Barbara Bernard, photo by Kathleen M. Lynch
The recent passing of Barbara Bernard (1927-2024), marks a milestone in western Massachusetts history, for most of us who live in this part of New England may find it difficult to imagine a world without her.Originally hailing from North Adams in the northwest corner of the state, she attended Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley in the 1940s, and moved to Holyoke in 1950 with her husband, businessman George J. Bernard (who passed in 1998). She hosted radio programs, and a long-time television show for the former WHYN-TV. Three of the last of her several decades of work in the media included writing a column for the Springfield Republican newspaper. (I think my favorite column of hers is when she wrote about being a college student and traveling by train with some friends -- back in the day when a sleeper car had curtained berths rather than separate rooms -- and she climbed into the wrong one. Remembering it still makes me laugh.)
Among her many activities included serving on several community and business boards, and she was honored with numerous awards in the course of her career, most recently in June she was inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
Among her passions was a love of theatre, and she supported many local theaters, and had interviewed a number of actors and actresses on her television program -- which prompted me to interview her as a source for my book, Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain - 70 Years of Summer Theatre on Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Massachusetts.
Barbara (she refused my attempts to call her "Mrs. Bernard") was gracious, informative, and quite funny. Her love for one particular group that performed on the mountain -- The Valley Players, and her friendship with several people associated with that troupe, moved her to loan them her clothes for costumes, her furniture for the sets -- and on one memorable occasion, herself. She took a small part in the musical comedy, The Boy Friend in 1961. There's a photo of her with the cast in my book, and another photo of her on the set of her TV show interviewing visiting actor Van Johnson.This enthusiasm illustrates a lovely zest for life and a sense of adventure. Perhaps these were secrets to her longevity.
Moreover, her generosity extended to me: she wrote the foreword to the book, most of which I will reprint below.
When it came time to launch the book at a program at the Holyoke Public Library, she not only attended but also spoke at the event. Her kindness knew no bounds.
I was happy to chat with her at a few other social functions over the years, but I was a very minor cast member in the cast of thousands in her life, and I hope someday someone who knew her really well will write her story. I wish she had written it herself, but I think perhaps she was far more interested in other people.
Here then is a part of the foreword she wrote to Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain:
Jacqueline T. Lynch & Barbara Bernard,
photo by Kathleen M. Lynch
When Jacqueline Lynch interviewed me in 2015
about my memories of Holyoke’s Valley Players, I told her “the Valley Players
was such a vital part of my life I died a little when it finally closed.” That may have sounded a little dramatic but I
really did lose something so special.My enjoyment of live performances began as a
child in North Adams with parents, aunts and uncles, all theatre and concert
enthusiasts. Not only did I get to see
Broadway shows at an age where I probably didn’t understand what was going on
in the cabin in Tobacco Road, but
live theatre was in full swing in nearby Pittsfield and Stockbridge with the
Berkshire Theatre Group, the Colonial Theater and Fitzpatrick Main Stage. As a college student at Mount Holyoke, I had
heard in nearby Holyoke, an industrial city much like my hometown, there was a
summer theater called The Valley Players.
I was at home working during summers so during those years I never saw a
production there.
Knowing there was The Valley Players in Holyoke
probably saved my life in 1950. There I
go being dramatic again, but my husband and I, married in 1948 after my college
graduation, lived in a suburb of Pittsfield where we both worked and we were in
an area where live performances prevailed.
I still recall seeing Mady Christians in a play and Koussevitzky
conducting at Tanglewood. Our life was
absolutely perfect and when we bought a business which required us to move to
Holyoke, the one bright spot was remembering there was a great summer theater,
The Valley Players.
We began to go to the plays our first summer and
never once missed a performance. In a
short time my Pittsfield career in radio brought me into the same one in the
Paper City and eventually into television.
At one time or another all the actors and actresses, as well as Jean and
Carlton Guild, the founders of The Valley Players, were guests on my
programs. Interviews were delightful and
because all of the actors lived in various rented rooms in private homes in
Holyoke they appreciated visiting with us in our air conditioned house, with
our little girls and our dog giving them a sense of home away from home.
Our wardrobes were available to the players to
borrow if they needed specific outfits for specific parts, and when Ruby
Holbrook, then the wife of Hal, was pregnant she borrowed my maternity
clothes. Many summer players brought
fame to this area perhaps, with Hal Holbrook who created Mark Twain Tonight! There
was not a member of the audience that opening who did not acknowledge that we
had seen something which would take the world of theatre by storm. Hal reprised the role many times through the
years, updating it a little, and once again bringing a full audience to its
feet with applause when he returned to Holyoke to present it as a fundraiser
for the efforts to bring live theatre back to Holyoke with the Victory Theater
project.
Fortunately, our area abounds in excellent
all-season live theatre, but for those who love it so, there is never
enough. Of course as a resident of
Holyoke I feel a city is that much richer if it has its own live summer theatre
and The Valley Players truly made Holyoke a more exciting city. There are so many memories, such as Mountain
Park always saving its fireworks display to coincide with intermission of the
plays, and the refreshment stand serving crispy clear-cold “birch beer,” and
never a play produced to which one would feel uncomfortable bringing one’s
grandmother, teenage child, or minister.
The Valley Players was a unique
part of Holyoke history and certainly in my life, which
makes being elderly not as unpleasant as it would have been without seventy
years of remarkable summer theatre.
Barbara was 97 years old. Requiescat in pace.
******************
Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War;
Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain: 70 Years of Summer Theatre on Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Massachusetts;
States of Mind: New England,
A Tragic Toast to Christmas -- The Infamous Wood Alcohol Deaths of 1919 in Chicopee, Mass.; as well as books on classic films and several novels. Her Double V Mysteries series is set in New England in the early 1950s.
TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.
