Barbara Ruth (Nutt) Crooke, 85, of Pensacola, FL, passed away on Saturday, April 23, 2022, following a sudden illness.

Barbara was born in Fordyce, AR, on June 4, 1936. Her family moved back and forth between Arkansas and Florida during WWII, finally settling in Pensacola where Barbara attended Pensacola High School and played clarinet in the band. Some of her happiest days of childhood were spent in St. Andrews, FL, where her family had a home by the Gulf. She and her siblings taught themselves how to swim and spent carefree days in the Gulf.

After high school, Barbara attended Pensacola Junior College (PJC), while working as an operator at Southern Bell Telephone Company. During the 1955 strike, she met William Morris "Bill" Crooke on the picket line and their life-long match was the good fortune of us all. They married on June 16, 1956, after Bill promised she would be able to finish her college degree. Education and learning were important to her. Barbara graduated from PJC and then earned her BA (1970) and MA (1977) in English from The University of West Florida.

In the 70s, Barbara worked as Director of Christian Education at St. Mark United Methodist Church. She led a large youth group and took them on church choir tours to Washington, D.C., San Antonio, and Central Florida. The bonds made during those years are important to many of "her kids" in the youth group, and they remember her for her humor and care.  In 1978, her love of learning brought her to Escambia High School, where she taught English language and literature with her sister-teacher Judy Gross, for 26 years, retiring in 2004. Her students often remarked that her writing instruction was a key to their later successes in life. Her students cherish her still for her humor, her inspired teaching of literature and poetry, her firm but kind discipline, and her habit of enthusiastically dressing up as characters from history and literature.

Family was central to Barbara's life. Family skiing picnics at Bayou Texar and Smoky Mountain camping trips with friends and extended family are some of our best memories.

Barbara had a lifelong love of learning and reading. She was open-minded and would share something she had read or a new way of thinking about things with us often. She loved a good "funny" and was also tender and perceptive in sensing our feelings. She told vivid, funny stories of the past - especially about Bill and their big and daily adventures (from a trip to Paris to repeatedly moving the Azaleas!), and her family - but she lived in the present and was still growing as a person until her last day.

She enjoyed storms and hurricanes, often standing outside in a gale, saying: "God speaks to us from the whirlwind." She was an avid reader of everything from Shakespeare to modern thrillers, history, and philosophy. She loved crossword puzzles, taking walks, visiting with, and meeting new neighbors, and her "yard work." She could not pass a weed without pulling it.

Barbara's church family at St. Mark was a central part of her life. As part of her religious practice, in the last few years, she and her son, Will, collected thousands of books for Open Books, a prison ministry.

Barbara is preceded in death by her beloved husband, William (Bill) Crooke; her mother, Marguerite Buck Nutt Bell; and her father, Robert Alexander Nutt.

Barbara will be missed by her son, Will (William) Morris Crooke, Jr., her daughter, Cindy (Cynthia) Crooke Nell and son-in-law Bill Nell of Cheverly, MD; grandchildren, Marika Ruth Nell and A.K. Nell; siblings, Ben Nutt, Robert "Buck" Nutt, Nonie Fielder and their spouses, and many beloved aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters-in law, nieces and nephews and cousins. Family had a broader meaning for Barbara, as well. Foreign exchange students Rinaldo Zechetto (Chile) and Kimi Kikkojin Hoshii (Japan) became family, as did Robert Hicks, our "other brother." Sharon Kinoshita became a close family friend and helper. Maci Mei loved to curl up in Mom's chair, and they had many good natured 'contests.'

Visitation will be 10:00am until the Funeral Service at Noon, Friday, April 29, 2022, at St. Mark United Methodist Church, 2201 N. 12 ^th Ave., Pensacola, FL 32503. Burial will follow at Bayview Memorial Park. Barbara's family would like to thank Covenant Hospice at Ascension Sacred Heart, her minister at St. Mark United Methodist, Dan Baughman, her church family at St. Mark, and Debbie Morrison Lane for driving Mom and for fun visits.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Manna Food Bank, Inc., 3030 N. E St., Pensacola, FL, 32501 or at www.mannahelps.org or to Waterfront Rescue Mission, 348 W. Herman St., P.O. Box 870, Pensacola, FL 32591 or at www.waterfrontmission.org