Barbara Masters Obituary
March 27, 1935 – June 12, 2017
It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved mother, aunt, cousin, and friend. Barbara Ellen Masters (Née Hochman) was born March 27, 1935 in the Bronx, New York, to Leah and William Hochman. Her father passed away in 1946, and two years later her mother remarried and moved to Riverside, CA. Barbara stayed behind with family in New York and followed by train by herself in February 1949, once her parents were settled. While traveling across country at age 13, the train became snowbound in Rollins, WY and she and other passengers had to be rescued by the Red Cross, which caused quite a scare.
Barbara attended Poly High School in Riverside where she was an outstanding student and a leader of the Debate Team. After graduating, she attended UC Berkeley and graduated with a BA in Political Science in 1956 and a BA in Math in 1958. After receiving her degrees, she started working at Berkeley Lawrence National Laboratory as a Computer Programmer.
Barbara married Donald Steinberg in 1958 whom she met in college. They moved to Pasadena in October 1963 where they both worked for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). They had one daughter, Wendy, and divorced in 1967. Barbara moved to Altadena in the early 1970’s where she bought her first home.
Barbara met George Masters at JPL early in her career where they developed a lifelong friendship. They married on March 10, 1984 and had a wonderful life together, working, traveling, and spending time with family and friends. George passed away in 1995.
A pioneer in her field, Barbara was methodical, had an incredible attention to detail and learned several computer programming languages during her career at JPL. She worked on numerous projects, most notably and proudly the Pioneer, Voyager and Galileo spacecraft missions. Her name was even sent to Mars on a microchip on an early spacecraft before she retired in 1997.
Barbara was a lifelong learner and had great book collections. She was interested in archeology, art, culture, music, travel, geneology, language, and nature. After retirement, she stayed active traveling, volunteering, exercising, studying Hebrew, organizing the library book sale, and hosting family at holidays. She also continued to program computers for fun and created several early computer games.
Barbara appreciated the arts and music, especially classical and folk music. She played both piano and guitar, sang in the choirs at JPL and Neighborhood Church, and played in the Bell Choir at Neighborhood Church for several years.
Barbara’s interest in visiting other places and cultures took her all over the country and the world, where she traveled by herself and with friends, returning with great tales of her fantastic adventures. Each summer while her daughter was growing up, Barbara took her camping in the high sierras with friends, hiking, swimming, and singing around the campfire, which instilled in her daugher a lifelong love of nature.
Barbara adored cats and always had between 2-6 rescued cats at any given time, plus the variety of small pets her daughter cared for while growing up. She also had rescued a few dogs along the way.
Barbara was a warm, thoughtful, kind, and generous person who loved conversation, had a genuine interest in people and easily made and kept good friends. She also had a good sense of humor and it was the simple things that brought a big smile to her face. She would spontaneously break out into quirky songs which made others laugh. Many wonderful memories with family and friends will be cherished always.
Barbara was a member of Neighborhood Church, the Altadena Public Library, the Athenaeum, the Democratic Party and the Pasadena Area Liberal Arts Center.
She is survived by her daughter, several cousins, nieces and nephews, and her 2 beloved cats Charlie and Marguerite. She is predeceased by her husband, George Masters. She was an amazing person and is missed greatly.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to any of the following:
The Yggdrasil Urban Wildlife Rescue Center, yuwr.org
The Wildlife Waystation, http://wildlifewaystation.org
Pasadena Humane Society, http://pasadenahumane.org
D.E.L.T.A. Rescue, http://deltarescue.org
Barbara Masters (1935 - 2017) 