Barbara (Mowll) Weiner

Barbara – “That is B-A-R-B-A-R-A,” as she used to say – Helen Mowll Weiner died peacefully in
her home on August 14, 2023. She leaves behind a legacy of dry wit, a family she loved fiercely
and resolutely, including all canine and feline members, a collection of cookbooks complete
with handwritten notes in the margins, a huge slide collection capturing her early years of
marriage and motherhood, beautiful Christmas ornaments, a keen eye for grammar as well as
the beauty in things and people, and a world marked by her purity and integrity.
Born in Natick, Massachusetts in 1927 to the loving parents of Julia (Dee) Cook and Edward Mowll, she
moved to Matthews, Virginia where she picked up a slight but most adorable southern twang,
which she profited from when they moved to her childhood home of Atco, New Jersey, where
kids paid to hear her accent.
With Atco as her home base, Barbara learned to play a mean softball, made the “big bucks”
picking raspberries so she could purchase clothes from Sears & Roebuck, and attended Lower
Camden County High School with her 27 classmates.
Then it was off to university, running out the backdoor of her Atco house each day to catch the
train (often with a piece of toast in hand for breakfast), and then the ferry, followed by the bus,
another bus, and then an eight-block walk to the University of Pennsylvania to earn her
Bachelor’s degree in Occupational Therapy. Her years at Penn, summers as a counselor at Camp
Green Lane, and the friends she made along the way were memories she treasured and
reminisced about throughout her life.
While eating breakfast in a Washington, DC boarding house, she met her bashert, Dr. Frank
Weiner, prior to him obtaining his medical degree. They talked of seeing the Philadelphia
Symphony the night before, learned they were both from “Jersey,” exchanged numbers for
rides home, followed by one date, and a proposal of marriage. Barbara allowed the proposal to
gestate a bit and three weeks later gave a resounding yes. Theirs was a 59-year love story filled
with respect, admiration, “heated” discussions, support, children they adored, and devotion to
one another.
Marriage on January 29, 1958 began a full and busy life of medical school for Frank with
Barbara typing all his notes on a manual typewriter, three children in three years, a menagerie
of dogs, hamsters, guinea pigs, mice, rabbits, and varied injured wild life, several moves,
helping to open two medical practices in which Barbara took over as the bookkeeper and
accountant, hours of volunteering (because as Barbara often said, “Volunteering is the heart of
America”), deep friendships, retirement in North Carolina with lots of travel and visits to see
family and friends, and moving to Houston, Texas as the last home for both Frank and Barbara.
On Barbara’s kitchen counter was a little wooden plaque with the words “dull women have
clean homes,” and inside her Holiday Card address book she had written the following to
herself: “If you asked what I came into this world to do, I would tell you that I came to live out
loud.” Her strength and fearlessness were characteristics that she carried every day as a little
girl, young woman, wife, and mother, in the days after Frank’s death, and up until her final

breath. She was a planner always going the extra mile, planning events, holidays, parties, trips
in their 21-foot trailer, and making birthdays special. Her greatest joy was her children, and she
took on this responsibility of raising good, kind, ethical, responsible human beings as her
biggest and most important job. If asked what her greatest achievement was in life, she would
say “my family.”
Barbara was preceded in death by her parents Julia (Dee) Cook Mowll and Edward Kingsford
Mowll, and her husband Frank. She leaves having deeply touched the lives of her
son Tim Weiner and his wife Meredith, daughter Jane Weiner and her husband Eric Mallory,
daughter Susan Rafte and her husband Alan, her granddaughter Marika, her and
Frank’s wonderful caregiver Agnes Williams and dozens of beloved four-legged companions. 
In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation in Barbara’s memory to:
Saving the Thai Street Dogs/Niall Harbison Dogs
https://donorbox.org/helping-thai-street-dogs-2
Hope Stone, Inc.
https://www.hopestoneinc.org/donate

Donaldson Funeral Home & Crematory is honored to serve the Weiner family.