Barbara Helen was the third of three children born to John Dennis and Clara Belle Huffman Barrow in Galesburg, Illinois. / was not a Catholic, so I went through the public schools in Galesburg and attended Knox College. After graduating I went to New York for a master's degree in stagecraft and drama, at Columbia University. After deciding that that wasn't what I was cut out for, I went to San Diego and worked for a Methodist Church, then went back to New York where I worked in the library at Columbia until I left in 1952.

After that she traveled with her mother and father on their fund raising campaigns for various organizations. On one such trip they were in a car accident. In that experience and through the providence of God, she felt drawn to become a Catholic. She called a priest, began instruction, and was baptized again, then traveled with her parents until her mother was able to take care of herself. Next she settled in Chicago where her brother and family lived, and began working at Catholic Charities. During this time she decided to enter religious life, and learned of our Sisters in Mundelein. From there she visited Clyde. On the train trip home I looked out at the big full moon and said, “Lord, I don't know if this is what you want or not, but if it is, I'll say 'yes,' and if it isn’t, then it’s up to you to let me know.” I’m still waiting for Him to say ‘no’.

Sr. Helen served in various capacities: laundry, editorial department of our magazine, portress, altar bread department, working on the beatification cause for Fr. Lucas Etlin,OSB, junior director, librarian, sacristan, sub prioress, maintenance, compiling Office readings, grounds, secretarial work, guest preparations, and spiritual direction (in 1965 she also received a master’s degree in Religious Education).

Drawn to live a simpler expression of our congregational life, Sr. Helen was delegated to research among the membership interest in experimental forms of living, was a member of two experimental communities (Payson, AZ and Rickenbach Center at Clyde), and received permission to live as a hermit during two different times of her religious life. Helen was one of the early (and long- standing) members of Osage Monastery in Sand Springs, OK, during which time she spent one year at a monastery in Japan, and seven years as a hermit.

Experiencing the prayer, discipline, and lifestyle of Takamori (Japan) under Fr. Shigeto Oshida, O.P., was a highlight in Helen’s life. Her regular letters home were filled with details of the day, encounters with birds and little creatures, descriptions of scenic splendor, and gratitude for the gift of being there. The life was demanding, during rice planting season especially, when they worked twelve hours a day - their spiritual ‘practice’ for those periods. But she appreciated all of it. Rice planting is quite an experience - of getting in touch with the roots of an ancient yet modern culture. Working barefoot in the mud of the rice fields, I have felt -literally- a much more elemental contact with the whole earth and the past. I am so grateful for the experience.

She was also able to work in days of solitude and prayer (before the planting season), which were fruitful experiences as well. Some rest, some reading, and many quiet hours of prayer and reflection. I am constantly amazed in my reading how often the Buddhist writers (modern writers) echo and shed light on my own Christian understanding of the meaning of life.

Most of all, Sr. Helen loved being in Sand Springs. The greatest influence on my life of prayer has been in coming to O+M. The inter-religious dialogue, actual contact with Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns, Episcopal ministers, Jews, and most deeply, the encounters with Fr. Bede Griffiths. I feel that in so much of what I have tried to make my own -while still, of course, remaining and becoming evermore deeply cognizant of my own Christian faith and practices- has brought me closer to Christ in our own special Eucharistic, monastic vocation. My year in Japan only intensified the dedication and clarified the goal by simplifying the means.

Sister Helen’s life was simple. She was practical, witty, ready to pitch in, and deeply committed to the spiritual life. She valued the life of prayer and saw it as her greatest contribution to the Congregation and the world. May she now intercede for all of us who long for a deeper experience of God.  In 1999 she was transferred to our health care center in St. Louis, and later to our facility in Clyde. Sister died on January 26, 2008.

Somewhere there is a place where God has been and is waiting for each one of us. The wonder is not that such a place should exist, nor that, searching, we may one day find it - but that there should be more than one searching and perhaps finding together. Perhaps the searching will be all there is; perhaps finding will be left for heaven. No matter. Christ will be there before us, for He is the way.