmann, who had just returned from WW II. Fall quarter 1946 she was registering for an advanced course in physics while Bill Lehmann was working registration two tables down. They noticed one another and had a horseback riding date that weekend. They got married two years later, and the marriage lasted almost 61 years.

Lehmann earned her Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in foods chemistry at Syracuse while her husband earned his master's and Ph.D. in physics. They both were elected to the Physics Honorary Sigma Pi Sigma. She earned a patent in food chemistry and was elected to full membership in the National Scientific Honorary Sigma Xi. She followed her husband to the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, where they began their family of four daughters and one son. She moved the family when he went to the Pentagon, then to Bolling Air Force Base and then Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. There she was the first Air Force Civilian on the Officers' Wives Club Board.

They moved to California in 1983, back to the University of New Mexico faculty in 1986, retired and moved to Port Aransas in 1992. She served for more than 50 years with the Girl Scouts, Rotary Wives in New Mexico, California and Texas, and with the Episcopal church in New York, Ohio, Virginia, New Mexico, California and Texas.

Survivors in addition to her husband are her children, Jody (Clifford) Nelson of Virginia, Rick Lehmann of Port Aransas, Kathy (Jim) Williams of Delaware, Wendy (Michael) Wulff of Arizona, and Christi (Lance) O'Conner of New Mexico; 11 grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.

Lehmann donated her body to The University of Houston Medical Center. A memorial service will be held at Trinity by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Port Aransas at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 3.

Memorials in her name may be made to Trinity-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 346, Port Aransas TX 78373-0346 for its community outreach.