Barbara Hinksman came into the world on June 26, 1936, in Jersey City, New Jersey, the daughter of Robert Edward Hinksman and Francenia Washington. From those beginnings, she would build a life of extraordinary grace - one measured not in accolades, though she earned many, but in the countless lives she touched along the way.

She graduated from Atlantic City High School ('53) and went on to Hampton University ('57), where she earned her undergraduate degree before continuing her education all the way to a doctorate. While at Hampton, she was inducted into Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc and following her graduation, she became a Charter Member of the Theta Kappa Omega Chapter. Education was never simply something Barbara pursued; it was something she revered. And she carried that reverence into a lifelong calling as a teacher.

To call her "beloved" by her students would be true in the deepest, most literal sense of the word. Her students didn't simply remember her - they came back to her even into their adulthoods. Barbara had that rare and quiet gift of seeing a child fully. She taught lessons, yes, but more than that, she taught with the kind of love every child deserves to know. That was her real curriculum. That was her legacy.

Outside the classroom, her life was wonderfully full. Music was one of her great loves; she sang in a traveling choir and found joy in melodies of every kind. She was a gifted knitter, and the beautiful scarves and blankets she made are treasured still by family and friends - soft, tangible reminders of the hours she spent thinking of the people she loved while her hands worked. She volunteered with The Humane Society and Nuzzles & Co., where her enormous love of animals found its perfect home; she had a particular tenderness for creatures who needed someone to be kind to them.

She loved the beach and the mountains in equal measure - the rhythm of the ocean and the stillness of high places both seemed to speak to something in her. Her faith was a quiet, steady current that ran beneath everything she did. It wasn't something she announced or performed; it was simply who she was - a deep spiritual grounding that gave her an abiding peace, and that peace was something others could feel the moment they came near her.

There was a softness to Barbara's presence that drew people in. She had a way of making whoever she was with feel like the most important person in the room - not through grand gestures, but through her full attention, her genuine warmth, and the unhurried care she brought to every conversation. She listened the way few people listen anymore. She remembered the small things. She made the world feel a little gentler, a little kinder, simply by being in it.

She was warmth itself. She was kindness in motion. She was a soul of uncommon beauty, and the imprint she leaves behind on her students, on her family, on everyone lucky enough to have known her is one that will endure for generations.

Barbara is survived by her two daughters from her marriage to Charles Edward Perkins, Vannette Perkins MD and Maureen Perkins; her four grandchildren, Neesa, Roberto II, Micah (Margaret), and Alina; her sister, Gracie Jean Bailey; siblings Alice and Jeffrey Martin; her uncle, Lawrence Delano Hinksman; and her cousins Mark, Laurie, and Paul Hinksman. She was preceded in death by her beloved parents, Robert and Francenia, and her aunts, Ruth Washington and Pricilla (Washington) Martin.

She lived a beautiful life. She loved greatly and was greatly loved. May her memory be a blessing to all who were lucky enough to know her.