08/02/2026
FACILITATOR FIVE - Barbara Totherow
August 2026
As always, the comments and opinions of our Facilitators represent their personal opinions and not those of the WILL organization.
My husband Bill and I were both educators for our entire careers. He taught college chemistry (Organic and Bio-Organic), and I taught English. Our son, Joe, a philosopher and bass guitarist, lives outside St. Louis, and our daughter, Kate, (aka Grace---her middle name), is an American Sign Language interpreter, as well as a dancer, poet, and fiddle player. She lives in the tiny Oregon town of Selma, near Grants Pass.
1. What would you like to share about your professional/personal history?
I spent over 35 years teaching high school English, (with a sprinkling of college freshmen and junior high kids along the way) in many places: upstate New York, Oregon, Wyoming, Iowa, and New Hampshire --- in that order. I started life in the Northeast, married and moved to the Northwest, and we slowly made our way east again until we retired.
2. How did you get interested in your topic for the class?
A colleague in Iowa got me interested in using films in my literature classes. When I discovered in 1980 that 'pretty boy actor' Robert Redford was going to START his directing career with Judith Guest's beautiful novel Ordinary People, I was horrified, positive he would ruin it. Well, I was wrong. I've taught film and novel together a number of times and loved each go-round. I was terrified at the idea of facilitating the class for WILL, but it was a ball!
3. What brought you to WILL?
You can't move to Silver City without very quickly hearing about 'a wonderful lifelong learning group at the university.' My calendar fills up very fast as soon as the new courses go online. I really can't remember who first told me, but I've been in heaven ever since. WILL is like a “box of chocolates...” and whatever you get is always fantastic.
4. How about living in Silver City, what brought and keeps you here?
If you look at the places we've lived you'll notice a pattern: lots of snowy winters. After retirement, we split our time between summers at our lake cabin in New Hampshire and then winters, at first in Florida for a few years and then Desert Trails RV Park in Tucson after 2010. On one of our trips home, we detoured off the interstate to check out Silver City ---- and discovered LILACS growing in the Big Ditch. When we became full-time RVers during Covid, we kept circling back and falling more in love. We now enjoy some snow every winter, but we don't own a shovel!
5. One little known fact about you?
A little-known fact about me is, I hope, soon to be well-known around Grant County. I'm involved in a Living History project, sponsored by a grant secured by Bart Roselli, Director of the Silver City Museum. Over the next year, several of us will be showing up at community events to chat with you 21st century folks. We have Billy the Kid, Ben Lilly and Theora (Mrs. Howard) Ailman, wife of one of the lucky miners in the 1870s. He built the house that is now the Silver City Museum. Also, Joe Saenz will play an Apache chief. We're hoping to get more players involved ---- maybe a Buffalo Soldier from Fort Bayard; someone from the early Chinese community in town; and others. I, however, get to play the coolest business woman, philanthropist, and pr******te to ever live in Silver City: MADAM MILLIE! I can't wait!
Watch for us at events around the community over the next months.
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