Barbara Lee Ekman passed away peacefully in her sleep with her beloved son Brian by her side on Friday, December 2, 2022, in hospital in Cobourg, Ontario, after a brief illness and a long and happy life well-lived. She was 97 years old.
Barbara was born in Concordia, Kansas on May 4, 1925, to Talmage and Blanche (Doherty) Hughes of St. Thomas, Ontario, and was the younger sister of Jean (Hughes) Fenech of Windsor, Ontario.
Barbara studied fine art under the acclaimed artist Herman Heimlich in Montreal in the 1940s. After graduating from commercial art school, she illustrated columns in the Standard newspaper for Kate Aitken, whose best-selling cookbooks and etiquette guides also featured Barbara’s drawings.
Barbara moved to Toronto in the ‘50s. Her women’s fashion illustrations in advertisements for Simpsons, The Room, Eaton’s, Sears, The Bay and Creeds graced the pages of daily newspapers across the country several times a month for more than 30 years.
In the ‘60s, Barbara taught fashion illustration at the Ontario College of Art. Over two decades, her high fashion illustrations appeared regularly in the industry newspaper, Style. The Fashion Group of Toronto commissioned Barbara’s illustrations for their Six Decades Of Fashion exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum in 1977.
Loved and missed profoundly by her devoted son Brian Ekman, and by his partner John Welch, their close friends and extended family, Barbara is also cherished by her dear nieces Monica Mordin, Priscilla Nehra and Noelle Bough, and by friends and staff at her retirement homes in Cobourg and Toronto.
Barbara’s family would especially like to thank Dr. Kathleen Barnard-Thompson for the thorough and compassionate care she has provided Barbara over the last two years and for guiding her end-of-life journey.
The family is grateful to all of the health care providers and retirement home workers who helped Barbara to live independently, and to everyone in hospital who looked after her so professionally and lovingly in her final days.
For those who wish to do so, her family would be grateful for any donations in her memory to Northumberland Hills Hospital in Cobourg.
As per her wishes, Barbara will be privately cremated and laid to rest at St. John’s Norway Cemetery in Toronto. A celebration of her wonderful life will take place in 2023.
May she rest in peace.
2022
Nos plus sincères sympathies à la famille et aux amis de Barbara Lee
Ekman 2022..
maccoubrey funeral home
Décès pour la Ville:Cobourg, Province: Ontario