The Reverend Sarah Barber-Braun was above all a scholar of women’s history. And wherever she lived, she surrounded herself with women’s art, including her own fabric art. Her stoles are worn by many colleagues.
Sarah especially devoted decades of scholarship to the life and work of early Universalist minister Phebe Ann Coffin Hanaford. Her long-time friend and colleague, the Rev’d Carol Hepokoski, said that Sarah’s “heart seemed to live in the 19th century.”
In August 2017, colleagues and area ministers gathered, with Sarah in attendance, to celebrate her life. Four months later, 17 December 2017, she died, aged 92.
Sarah Elizabeth McGrew was born in Tokyo, Japan, to Dallas Dayton Lore McGrew and Elizabeth Barber McGrew on 23 October 1925. She earned her B.A. in political theory and government from Radcliffe College, MA, in 1947.
Sarah settled with husband Harold Braun in Missoula, MT, where they eventually raised three adopted children. She worked as a religious educator at a local United Church of Christ church (1956–60), and then turned to the crafting of jewelry as an entrepreneurial artist and served also as an art consultant to the local Head Start program.
After divorce in 1976, Sarah reclaimed her mother’s birth name as part of a new surname. In 1978 she discovered the Humboldt UU Fellowship, and in 1981 she was on her way to Starr King School, where she completed her M.Div. in 1984. She was ordained on 17 February 1985 by the First Unitarian Church of Oakland, CA.
The Rev’d Ms. Barber-Braun began her parish career as an extension minister at the UU Congregation of Erie, PA (1986–89), followed by a mix of contract and interim ministries at the Saltwater UU Church (Des Moines, WA, 1989–90), the First Universalist Society in New Haven, CT (1994–96), the Mattatuck UU Society in Woodbury, CT (1996–97), and finally at the First Universalist Church of Southold, NY (1997–2002).
Sarah is survived by her children, Paula Braun, Julia Roth, and Daniel Braun, grandchildren Tegan Spangrude, Carl Spangrude, David Braun, and Andrea Braun, and brother John McGrew.