Barbara Anderson

A funeral service for Barbara Anderson will be held on Tuesday, July 5th, at 11:00 at Zumbro Lutheran Church, 624 Third Avenue Southwest in Rochester. An inurnment ceremony will be held at the Zumbro Columbarium immediately after the service. Mrs. Anderson was born on March Fourth, 1950 and died at her home on June Thirtieth. She was sixty-one. Barbara attended elementary and secondary school in St. Paul, and graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1972. After graduation, she began her evolution as a painter in acrylics, moving evermore in the direction for which she became known, the dynamic presentation of color. From 1974 to 1976, she served as Artist in Residence in Austin, Minnesota. Returning to St. Paul, she served as an administrative assistant at Macalester College until 1979. On May Thirteenth, 1978, she married Dr. Gerald Anderson in the beautiful Macalester Chapel. In August of 1979, three weeks before her son Karl was born, she moved with her small family to Decorah, Iowa, where her husband, a history professor, was employed at Luther College. Barbara grew to love Luther College, and together with her husband served as co-director of the Nottingham (England) Program. After thirteen months she returned home to Decorah with a two-week-old baby boy, Paul. In 1985 she moved with her family to Moorhead, Minnesota. While her husband taught at North Dakota State University, Barbara attained a Masters Degree in painting from Moorhead State University. In 1990 she accepted a position as teacher and gallery director at Concordia College, where she remained for the next seventeen years, evolving as an award-winning abstract oil painter. In 2007 she moved with her husband to Rochester, where she continued to paint and to travel to Italy, Egypt, Turkey, Greece and, her favorite, England. She is survived by her husband, her sons Karl (Minneapolis) and Paul (Los Angeles), her step-daughter Carmen (Milwaukee), and her mother, Bernice (Inver Grove Heights).