WINDSOR — Whether it was on topics related to psychiatric care, ways to preserve Windsor’s historic elements or critiques of fellow artists’ work, Dr. Gail Barton spoke her mind.
In 2001, then the president of the Vermont Psychiatric Association, Barton spoke out against a plan by the University of Vermont Medical Center, then Fletcher Allen Health Care, to move its inpatient psychiatric section to Colchester and away from the hospital’s main campus in Burlington.
“To isolate the inpatient unit away from the rest of medical care is poor care,” she said in an AP story at the time.
In addition to advocating for people with mental illness, Barton, a Windsor resident who died of gastric cancer on Dec. 27, 2020, at 83, also would challenge herself and fellow artists to try new things. She was active in community groups such as the Windsor Rotary Club and the Windsor Design Review Commission and pursued her many passions vigorously and with compassion.
“It did certainly shape me to be sure,” Mariah Connolly, Barton’s daughter, said of her mother’s advocacy. Connolly, a Windsor resident, said she learned from her mother “to be an advocate for people who need assistance. Don’t stand idly by when someone needs it.”
Barton followed in her father’s footsteps to become a psychiatrist in a time when there weren’t many women in the field. But she did so after first training to be an artist.
She sought out “ways to get both things to meld together as often as she could,” Connolly said.
Born on April 20, 1937, in Massachusetts, Barton spent some of her formative years on the grounds of Worcester (Mass.) State Hospital where her father Dr. Walter Barton served as medical superintendent and her mother Elsa was the head of nursing.
Barton earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts with a minor in sociology from Tufts University. She then switched paths to earn a medical degree at the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, now part of Drexel University. She interned and did her residency in Ann Arbor, Mich., serving as chief resident at the University of Michigan Medical Center and beginning to focus on emergency psychiatry. She earned a master’s of public health at the University of Michigan, with an emphasis on community mental health.
Dr. Walter Barton, who died in 1999 and ended his career at what was then Dartmouth Medical School, focused his efforts on breaking away from the model of institutionalizing people with mental illness, and his daughter continued that effort, Connolly said.
Gail Barton aimed to “really mainstream patients (and) make them active and viable members of the community,” said Connolly. She “always wanted folks to do something.”
Barton met and married Duncan Kretovich, Connolly’s father, in Ann Arbor. They later divorced. She first came to Vermont and worked in the Burlington area, before moving to the Upper Valley and joining the staff at the White River Junction VA Medical Center. Her parents were living in Hartland at the time, while her father worked at Dartmouth Medical School, now Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.
Dr. Matthew Friedman, a senior advisor and former executive director of the National Center for PTSD in White River Junction, was the chief of psychiatry at the VA in the mid-1980s and hired Barton.
“The Bartons knew how to work,” said Friedman, who considered Walter Barton “one of my most cherished mentors.”
Friedman said that Gail Barton introduced art therapy to patients at the VA. She also brought in Scrappers, her golden retriever, to offer pet therapy to veterans.
“She was an unusual combination of interests,” Friedman said.
Veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder from their military careers, rape, terrorism or other sources often have difficulty discussing their trauma, Friedman said. But veterans who might not want to talk about it, might be able to draw something related to that experience, he said.
In addition to her artistic interests, Barton had personality traits that helped her to be successful as woman in medicine back in the 1980s.
“Being a retiring, shy violet didn’t get you very far,” Friedman said. “You had to be assertive; tough and you had to be clear.”
During her time at the VA, she built relationships with patients such that some of them followed her when she transitioned into private practice, according to her obituary.
Barton brought her skills as a psychiatrist to her friendships, said Judy Hayward, the executive director of Historic Windsor who served on the Windsor Rotary Club and on the Windsor Design Review Commission with Barton.
Hayward credited Barton with being a good listener, as well as supportive, kind and honest.
Barton “wasn’t going to let you delude yourself,” Hayward said. “You value somebody who’s not going to indulge you in your misgivings.”
Barton lived in a Victorian house on North Main Street in Windsor for about three decades. She considered the home along Route 5 “Windsor’s front door,” said Hayward. “I think she cared deeply about keeping things in good order.”
Barton’s granddaughter Kayla Connolly, now 28, said when she was a child she and her grandmother would dress up in Victorian dresses and hats and serve tea, finger sandwiches and cookies on Barton’s porch during the town’s Heritage Day celebrations.
“She loved the history of the town (and) the beauty of the town,” Connolly said. Her grandmother was “just trying to protect both of those any way she could.”
In addition to maintaining the historic home itself, Barton also cared for flower gardens surrounding the home.
“They were her pride and joy,” Connolly said. Her grandmother was “always looking to make things better.”
Barton’s influence and her art also were evident in other aspects of the community. She became the fourth woman president of the Windsor Rotary Club in 2010, said Margo Howland, a former member of the club who has since joined the White River Rotary Club. Barton gave presentations focused on psychiatry as well as on art.
“She was quiet and friendly,” said Howland, an attorney who used to be based in Windsor. “She did not toot her own horn.”
But when she spoke, Barton “had a lot of interesting stories to tell,” Howland said.
At one Rotary meeting, Barton gave a demonstration of basket weaving and another time she gave a tour of her house, which was “full of lovely pieces of art that she had made,” Howland said.
“You name it, she did it,” Howland said. “She was so talented. To imagine that somebody with that kind of talent was also a doctor … This lady was brilliant.”
Barton would often set up tents in front of the house as part of various festivals. There, she would display her own artwork and invite some of her friends to do so as well, said her friend and fellow artist Susan Rump, of Thetford Center.
In the past decade as she stopped practicing psychiatry, Barton shifted her focus more to her art, which included pastels, water colors, photography, basketry, stained glass and jewelry.
“I can’t tell you how much art she did,” Rump said. “In her later years, she lived for art.”
Barton always had ideas for places to bring their en plein air painting group, informally named Odanaksis after the Abenaki term for “little village,” said Rump. Barton hosted an annual “tweak day” at her house and invited the artists to bring paintings they wanted input on. They’d share snacks and exchange ideas.
Barton was a “great advice giver,” Rump said.
Barton’s work has appeared in galleries throughout the Upper Valley over the years. While most of Barton’s paintings were plein air landscapes, Rump said her friend had more recently begun painting some people.
One day, the group was seated at Kennedy Pond in Windsor when a boy of 8 or 9 was detailing the process of how to cast a line, catch, dress and cook a fish for some other children. Barton’s painting from that day captures the boy’s expression as well as the light in his eyes while he spoke, teaching his friends to fish, Rump said.
“It’s magical,” Rump said.
The painting group continued meeting during the pandemic, socially distanced and with masks. The last gathering Barton attended was a warm day in the fall.
“She stuck with this as much as she could,” Rump said. Barton “said to several of us before she passed on, ‘By all means keep this going. It’s been life itself for me.’ ”
There was a lot of laughter in the group’s gatherings with Barton in attendance. Since Barton’s death, the group has begun working together via Zoom, Rump said.
“She’s with us every day in spirit,” Rump said.
Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
