Her Royal Family

Barbara with her mother after
being crowned Ladywood Queen.

     When Barbara Jean McClellan was a teenager and her old school closed, she found a place that felt like home at the Felician Sisters’ Ladywood High School. She was crowned Ladywood Queen her first semester, served as Vice President, and was part of Ladywood’s inaugural graduating class in 1953. Her time at Ladywood would have a big impact on her future as well.

Barbara visited the Dominican 

sisters' convent in Adrian

when she was considering 

becoming a nun.

    Though Barbara was being groomed to become a Dominican nun, her plans changed when she met a young Korean War veteran, the brother of one of her Ladywood classmates. Barbara married Ron Quinkert on April 24, 1954.

Barbara and Ron raised their
children in Livonia. Lynn
remembers a happy home, with the
kids singing to American Bandstand
and dancing their soul train lines
while mom and dad watched from
the sofa. "Mom loved music," Lynn

said, "My mom taught us how to 

harmonize. She just had an ear for it."

     “I think she knew when she met my dad...that her calling wasn’t there,” said Barbara’s daughter Lynn Ditri.

     You could say that Barbara found her true calling as a wife and mother. She and Ron went on to have six children, and were married for 54 years before Ron’s passing in 2008. And while Barbara didn’t go through with her plan to become a nun, her faith always remained an important part of her life.

     “She would get us all ready for church and we would make it to church every week,” Lynn remembered. Barbara continued to attend church services until a series of health challenges beset her.

Barbara working on the yearbook
"The Veil" at Ladywood.

     “By the grace of God she’s gotten through them all,” Lynn said, “Breast cancer, bladder cancer, melanoma – it was on her head, then traveled to the neck, and a couple years later it was on her lung – COPD, removal of part of her lung….She had to be strong to get through all of that.” 

Barbara's daughter, Lynn Ditri,
shows Ladywood's 1953 yearbook,
"The Veil," which her mother
helped produce.

     “She always went back to her faith,” Lynn added. “That’s where she drew her strength from.”

     Barbara would call on the Felicians again, first seeking care at Marywood Nursing Care Center, and then at Angela Hospice. Barbara spent her final days in the Angela Hospice Care Center, visited by her children and grandchildren, and being treated like the queen they knew she was.