Barbara Joan Banik

Barbara Joan Banik was born on September 30, 1928 in Grand Forks, North Dakota to Adolf and Josephine (Bruzek) Banik. She graduated as a Registered Nurse in the Cadet Nurse Corps, from the University Minnesota, in 1946. Then, she worked at the VA and Cook County Hospital, as well as the University of Illinois Research and Education Department. She married Henry E. Syzek on October 27, 1951; they had seven children together, all of whom are or were in various occupations. In 1973 she graduated from Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee, with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Sociology; and in 1974 she graduated from the University of Kentucky with an master’s degree in nursing. Barbara worked at Otterbein Nursing Home in Lebanon, Ohio. She was also a Nursing Instructor at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. Henry and Barbara divorced in 1978; he is now deceased.

Barbara earned her Ph.D. in Nursing from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio on May 21, 1986. She started the first Adult Day Health Center in Great Barrington, Western Massachusetts. She was certified as a Clinical Specialist in Gerontological Nursing. She served on the Nursing faculty at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, teaching graduate and undergraduate nursing and medical students, until 1994. Since 1997, she worked as Clinical Nurse Specialist & since 1999 as a Geriatric Resource Nurse on the staff of the Medical Behavioral Unit, at the Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield, Massachusetts, where she received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Nursing, in June 1999. She also worked at the Chicopee Senior Center Nursing Clinic, and as Clinical Nurse Specialist at Jewish Nursing Home in Longmeadow. Barbara retired from Nursing in 2006, at 77 years of age, from Cooley-Dickinson in Northampton, Massachusetts. She married Ed Toole on December 16, 2016 after a long partnership; he retired from the CIA and is deceased. She received the Florence Nightingale Award for Nursing in August 2022.

Barbara passed away peacefully on Monday, January 16, 2023, while in the care of her daughter Lisa and son-in-law Garry Schevetto, at their residence in Chandler, Oklahoma. Arrangements are under the direction of Lehman Funeral Home of Wellston.

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Barbara Joan Banik, please visit our floral store.