Karen Barnes

Karen Kasarjian Barnes, 74, adored Armenian “queen” died Wednesday at home in Santa Fe. Loving and loved fiercely by her husband of 54 years, family, friends, & community. Nurse, devoted mom and grandma & joyful radically generous appreciator of songs, sunsets, meals & hugs. Karen lived from her heart – welcoming & honoring us all as family. Calling hrs 4-5pm 3/29, Service 5:15@ Rivera Funeral Home. Lifestory @ riverafamilyfuneralhome.com

Karen’s Lifestory

Karen Lucy Kasarjian Barnes (she/her), born 9.2.49 in Arlington, MA died on the equinox 3.20.24 at her home in NM from heart complications after a rich, loving 74 years on this earth. Her warmth, laughter, hugs, joy in simple things, tenacity for the causes she believed in, unique blend of traditional & trail-blazing, and radical generosity live on in all of us she shared her heart with. Nicknamed “PollyAnna” for her relentless optimism, saying to her kids “I wish I could sprinkle fairy dust & fix it” when they were hurting, she committed her life to caring for people & trying to alleviate suffering every day\.

• Daughter of Fred Kasarjian & Rose Patigian Kasarjian, beloved sister of Peter Kasarjian (Debbie), adored wife of 53 years to Wayne Barnes, Mom to Jules Patigian (Faye, Itai) & Erik Barnes (Emily)
• Nibblings (Nieces and Nephews): Kate Michand (Matt), Kate Kasarjian Murphy, Brian Kasarjian (Genevive), and Chris Hand (Eiko)
• Grandkids: Devin & Alex Michand; Rosa & Olivia Barnes
• Chosen granddaughters: Blanca, Yovanaa & Alex Ortiz

Firstborn in a tight-knit immigrant community in Greater Boston, Karen (called KK by family) was the little “Armenian princess”, passed from arm to arm among adoring aunties. She grew up in multi-lingual, multi-generational household of entrepreneurs, supporting the family business Van’s Market in Medford then cooking with her Dad at Lord Alden Restaurant in Plymouth. Through her childhood, she & Pete worked long hours with their parents & played hard with neighborhood kids. KK enjoyed huge birthday & holiday gatherings (in their new outfits from Filene’s Basement) with extended family including Boyajians, Hovanessians, Kerbeshians, & Kasarjians. While Pete & the cousins wrestled in a dark bedroom, the elder Karen “acted appropriately,” too dignified to get in the mix. With devoted & troublesome Auntie Celia as their second Mom, she & Pete enjoyed special meals with their Patigian grandparents in Jamaica Plain. Karen loved music & sang in choir & played piano for high school events, as well as joining church youth group. Growing up in a racially-mixed, urban community Karen felt at ease around different kinds of people & welcomed cultural diversity. Bright & personable, she got a full scholarship to the University of Rochester in 1967 to start a new chapter, away from the heavy family responsibility of her high school years.

At U of R, Karen started pre-med but found the rigor, competition, & the lack of women to be too much & pivoted to nursing. She made a close-knit group of brainy friends, rooted in the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity (where epic parties happened around disassembled motorcycles in the living room with science conversations abound). Here she met Wayne, who quickly became a serious boyfriend, best friend, & ultimately the love of her life. The guys from ADP (Hoss, Dave) & their partners stayed friends for decades after school. To her father’s chagrin, Mom brought Wayne home for a summer in Manomet & her protective parents housed him in the broiling barely-finished attic to haze this earnest “Oodar”. When Granny Zabel, a genocide survivor with limited English gleaned from night school & game shows, spoke up in her wisdom for Wayne, it was a done deal. They married on a scorching day in August 1970 in Manomet, cementing their life adventure together. “I never wanted to be bored”, Karen explained & for that goal, she married exceptionally well. With Wayne, came a very culturally different family who welcomed this “ethic” lady into the country fold: teaching her to drive the tractor at Floyd & Jane’s farm; visiting bluegrass festivals on the way to see Nanabelle & Gramps in Greene & hitting Uncle Walt’s antique auction; playing Whist with Sheila & John & enjoying Pontillo’s Pizza with Chris & Kate in Churchville. The Palmiter cousins loved her right from the start!  After she graduated in ’71, the lovebirds moved to Brookline, MA in one of Uncle Jack’s Beacon Street apartments while Wayne pursued his Masters at Northeastern & Karen started as an RN with the Boston Visting Nurses Association. Taking care of patients in Codman Square Dorchester, Karen polished her skills in public health & avoided getting bitten by dogs on home visits. She knew people everywhere, unphased when she & Wayne saw a play in Boston’s gritty “Combat Zone” & heard a voice calling from a dark alley “Hi nurse!”. Karen was quickly promoted to VNA supervisor, with her down to earth approach to the challenges of supervising brilliant & unruly nurses. She enjoyed her colleagues & the city life and took her time before moving towards motherhood, somewhat unusually for women of her generation.

In 1974, Karen was pregnant for the first time, with the extended family on both sides eagerly awaiting this grandchild. She carried the little boy to term but he was stillborn, a profound heartbreak in a time where people didn’t know how to tend this kind of grief. She never got to hold her firstborn, & her medical team urged her to get pregnant again ASAP before the fear took root. This loss was a quiet life-line for Karen, guiding her towards an abiding commitment to Hospice work & a deep gentleness for others facing loss. She & Wayne rarely missed a funeral for their loved ones, or an opportunity to provide support to folks in grief. Two healthy vibrant little beings came along after this, Jules in ’76 & Erik in ’79, to join the 2-family on Oriole St in West Roxbury. In this chapter, Karen volunteered with the Salvation Army in the South End, giving medical care to marginalized & mentally ill adults who would become Boston’s homeless people. (Baby Jules tagging along in their port-a-crib for baking & sex ed with “delinquent” teen girls at the Booth Home laid the groundwork for another generation of work in community health.)  Lifelong friendships began with Bas & Lyn Vanderzalm who shared this commitment to care of the poor & salt of the earth neighbors Joel & Maureen McCann, met through Ohrenburger preschool, that became family. The McCanns shared many adventures with the Barnes over raising kids together & beyond: from Disney World, Thanksgivings in Valdosta, road trips over 4 decades, & being their comfortable homebase in Boston for her many medical procedures with Southern hospitality & unfailing Irish love.  

In 1981, this consummate city-girl got dragged to a country life as Wayne gave up teaching to return to his family’s roots in farming, trying his hand at cranberries. Disoriented in a new landscape, Karen used their “Pick Your Own Blueberry” business as her social lifeline. Once the kids were ready for school (with Erik getting child care from his beloved Papa), she became the Director of the Carver VNA. Giving flu shots, helping elders transition home safely after the hospital stays, navigating complex dynamics with patients’ families, mentoring younger home care workers with kindness & humor from many walks of life. This part-time gig used her professional skills well and gave her time to be present for parenting & supporting the life of Blue Heron Farms. In these years, she was active in the Historical Society, present at every school play, speech tournament, & concert, co-led Girls Scouts & welcomed her kids’ friends with an open door. She filled the house with delicious Armenian food, lullabies about “Licky on the Cranberry Bog”, the warmest hugs, and Motown dance parties complete with deodorant can microphones.  When her agency merged with a larger health care organization, her community honored her as “the hidden gem of Carver” for many years of dedicated service. Karen was a nurse 24-7, answering medical questions from family at midnight, advocating for us in health crisises so we didn’t feel alone or powerless. She cherished the time her mother Rose helped out in the office administratively, in her puffy coat aka “the Purple Whirlwind”, beaming with pride at her daughter’s professional chops. Over little league games & pool parties, she forged lasting connections with the Denmans, Dugans, & Frates, original members of the “Plympton Overachievers Club”. Working daily on the bog, Joel & Tom (and their amazing families) got woven into the fabric of her life with their reliability, hard work, & humor. Karen built strong relationships with other growers & their families (including the Matthias & McCaffrey families), doing statewide advocacy including hosting an annual “Legislative Breakfast” to educate elected officials about farming needs, and missing a cameo when Martha Stewart came to film her holiday cooking special on the bog because she’d didn’t look the part of “farmer’s wife”. Karen reveled in hosting cozy holidays for the extended Kasarjian family with her swanky Xmas dishes & a buffet feast, living down the street from her brother Pete & Debbie & hosting Kate & Brian to play in the dusty barn, & having weekly dinner with her parents who drove over from Manomet on busy schoolnights. Proudly, Karen helped found Cranberry Hospice in the 80s, to support dying people & their families in a new way. For over 10 years, she co-organized the “Festival of Trees”, a holiday event that raised tens of thousands of dollars annually to support this essential care work. In a striking full circle, this agency cared for Karen’s Mom Rose beautifully at the end of her life. She also worked tirelessly for affordable housing, volunteering with Habitat & becoming buddies with the DuBuque & Merritt families, who devoted their lives to the well-being of vulnerable people in the community. For almost 25 years, this oak tree rooted deeply into her rural life: working hard, raising her kids & enjoying her marriage, giving & receiving so much love.

Life in Plympton ultimately felt too small for Karen as she headed towards retirement. The change came in baby steps—weekends in a sunny historic condo in Newport, Wayne bought on a Peter Pan lark. They’d go dancing, enjoy the kites on Ocean Drive, take out Becky’s BBQ, & crash Booth family gatherings at the clam dink until they were adopted into that crew. In 2003, they moved to RI full-time, renting out the Plympton house & the bog. Next, they set out for a year-long cross-country road trip, leaving their eldest in charge of managing the farm & finances with Wayne’s dreaded yellow legal pad & wooden billbox. In a year of mishaps & joys (the van Mo that died, meeting interesting people on back roads), their favorite spot by far, was Santa Fe, with its big sky high desert landscape, arts community, & rich cultural diversity. In 2004, they winter-rented an adorable historical adobe ranch from Rob & Jeff, a long-term gay couple of outrageous creative adventurers who became two of their dearest friends & shared their wide network of interesting mostly-retired friends. Karen & Wayne were hooked: the uprooted oak tree determinedly saying to her partner “Come with me or I’m going solo.” Their 19 years together in Santa Fe overflowed with meaningful friendships: playing cards & having potlucks with the crew of 8 (including Phyllis & Judge, Colleen & Shaan), bonding with quirky kind neighbors at El Dorado, hosting East Coast friends to drive the Turquoise Trail, taking the Model A to Dairy Queen for a Blizzard. The cultural vibrancy of Santa Fe made Karen feel at home & inspired her to ongoing learning. She loved New Mexican food & Mariachi bands, going to dances at the Pueblo, and connecting with the local Hispanic community (especially the dear Larrañaga family). Karen got passionate about unhoused families in Santa Fe & started volunteering with Adelante, joining with the equally ferocious Mimi Hatch to raise money to support equal access to education for all children. Through Adelante, Karen & Wayne met the Ortiz girls who over many years of dinners, conversations, & laughter became family too. Karen was terribly proud of these 3 resilient women growing up to be educated & kind, with so much to give back. She & Wayne travelled often to Santa Cruz, CA to be with Erik, Emily & the grandkids, staying at the Sea & Sand motel, lunching on the Capitola Wharf watching surfers & pelicans, picking strawberries, delighting in the sea otters at Elkhorn Slough, playing trash talking Canasta games, enjoying Erik’s solos at choir concerts, snuggling & dancing with Rosa & Olivia. She also loved making trip to her niece Kate in Austin, her chosen 3rd child, for holidays making sarma & cutout Xmas cookies, enjoying tacos & hours of “Oh Hell” & tech support with Matt, loving up Devin & Alex. Karen made a point to come back East to stay close with old friends & visit with Jules, Faye, Aleenah, & their crew in Boston for breakfast scrambles, games of “36” in honor of Rosie, cuddles, coffeetwist cones at Frosty Freez, & sweet conversations by the ocean, their shared favorite place.

This story ends much sooner than any of us imagined. Karen’s heart was so big & strong, we never imagined it could fail. As she has left her physical body behind, her loving spirit is palpable in the web of relationships she gifted us. 74 years of centering relationships: family, friends, chosen family, neighbors. As one friend wrote on FB, “Karen & Wayne never met anyone who they couldn’t befriend.” She loved hard & without holding back, all of us. That makes the gift of her life more radiant & the loss of her in this form deeply sorrowful.  

(Obituary written by Jules with input from Kate, Erik, & Wayne. Please forgive any omissions or errors, since we couldn’t ask the Armenian queen herself for her 2 cents.)

“Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds' wings.” ― Rumi