Contributed photo
Barbara Bank Fussiner was born on August 3, 1928, in New York City, and spent her childhood in the Bronx, Manhattan, Los Angeles, and Glencoe, Illinois. She passed away on February 16th, 2023.
She started at Antioch College at 17 years of age. A lifelong lover of literature, film and theatre, she began college life as an English major and editor of the literary magazine. She would later switch to Early Childhood Education.
Leaving Antioch, she continued her studies at Sarah Lawrence and NYU, and enjoyed telling people that it took her eleven years to finish her undergraduate degree. She later gained a Masters from what was then called SCSC. She was both brilliant and highly disorganized. A favorite story was that a child at her school once referred to her as Mrs. Confuse-ner; she thought that was appropriate.
Barbara married the painter Howard Fussiner in 1963, and they had three sons: David (1964-’66), Saul, and Benjamin. Barbara and Howard’s closest friend, through much of their adult lives, was the noted poet Denise Levertov, whom they called “Dennie,” until Dennie’s death in 1997. Two of Dennie’s poems (“At David’s Grave” and “Despair”) concern the death of Barbara and Howard’s son David, who is also referred to in the poem “A Time Past.”
In the late 1950s, Barbara worked for Anna Freud as a teacher of blind children in London. The group of people she met there, largely from a list of friends of Dennie, remained lifelong friends and inspired Barbara to be a frequent visitor to London in specific, and Europe in general, for the rest of her life.
In 1971, Barbara founded The Children’s Preschool, a pre‑K school that still exists in New Haven, and she was the Director of that school from 1975 through 1990. The core of the staff that she led remained at the school for multiple decades, and several still work there to this day. Many of Barbara’s closest friends were colleagues who worked alongside her at the school. She also served on the School Readiness Council and the Board of the Elizabeth Celotto Daycare Center, and did a lot of consulting work in early childhood education. She was a mentor for a large number of younger educators throughout the state.
Barbara spent most of the summers of her adult life on the island of Deer Isle, off the coast of Maine, where she had many friends. She had a lifelong interest in great stories and especially loved narratives involving marvelous coincidences.
She is survived by her sons Saul and Benjamin, two daughters-in-law, Carolyn and Sondra, and four grandchildren: Maya, Angus, Ziggy, and Marsden. She is also survived by her brother Michael Bank of Berkeley, California, her sister-in-law Adrianne Bank, her nieces Amy Bank and Diana Alves de Lima, and her nephew David Bank, and their families. She was predeceased by her husband Howard and her son David Isaac.
Donations can be made to the Children’s Preschool, 608 Whitney Avenue, New Haven, CT, 06511.