Barbara Osborn Sandford

Barbara Osborn Sandford was born February 24, 1929, and died May 4, 2026. She faced the Great Depression as a young child, experienced the consequences of a world war and confronted the scourge of racism in her teens, and came into adulthood during the changing times of the 50s. She attended Reed College and graduated from University of Washington before moving to San Francisco where she met her husband George and married in 1953. She invented many different jobs for herself and loved painting and making sets for community theaters, living with her family between Washington, Oregon, California and New Mexico and raising her children in the tumultuous 60s and 70s. After the death of her husband, Barbara went back to University of Washington to obtain an MA in social work and worked as a psychotherapist for the balance of her career. She enjoyed travel as the world opened up in the 80s and beyond, and she demonstrated her continuing curiosity and perseverance in her final years as she enjoyed illustrating books and volunteering and sought to adapt to the ages of technology and AI. She had a remarkable life of 97 years, but it was made most remarkable by her creativity, openness, humor, intellect and grace in embracing the experiences she was afforded and the people she met. She is preceded in death by her parents, Charles and Louise and all of her siblings Herb, Betty and Bill. She is survived by her children Clark (Jane), Jon (Mary), Jodi (Valter) and Sara; grandchildren Giorgio (Maria), Maggie (Pete), Andrew (Nikki), Alice (Jon Paul), Mark (Cass), Charlie (Bobbie) and Selina (Max); and great grandchildren Joele, Frances, Nico, Ruby, Oslo, Lidia, Pepper, Dara and Amelia, along with many beloved nephews and nieces and friends.

In lieu of flowers please consider a donation in Barbara’s memory to the Osborn Scholarship Fund at the Community Foundation for Southwest Washington (CFSWW). You can make a gift in honor of Barbara by clicking this link or going to cfsww.org/donate-to-funds and selecting the Osborn Scholarship, or mailing a check payable to CFSWW to 610 Esther St., Ste 201, Vancouver, WA 98660 and noting the name of the fund on the check.