48 | www. Char l es tonPhys i c i ans . com | www.Hea l thL i nksChar l es ton . com raised by the T-shirt sale went straight to the family to help with medical bills, groceries and whatever else they needed. Meal trains were organized, and extra blankets and cushions made their way to Mowery’s office for the hard days during chemotherapy. It helped Mowery and her youngest daughter, Grace, who had just entered her freshman year at Fort. “All my teachers were her friends,” she said. “If there was a day where I was quiet, they didn’t even question it. They might ask if my mom was OK, but they never pried. My mom could see all the love she had in her school family, and I felt it, too.” Mowery’s cancer reached remission after the first round of treatments, but that didn’t last. The cancer returned, and soon there was nothing else that could be done. Jones said her mother “was so positive even at the hardest times. We took her in a wheelchair to shop for Grace’s prom dress. She couldn’t really hold Callahann (Jones’ newborn daughter) but she’d lay beside her and they’d cuddle. It was so special.” Barbara Mowery – fierce and beloved military wife of almost 30 years, mother figure to anyone who needed her and proud grandmother to baby Callahann – lost her battle to ovarian cancer in January of 2022. The Fort Dorchester community again sprang into action, this time to care for Mowery’s family. There were more meal trains for Grace and her father. Grace’s high school soccer team had Mowery’s initials written in teal on their practice jerseys and dedicated the season to her. And then there was the funeral. Held on a teacher workday, the auditorium at Seacoast Church was full to bursting with the entire Fort Dorchester community. “It was the entire staff and a crazy amount of students,” Jones said. “There were students there who graduated with my husband, who’s a year older than me. People we didn’t even know she knew came. They wore their Wonder Woman T-shirts, too.” She added: “Toward the end, she’d ask us, ‘What legacy am I leaving? I didn’t do anything big with my life.’ But look at her funeral. Her legacy is a room full of a million stories of how she impacted people’s lives. Hers was a legacy of love, and what more can you ask for than that?”
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