Sherman L. Barber | Bell Telephone worker, 90

Sherman L. Barber, 90, a retired officer of the Telephone Pioneers of America, died Sunday, Dec. 5, at Normandy Farms Estates, a retirement community in Blue Bell.

Mr. Barber grew up fishing and boating at the Jersey Shore. He graduated at 16 from Middle Township High School in Cape May Court House, where he played baseball and football. He worked briefly at Quaker City Ironworks in Philadelphia before becoming a repairman and installer for Bell Telephone Co. of Pennsylvania.

During World War II, he served in the Army Signal Corps in the South Pacific and played baseball for Army teams in Las Vegas.

After his discharge, he returned to Bell and played semipro baseball. He was his league's most valuable player in 1946 and was offered a chance to sign with the pros but decided he was too old, said his daughter, Joan Linton.

While working, Mr. Barber attended Drexel Institute of Technology at night and eventually became a Bell personnel supervisor. When he retired in 1976, his daughter said, 500 people attended his party, including one former coworker who flew in from Hawaii. In the 1970s, he was secretary-treasurer, a salaried position, with the Liberty Bell chapter of the Telephone Pioneers, a volunteer association.

Since 1947, Mr. Barber had been married to Mildred McKeon Barber; they had met in Wildwood Crest. After he retired, they moved from Lafayette Hill to Avalon, N.J. They moved to Blue Bell in 1999.

Mr. Barber was a tennis player and golfer, and a member of the Wildwood Country Club.

Besides his wife and daughter, he is survived by a son, David, and two grandchildren.

A memorial service will be at 1 p.m. Friday, Dec. 10, at the library at Normandy Farms Estates, 9000 Twin Silo Dr., Blue Bell.