Barbara Knight Toomey, a longtime resident of Sanibel Island, died May 22, 2023, at Gulf Coast Medical Center in Fort Myers, Florida. She was 86.
Raised on Indian Creek Island in Miami Beach, Barbara enjoyed a lifelong love of the outdoors and natural sciences. During her youth, she was an accomplished golfer, equestrian and fisherwoman, having achieved numerous world record catches by the age of twenty. During World War II, Barbara and her father would often travel to Sanibel Island and Boca Grande to enjoy fishing and shelling. She also spent many summers marlin fishing in the Bahamas, where the family had a home in Cat Cay.
Barbara attended Briarcliff College in New York, and then the University of Miami, where she met her future husband Paul Reed Toomey. In 1959, the couple married in a Christmas Eve ceremony on Indian Creek Island (they remained married for 52 years until Reed’s passing in 2011). Soon after their wedding, Barbara attended the University of Boston while Reed completed his law degree at nearby Harvard University. She studied cartography, zoology (ichthyology) and, later in life, graduate studies in human osteology and paleontology.
Barbara had three sons, James (Jim), Christopher (Kitt) and Michael (Mike). Inspired to raise her children outside city environs, Barbara moved the family to Sanibel Island in the late 1960s. The family divided their time between Miami, Los Angeles and Sanibel to accommodate work schedules but, by the mid-1970s, Sanibel was their full-time home. She planned activities for her boys that tapped into their thirst for adventure such as scavenger hunts for seashells, insects, bones, rocks, invasive air potatoes – anything that could be adhered to with a hot glue gun. She had an affinity for turning chores into games and would not let them play truant to repair a two-stroke engine in the front yard. She was adamant that age and resources were not an obstacle to learning new skills. She also encouraged world travel for developing a sense of place, scale and culture.
On Sanibel, Barbara’s many volunteer and philanthropic endeavors included Care and Rehabilitation of Wildlife (CROW), the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation (SCCF), Sanibel Elementary School (The Sanibel School), Sanibel’s first fine arts committee, the inaugural Live Shelling Committee and the Sanibel Public Library. Her love of books led her to a 14 year position as a librarian. She preferred hands-on, behind-the-scenes roles and most often worked and contributed under the condition of anonymity.
Barbara served on the board of Knight-Ridder Newspapers – a fortune 500 company founded by her father and uncle; as well as a long tenure on the board of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (The Knight Foundation), based originally in Akron, Ohio and later Miami, Florida.
Upon retirement, Barbara began a new journey to pursue her lifelong passion for paleontology. This led her to unlikely locales on all seven continents. She eschewed the formality of fine resorts and dining, instead preferring safari tents and meals-ready-to-eat. Barbara worked closely with the Florida Museum of Natural History. For two decades, she led teams of students and scientists on expeditions to her ranch in the badlands of northwest Nebraska, unearthing vertebrate and invertebrate fossils for museum and university studies. She received the Katherine Palmer Award from the Paleontological Research Institution in 2018 for 30 years of collecting and curating hundreds of thousands of fossil specimens.
While struggling with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for over 20 years, she still found enjoyment in her jigsaw puzzles, trivia games, Jeopardy! and nightly dinners with friends, family, a key lime pie and a glass or two of chardonnay. She maintained her strong will and fighting spirit until the end. She will be greatly missed by all who loved her.
Barbara is survived byer three sons, daughter-in-law Lori (Bradenton, FL), granddaughter Kristen (Bradenton, FL), frand-godson Niles (Miami, FL), as well as her sisters, Marylyn "Dee" North (Hickory, NC), Marjorie Crane (Charlotte, NC) and Beverly Olson (Macon, GA), and many nieces and nephews.
No services are planned. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the University of Florida Foundation - Barbara and Reed Toomey Endowment in Invertebrate Paleontology (UFF 13610), sent in care of Roger Portell, Florida Museum of Natural History, PO Box 117800, Gainesville , FL 32611-7800.