Barbara Lou Koops Armstrong was born January 8, 1928 in Cannonsburg, Michigan to Guy and Marion Eva Young Koops. According to family lore, the first few days of January that year were busy days for the family doctor. He had delivered a number of babies in Rockford on January 5th, 6th and 7th and the 8th was a cold and snowy Michigan winter day. The doctor arrived at the far away farmhouse, warmed himself by the potbelly stove and examined Marion, only to find that it wasn’t quite time to deliver the baby. So, he sat down to wait... and promptly fell asleep. When the time came, the family was unable to wake him up and Barbara was born while the good doctor slept in the chair.
When Barbara was two, her family moved to Rockford, where she lived most of her life. According to a history written by her son, David, she was a happy and mischievous child. One of her earliest memories was hearing her father talk about a car tire “blowing out.” Barbara imagined what a loud “bang” that would be, so she got some nails, put them in the street and then hid behind a hedge to watch and listen. Cars drove over the nails, but nothing happened. She put out more nails. Nothing. Then… unfortunately for Barbara... a milkman noticed the little girl running in and out of the street. He stopped his truck and found the nails. Then he found Barbara behind the hedge and “bawled her out good.”
Barbara grew up during the depression and remembered the hardships her family faced. Her mother went to work to make ends meet when Barbara was six and Barbara spent many hours alone or with her older brother, Roger. During this time, she developed a great love for reading. She told her family that she must have read every book in the public library.
In the sixth grade, a new boy with reddish hair was given the desk right in front of her. He had a nice smile and could run so fast that Barbara could never catch him… at first. But she tried. When he worked at a gas station, she would flatten her bicycle tires so that he would re–inflate them. They wound up spending the next several years going to football games and proms and they graduated from high school together. They were apart for a few years after that, but when the boy moved back from Arizona to Chicago to attend chiropractic school, they rekindled their romance... and that’s when Barbara finally caught him. On May 15, 1950, Dick Armstrong and Barbara Koops were married in the Rockford Methodist Church. They moved to Chicago, where Dick completed his final year of college.
Dick was a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Barbara was baptized into the Church in February of 1952. In August of that year, their first son, Allen, was born with severe medical complications. He endured a three hour operation on the day of his birth, followed by a second, longer operation within the week. On September 8, however, during a third operation, Allen died. The family was given special permission to attend the temple, even though Barbara had not been a member of the Church for the usual one-year waiting period, and on October 6, 1952, Barbara, Dick and Alan were sealed together as a family for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake Temple. These eternal bonds as husband and wife, and father and mother, gave Barbara and Dick great comfort and peace during the trying times that would follow.
One month later, in November 1952, Dick was drafted into the Army to fight in the Korean conflict. He traveled to basic training at Camp Atterbury in Indiana and Barbara followed, getting a job in the camp office even though wives were discouraged from following their husbands to training. Dick was sent to the front lines in Korea and Barbara returned to Grand Rapids, working, serving in church callings and praying until Dick returned home and opened a chiropractic office there.
On August 24, 1955 their second son, Christopher Jay was born, followed by David Lee on April 3, 1959. Richard Allen (named after his father and his older brother) filled out the family on August 12, 1963, right after Dick closed his chiropractic office to open Wolverine Dispatch.
In 1961, Barbara hurt her back, an injury that affected her for the remainder of her life. There are several versions of what happened. She told some people that she was walking down the stairs with a load of laundry and felt a pain. Chris remembers that she was coming down the stairs to get him. David remembers hearing it was to get him. The pain became so severe that she underwent surgery to repair a slipped disk. But the operation was not successful, so a second operation was performed. A third operation the next year uncovered a staph infection from the second operation, and that kept her in the hospital for a month. Six months later, a metal rod was put in her back, but it caused an allergic reaction and was removed a year later. After five unsuccessful operations, Barbara determined that she would simply live with her discomfort and did so with grace throughout the remainder of her life. No matter the event, Barbara would be remembered sitting in the center of the activity with the brightest smile in the room.
Barbara loved serving in the church. She loved teaching the children in Primary; she loved working in the library and she loved being a family history instructor. Like her sister-in-law Pauline Streeter, Barbara loved searching family records and bringing the blessings of eternity to her ancestors. She and Dick would often be seen together at Church activities in Grand Rapids, Belding and Greenville, where Barbara supported Dick as he served as bishop. Her family understood the importance of Barbara’s faith to her and the effect it had upon her life, describing her in her obituary as “a godly wife, mother and grandmother.”
But for all of the loves Barbara had in her life… love of her husband, her family, Church, serving others, there are two loves that cannot be ignored. First, Barbara loved her music. Barbara was a fan of Barbra… Streisand, that is. And Garth Brooks. And Michael Bauble. She had a collection of about 150 CD’s that she would listen to, in order, from start to finish, and then start again. Chris remembers when this was a collection of 8–Track tapes. “The louder the better,” she would say. Many times, people would come to the door, hear the loud music and knock for minutes before Barbara would hear them and come to answer.
Second, Barbara loved her sweets. Especially chocolate. And ice cream. And cookies. When Dick worked at a soda fountain in high school, he would get in trouble for giving Barbara extra ice cream when she came in. Friends would tell her that she was “sweet as sugar” because sweets were all she liked to eat. The kids always knew that chocolate made the best Christmas or birthday gift.
Dick sold Wolverine Dispatch in 1997 and he and Barbara settled down to spend their retirement years together, splitting their time between a new house on Riverwoods in Rockford and a condo in Florida. While Florida was warm and beautiful in the wintertime, Barbara was always excited to come back to Michigan to be with her family, especially her grandchildren. Barbara and Dick celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2000 with a big event where family and friends whose lives they had touched, came to celebrate.
When Dick passed away in 2008, Barbara moved back to Rockford for good, living in the Riverwoods home, where she was joined by her granddaughter Sarah and family. Barbara loved the noise and the activity that surrounded her. She enjoyed her music. Chris bought her an iPod. David took her to see Neil Diamond at Van Andel Arena where she sang along to all of the songs. She also passed on her love of sweets to her great-granddaughter Mackenna. You see, to childproof a house, you move everything up and out of reach, but to Barb–proof a house, you move everything lower, so Barbara could get to it. Which is how Mackenna found the secret cookie stash. Mackenna, at two years old however, was smart enough to know that if she took two cookies, one for herself and one for Grandma Barb, she would never get in trouble. Even right before dinnertime.
While not as mobile as she once was, Barbara loved the friends who would call or drop in to visit, take her to lunch and keep her up-to-date on what was happening in the world. And her friends loved her, too. One said, “Barb was so inspiring in the way she lived her life. I want to be more kind, to be of more service and to better follow her example.”
In August of this year, Barbara’s health began to deteriorate and she moved to Saint Mary’s Rehabilitation Center, where she passed away quietly on October 8, 2011, minutes after her son, Richard, came to say goodbye. Barbara is survived by her children, Christopher and Celeste Armstrong of Rockford, David and Julie Armstrong of Grandville and Richard and Merrill Armstrong of Rockford; 12 grandchildren; 3 great-grandchildren; and her husband’s aunt, Byrdie Sarkees. She was preceded in death by her husband, Richard R. Armstrong, her son, Allen, her daughter-in-law, Pamela Armstrong, her brother, Roger Koops and her sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Pauline and Harold Streeter.
