| Barb R. Lichtenstein Bick |
2009
Barbara R. Bick, 83, who helped start the advocacy organization Friends of St. Elizabeths Hospital, which works to improve conditions and
obtain resources for the Anacostia hospital for the mentally ill, died April 3 at her home on Martha's Vineyard, Mass. She had amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
In the 1940s, Mrs. Bick was a youth columnist for a Communist Party paper in Northern California. A native of Washington, she had returned
to the District by the early 1960s and worked for Women Strike for Peace, an antiwar organization whose newsletter she edited. Later, she
became a fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal think tank. She also was a member of the District's Mental Health Planning
Council.
Barbara Ruth Lichtenstein was a 1943 graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School, and in 2003, she received a bachelor's degree from
Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. She moved to Martha's Vineyard from Washington in 2008.
She wrote a memoir, "Walking the Precipice: Witness to the Rise of the Taliban" (2008), about three trips she took to Afghanistan during the
late 1990s and early 2000s to work for women's rights.
Her marriage to Leon Bick ended in divorce.
Survivors include three children, Katherine Bick of Washington, David Randy Bick of Chevy Chase and Robert Bick of Vineyard Haven,
Mass.; and five grandchildren.
-- Lauren Wiseman
Barbara R. Bick, 83, who helped start the advocacy organization Friends of St. Elizabeths Hospital, which works to improve conditions and
obtain resources for the Anacostia hospital for the mentally ill, died April 3 at her home on Martha's Vineyard, Mass. She had amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
In the 1940s, Mrs. Bick was a youth columnist for a Communist Party paper in Northern California. A native of Washington, she had returned
to the District by the early 1960s and worked for Women Strike for Peace, an antiwar organization whose newsletter she edited. Later, she
became a fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal think tank. She also was a member of the District's Mental Health Planning
Council.
Barbara Ruth Lichtenstein was a 1943 graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School, and in 2003, she received a bachelor's degree from
Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. She moved to Martha's Vineyard from Washington in 2008.
She wrote a memoir, "Walking the Precipice: Witness to the Rise of the Taliban" (2008), about three trips she took to Afghanistan during the
late 1990s and early 2000s to work for women's rights.
Her marriage to Leon Bick ended in divorce.
Survivors include three children, Katherine Bick of Washington, David Randy Bick of Chevy Chase and Robert Bick of Vineyard Haven,
Mass.; and five grandchildren.
-- Lauren Wiseman