Helene Barbara Koerting Fischer Eldred of Boothbay died March 19, 2016.

Born in 1937 in Holzhausen am Ammersee, Germany, she would have been 79 years old on March 27.

Barbara immigrated with her family to the United States as a young child, settling in Pennsylvania. She attended a Catholic School, a one-room schoolhouse and a public high school in Bucks County, then went on to Kutztown State Teachers college and the Philadelphia Museum School of Art.

Prior to her marriage to Kenneth M. Eldred in 1957, she worked as a graphic artist for Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. After marriage, Barbara and Ken moved to California and then resided in Alabama, California and Massachusetts.

She was an active figure skating coach and master choreographer during this time, bringing her teams of young skaters to competitions as far away as Hong Kong. Avid sailing racers, she and her husband eventually retired in Maine where they could enjoy their great love for sailing aboard their boat, the Ammersee.

Barbara was a passionate traveler and shared many adventures with family and friends across the globe by both land and sea. After settling in Maine, Barbara became an active “art-maker” and started her own business, Mermaid Studios. She explored and worked in a variety of artistic mediums from lost-wax casting of jewelry, copper enameling, sculpture in clay, stone, and wood, book-binding, painting with pastels, acrylics and watercolors, and also worked in an array of print-making.

Barbara is survived by her brother, York Fischer and his wife Maren; her daughter, Heidi McKechnie and son-in-law Charlie Bamberg; and two beloved granddaughters, Ceysa McKechnie and Tess McKechnie. She also leaves behind many loving former students, extended family, and friends, including her dear boyfriend and partner of the last 2 years, Robert Devine.

Barbara has made a tremendous impact on the lives of many. She had a strong spiritual belief system and would want us to remember that her vibrant spirit and fierce loving heart is not really gone from us, but all around us. In the lines of one of her favorite poems by Robinson Jeffers:

I admired the beauty

While I was human, now I am part of the beauty.

I wander in the air,

Being mostly gas and water, and flow in the ocean;

Touch you and Asia

At the same moment: have a hand in the sunrises

And the glow of the grass.

I left the light precipitate of ashes to earth

For a love-token