YA Mourns the Passing of Arts Advocate and Former YA Trustee Barbara Broad
We mourn the passing of Barbara Broad, who served as a Trustee of Young Audiences Arts for Learning NJ & Eastern PA from 1978-1986. Barbara continued to be involved with YA after her retirement from the board by supporting our first capital campaign and supporting The Grounds Circle. Described as “a giant of YA” by former Chair, Marilyn Grounds, Barbara also served as the Eastern Regional Representative on the National Board of Trustees of Young Audiences, Inc. Barbara remained a steadfast supporter of the organization until her death and was a perennial attendee of our Annual Celebrations each June. Gifts to YA made in honor of Barbara will be acknowledged to her family.
OBITUARY FOR BARBARA BROAD
Barbara Prentice Broad, 99, of Princeton, New Jersey, passed away peacefully at home on December 15, 2019. Barbara was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, on March 3, 1920, the daughter of Donald Bishop Prentice and Louise Farnham Prentice. She was predeceased by her husband of 45 years, Henry Sawyer Broad. She is survived by her daughter Louise Lavine (Michael) of Durham, North Carolina and her sons Richard Broad (Patti Mantell Broad) of West Hartford, Connecticut, and Dr. William Broad (Mari Yamashiro Broad) of Los Gatos, California. She is also survived by grandchildren Kathryn Broad (Chris Otness), Benjamin Broad (Ashley Yonan), Noah Lavine (Katherine), Alex Broad (Emie George), Isaac Lavine (Deanna Rubin), and Nicholas Broad, and great-grandchildren Henry Lavine and Simon Lavine.
One of the formative events of Barbara’s childhood was an around-the-world trip with her parents to the World Engineering Congress in Osaka, Japan, in 1929, where they made lifelong friends with a family from Sweden. Barbara moved with her parents to Terre Haute, Indiana when her father became president of Rose Polytechnic Institute in 1931. She graduated from Tudor Hall School (now Park Tudor School) in Indianapolis, where she was president of student government in her senior year, and then followed her two older sisters to Wellesley College, of which she was a devoted alumna. Barbara’s love of music was evident at Wellesley where she sang in the choir. During the summers of 1940 and 1941, she sang with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus under Serge Koussevitsky.
Following graduation from college, Barbara joined the WAVES as an ensign, later serving as lieutenant at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Pearl Harbor. After the war, she moved to Boston, where she was legal secretary for Judge Charles Wyzanski for several years. Marriage to Henry Broad brought her to the Washington, D.C. area, where Louise and Richard were born. Then Princeton University called on Henry Broad (Class of 1938) to be their first in-house counsel in 1956.
Barbara was a resident of Princeton, New Jersey for over 60 years. She was a member of Nassau Presbyterian Church, sang in the choir, and served as a deacon and elder. For many years she served as a volunteer bookkeeper for the John Street Nursery School in Princeton. She remained active with the Wellesley Antique Show, the Bryn Mawr-Wellesley Book sale and served on the national board of Young Audiences. She was a long-time member of the Present Day Club where she enjoyed bridge and other activities, and of Pretty Brook Country Club, where she played tennis until she was 90. In the late 1970s and 1980s, she worked part-time as a real estate agent with Stockton Realty.
In addition to Princeton, the Prentice family summer home in South Brooksville, Maine, on Cape Rosier, was a special place for Barbara throughout her life. With limited exception during the war years, Barbara was able to spend some part of almost every summer at Cape Rosier, where she sailed, swam, hiked, and played tennis. She loved being surrounded by her children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and their families from the broader Prentice clan.
The family would particularly like to recognize Pat Freda and Jane Atonga for the considerate and loving care they provided, especially during Barbara’s last weeks, as well as Guiselle Dickson, for two years of devoted care.
A memorial service will be held for Barbara at 2PM on January 5, 2020 at Nassau Presbyterian Church, 61 Nassau Street in Princeton, NJ. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Young Audiences Arts for Learning NJ & Eastern PA. (Princeton, NJ).