Barbara Godin is a graduate of Athabasca University. She writes the “”Dear Barb” and the “Women of Interest” columns. As well, Barb has written many personal interest stories and enjoys connecting with others through her writing. She has been writing for The Voice since 2003.
If you enjoy reading Dear Barb, you can also purchase her curated collection, Dear Barb: Answers to Everyday Questions at her website, http://www.barbgodin.com.
Dear Barb: A co-worker of mine lost his eighteen-year-old son in a terrible car accident. Everyone in the office is devastated and we don’t know what to say. He recently returned to work after a week off. We don’t want to make the father’s pain worse, but we also want to express how we feel…. Read more »
Dr. Giuliana Tesoro was born on June 1, 1921, in Venice, Italy, and died September 29, 2002, in Dobbs Ferry, New York. She was an accomplished chemist with more than 125 U.S. patents, but is most famous for inventing fire-retardant fabrics. In 1943, Dr. Tesoro received her PhD in organic chemistry. Following her graduation, she… Read more »
Dear Barb: My mother has been struggling with heart failure for years and recently took a turn for the worse. She can’t do much of anything. I am the only one of her children that lives nearby so the responsibility for her care is falling on me. I’m okay with that, but my husband is… Read more »
I have walked past it hundreds of times, always wondering who lived there. It is an old, red brick house standing awkwardly amongst strip malls and condos. Everything about it suggests it had been there since the early fifties, but who lived there? An ancient looking TV antenna indicated the owner probably watches television. Maybe… Read more »
Dear Barb: My husband and I have been married two years and we each brought children into the marriage. He has two boys and I have one. His youngest is 12, and is autistic, and the other 15, while my son is eight. We have been having a lot of problems with the three boys… Read more »
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was born May 10, 1900, in Wendover, Buckinghamshire and died December 7, 1979, in Cambridge Massachusetts. She was a British-American astronomer and astrophysicist who is known for the explanation of the spectra of the Sun and more than 3,000,000 observations of stars. Payne-Gaposchkin was the first person to earn a PhD in astronomy… Read more »
Dear Barb: I have a family member that visits occasionally and often she stays overnight. I have noticed that, when she leaves, some of my baked goods are missing and I am pretty sure she is the one taking them. I love to bake and often have lots of homemade cookies and desserts to offer… Read more »
Florence Bascom was born July 14, 1862, in Williamstown, Massachusetts and died June 18, 1945, in the same city. Bascom was the first female geologist in the United States. She was a woman of many firsts, including the first woman hired by the U.S. Geology Survey in 1896, the first woman to present a paper… Read more »
Dear Barb: I am a single mother of two young boys. I want to be home with my boys, so I’m taking courses through AU and looking forward to getting my degree by the time they are in school full time. My ex and I separated over a year ago and he rarely sees our… Read more »
Dear Barb: My sister is one year older than me and we were close while we were younger, but now we rarely talk. I find her anger and rage extremely hard to deal with. After these outbursts she always calls me to apologize and says it was a temporal lobe seizure. I had never heard… Read more »