Lebanon, NH – Elizabeth Ann Barnes, 100, died quietly at home in Lebanon, New Hampshire on April 9, 2026, with her beloved cat by her side. She was born on July 14, 1925, in Newark, New Jersey to Horace Norman and Margaret Rawson Sibley.
Betsey, as everyone knew her, grew up in New Jersey and later the Bronx, where her father served as minister at the University Heights Presbyterian Church and her mother worked for the predecessor to Planned Parenthood.
Betsey attended Mt. Holyoke College, majoring in philosophy. At Holyoke, her brother John, playing matchmaker for his older sister, introduced her to his Amherst roommate Harry Barnes Jr. Following a courtship and Harry’s discharge from the U.S. Army, they were married on June 19, 1948.
Harry joined the U.S. State Department as a Foreign Service Officer in 1950 and Betsey accompanied him on a succession of overseas assignments and adventures, including Bombay, Prague, Moscow, Kathmandu, Bucharest, New Delhi, and their final overseas posting in Santiago, Chile. Betsey had a strong artistic bent, enjoying painting and drawing, acting in community stage productions, and possessed a gift for interior design and landscaping. She developed lifelong bonds with a wealth of international friends from around the globe but held a special place in her heart for the Peace Corps Volunteers she and Harry first befriended in Nepal in the early 1960s, as the program launched by John F. Kennedy was just getting underway.
After Harry’s retirement from the Foreign Service in 1988, they created their dream home, which Betsey designed meticulously, in the picturesque village of Peacham, Vermont. When Harry’s health made it difficult to maintain the house, they moved to the Woodlands, an independent living facility, in Lebanon, NH in 2011. Initially a reluctant resident, Betsey came to savor her life there and the many friendships she formed.
Betsey was also an accomplished writer and the published author of two novels, Unforgiving Heights (2003) and Far is the Moon of My Home (2009). She was working on a third book in her final years, set in Communist Romania during the massive earthquake of 1977 and featuring characters from her previous novels. Shortly before her death, she asked her doctor to grant her two additional years so that she could finish her book.
Betsey was preceded in death by her daughter Adrienne in 2003 and her husband Harry in 2012. She is survived by her daughters Pauline (Adrian) and Sasha (Carlos), son Douglas (Mary), and her grandson Malcolm (Casey).
A Memorial Service will be held at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Walpole, New Hampshire, on Monday, August 25, at 5:00 p.m. Family and friends are invited to gather in thanksgiving for her life and to celebrate her memory.
Interment will be at Peacham Cemetery in Peacham, Vermont, on Tuesday, August 26, at 1:00 p.m.
Memorial donations in Betsey’s name may be made to the Afghan Stray Animal League (afghanstrayanimals.org) and The American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire (aclu-nh.org).
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