Barbara ‘Barb’ Vertz

(Jan. 5, 1926 - Nov. 12, 2019)

Posted

Barbara “Barb” Vertz passed away on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019, at the Long Term Care Center in Cody. She was 93.

She was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Jan. 5, 1926, to Jim and Genevieve Russell. They knew then that their little girl was special.

She was born totally deaf. When she was old enough for school, they moved to Georgia, where they had a school for the deaf. After high school, they moved back to Minnesota, where she was a scorekeeper for a recreation league for the deaf.

During a basketball game Barb was working, she met the man of her dreams, Gabriel “Gabby” Vertz. Soon after they were married. Their first son Randy was born with no hearing problems.

After a few years in Wisconsin, they picked up in 1958 and moved to a small seaside community in California called Pacific Grove. Gabby found work as a body and fender man, and they bought a house. Then in 1962, their second child Rick was born, also with no hearing problems.

As life went on, they started meeting other deaf people in the area. As deaf people, they seemed to have a handle on the hearing world. They found friends in the little deaf group they had, but they wanted to share their ways on how they dealt with the hearing world. They also wanted to know the ways of other deaf people.

So a few of them got together and formed the Monterey County Association for the Deaf (MCAD). They started out with half a dozen or so members. Gabby was vice president, and Barb was treasurer. Over the years, the group thrived, and by the late 1980s had over a hundred members. Barb was proud of her many accomplishments there, and she cherished the friendships she made with other group members.

They were particularly fond of a couple, Don and Hertha Neuman. They traveled, played cards and went to dinner together. You rarely saw one couple without the other. You would think that, since they were all deaf that it would always be quiet. Quite the contrary, one early morning, while they were playing cards, the girls were beating the guys pretty bad. The noise was so high, the neighbors called the police. When the police arrived, they told the officers it was just a card game. The officers laughed and asked them to keep it down.

Barb lost Gabby in 1993 after 49 years of marriage. Don lost Herta after more than 50 years of marriage, and shortly after that, MCAD disbanded.

In 1995, Randy and family moved to Cody, and Barb went with them. In 1999, Don invited Barb on a trip to Hawaii. They returned home married. Their marriage gave them happiness and longevity, until Don passed away in 2009. Barb returned to Cody a few years later to live out her remaining days.

Barbara was preceded in death by her husbands Gabby and Don, and her grandchild Jason.

Barbara is survived by her sons, Randy (Sharon) Vertz and Rick (Susie Hernandez) Vertz; stepdaughters Shelia (Jim) Brager and Sharon (Larry) Solow; grandchildren, Danielle Vertz, Shane (Lacey) Vertze, Will Vertz, and Marina Blount, all of Powell, Jason Vertz of Sparks, Nevada, Gabriel Vertz of Ellensburg, Washington, Richard, Kirk, Janelle, Jamie, Megan, and Jared; and 22 great-grandchildren, with two twin great-grandchildren on the way.

We would like to thank the Long Term Care Center, Ballards Funeral Home, and St. Anthony’s Catholic Church.

The family is having a private service. In lieu of flowers, send donations c/o Randy and Rick Vertz, 859 East Fourth Street, Powell, WY 82435. A fund in Barbara’s name is being set up for the deaf children of Monterey Peninsula Unified School District.

Comments