Barbara Sue Hawkins Moore, 84, of Fayetteville died September 19, 2026, in Fayetteville. She was born September 13, 1942, in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, to Oliver and Bernice Hawkins.
Barbara spent a lifetime making people feel like they belonged.
Barbara created room for the cousins to bond in the ways she hoped they would and in a few ways she probably did not. There were faces decorated while someone slept, dares involving electric fences, and one memorable treadmill mishap that ended with a badly skinned neck and Grandma coming through a locked door to take care of the culprit, even though he had been doing exactly what he had been told not to do.
As the oldest of eight children, she learned early what it meant to look out for others. Her childhood was not always easy, and her family moved often. Those experiences of being the new child, the new family, and the person trying to find her place helped shape something that became central to her life: she wanted people to feel welcomed, known, and included.
Barbara was persistent. She pursued her college degree over the course of 10 years, eventually becoming a teacher and then a librarian. She and David moved to Fayetteville in 1971 and, over the next 55 years, built a life rooted in family, faith, friendship, service, and community.
Over the years, she carried many names. She was a wife, Mom, sister, friend, librarian, Sunday school teacher, book clubber, quilter, mentor, hostess, and steady presence in the lives of more people than she probably ever realized. To three of her grandchildren she was Grandma. To two others she was Baba, a toddler’s interpretation of hearing the grown-ups call her Barbara, a name that stuck and became its own term of endearment.
Family was what she was proudest of. She loved watching her children and grandchildren grow, and she loved creating the traditions that held everyone together.
Her grandchildren said she made them feel special, important, valued, calm and peaceful. Their memories ranged from sitting in her lap as she brought Tikki Tikki Tembo to life, to Barbara driving to a state track meet when no one else could be there, to the way she listened and asked questions about whatever interested them, making each feel important. There was also the simple comfort of being cared for after a wasp sting, complete with a root beer. Small moments, perhaps, but together they explain why her grandchildren remember her as a place of comfort.
There was Cousin Camp, a tradition that began with her nieces and nephews and carried on with her grandchildren during Vacation Bible School. There were holidays full of familiar rituals, trips to Disney World, snow skiing, days at the lake, water-balloon fights that flooded the backyard and garden followed by root beer floats, and all the ordinary and extraordinary moments that became family history.
She gave them a place to make their own memories, while always making sure they knew someone was there when they needed her.
In many ways, the way Barbara loved her grandchildren was a reflection of the way she moved through the world: she made people feel important, she showed up, and she created spaces where people could belong to one another.
Friends and family say that no matter how difficult or complicated a season became, Barbara stayed. She offered love, encouragement, and the kind of loyalty that made people feel they did not have to face hard things alone.
Barbara also had a gift for making a family out of people who hadn’t started that way. Friends from every stage of her life and across generations, college students, young adults, international students, and Sunday schoolers found themselves welcomed into her home and her life. She wanted to know them, not casually, but individually. She wanted to know their families, their hopes, their struggles, and what was happening in their lives. Many of those relationships lasted for decades and extended to the next generation.
She drew some of those young adults so close that, in two cases, she eventually made them legally hers through marriage to her children.
She wanted people to feel welcome. More than that, she wanted them to feel that they belonged.
That instinct showed up everywhere. At First Baptist Church Fayetteville, Barbara could spot someone new from across the sanctuary during the welcome and make her way from her pew to introduce herself before the moment was over. She noticed people, and then she acted on it.
It showed up in her work as the librarian at Butterfield Trail Elementary, where she served for 23 years. It showed up in the children she taught and cared for, in the young people she and David mentored, in book club, in quilting, in friendships that stretched back to childhood, and in the rowdy company of fellow librarians who knew how to have a good time.
Barbara spent a lifetime creating a sense of belonging because, at the deepest level, she knew where she belonged. Her faith in her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, was the center of her life and the source of her hope. She believed she belonged to Him, and from that assurance came a remarkable capacity to welcome others, love them well, and make room for them in her home, her family, her church, and her life.
She and David were longtime members of First Baptist Church Fayetteville, where they poured themselves into Sunday school and into the lives of college students and young adults. Barbara served through Women on Mission, International Friends, Girls in Action, Acteens, mission trips, the church library, and as a youth and college ski-trip chaperone. She also served as state president of Women on Mission and helped create beloved traditions such as S’mores at the Moores, welcoming people of all ages.
Her faith was not simply something she professed. It was something she practiced through hospitality, encouragement, service, generosity, and the way she made room for people.
She could also be wonderfully mischievous. As the oldest sister, she liked to say she was “supervising” the younger children, which could include invoking Momma, sending them to get their own switch, or telling scary stories so convincingly that nobody could sleep afterward.
Barbara loved deeply, laughed often, stayed when things were hard, and showed up.
And through all of it was David.
To everyone else she had many names.
To David, she was Slim.
They were partners and sidekicks through the years, building a family, opening their home, mentoring young people, traveling, celebrating, serving their church, and creating the kind of life that naturally gathered people around them.
When asked what she wanted people to know about her, Barbara came back again and again to the same thing: the people she loved and the faith that gave her hope.
“I love my family. I love my friends. I want to see them all in heaven.”
That may be the clearest summary of Barbara’s life. She spent it loving people, drawing them close, making room for them, pointing them toward Jesus, and helping them know they belonged.
And the people who belonged to Barbara knew they were loved.
She graduated from Broxton High School and later earned her undergraduate degree from Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma, and a master’s degree from the University of Arkansas. Barbara spent 25 years as a school librarian, including 23 years at Butterfield Trail Elementary School.
On July 13, 1963, she married David Leslie Moore. They shared 63 years of marriage.
She is survived by her husband, David Leslie Moore; son Ben David Moore and his wife, Daphne; daughter Laura Beth Keese and her husband, Spencer; grandchildren Cooper Keese and his wife, Morgan; Jackson Keese and his wife, Ariana; Rachel Hensley and her husband, Russ; John David Moore, and Davis Moore; brothers Marshall Hawkins and Mickey Hawkins; and sister-in-law, Linda Hawkins.
She was preceded in death by her parents and siblings: Nancy Hawkins, Errol Hawkins, Larry Hawkins, Doug Hawkins, and Brenda Bogle.
A service celebrating Barbara’s life will be held at 12 p.m. Saturday, September 26, at First Baptist Church Fayetteville. The family will receive visitors at the church following the service.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to:
- First Baptist Church Fayetteville, 20 East Dickson Street, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701
- Fayetteville Public Education Foundation, 300 South Ray Avenue, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701
- The Wedington Fire Department, http://wedington.org/
To place an online tribute, please visit bernafuneralhomes.com.