Naoma Elizabeth Barth

Written March 1990 by David Victor Barth, her eldest brother

Naoma Elizabeth was the third and last child born to Vincent David Barth and Norma Bell on September 30, 1946 in Denver, Colorado. She had two older brothers, David Victor and Duncan Norman. At the time, the family lived at 445 Balsam Avenue in Lakewood, Colorado.

Naoma was the daughter that her mother had always wanted. When Norma found that her second son was born, she said, "Another damn boy!" Naoma was also special because she was the first daughter born to a Barth in two generations.

Naturally, Norma enjoyed her youngest child immensely. They formed a close relationship. Although Naoma felt that many duties that the two boys could have done were heaped upon her, her mother wanted her to have a full range of experience.

Around 1949, shortly after the family had moved to 68 W. Rathbone Road in Columbus, Ohio, three year old Naoma was dressed up in a cute Japanese kimono to have her portrait taken. Norma valued that photograph. (The boys didn’t get their pictures taken, perhaps as a considertion of the cost).

Around 1955 the family moved a few miles north to 139 Westview Avenue, still in Columbus, but closer to the Worthington schools the Barth children attended. This house was in a neighborhood that had more children their age. Naoma's older brother appreciated having a sister her age because she brought some attractive girls to the house to visit.

There was the time young Naoma was learning to cook. She was warming canned corn on the stove, forgot to watch the pan, and the corn was burned. The boys had a good laugh.

Naoma's eldest brother, David, felt sorry for her when her mother had her remove the collar from a yellow coat she was sewing and sew it back on more precisely.

When they were in their teens, Duncan and Naoma would search the house to find where the Christmas presents were stored, carefully open them to find out what every member of the family was getting, and then re-wrap them. The biggest problem in this folly was acting surprised on Christmas morning when they opened their gifts. Years later, when he learned of these pre-Christmas activities, Naoma's eldest brother, David, always the “goodie two-shoes,” was shocked.

Naoma formed a neighborhood club with some other girls, and sometimes they held meetings in the tool shed near the rear of the Barth lot. Several times David hid in the small attic of the tool shed to spy on the meetings. The greatest difficulty he had with these spy operations was not laughing out loud and giving himself away.

The girls in the club put on variety shows, usually in the Suder garage, next door to the Barth's house. The girls invited the neighbors and had a good time putting on skits, singing, dancing with the boys, and telling jokes.

Since the lot the house sat on was 400 feet deep, a large garden was put in to produce vegetables. Each Saturday, Vincent passed out duties to each child, handwritten on 3 by 5 inch cards. One Saturday, Naoma was assigned the task of hoeing the garden. She accidentally cut her barefoot toe with the hoe and was off of garden duty the rest of the Summer. The boys incorrectly suspected the wound was self-inflicted.

Easter was a special event for Naoma and her best friend, Barbara Suder, who lived next door. They would dress up in special outfits, get their pictures taken, and go to church.

When Naoma began dating, Vincent was concerned that the boy not take advantage of his daughter. One time when Naoma's date, Doug Smith, came by to pick her up, Vincent made his point by polishing a pistol in Doug's presence.

Naoma had better grades than the boys did in high school. After graduating from Worthington High, she attended Bowling Green University in northern Ohio.

After returning to Columbus, she got a job as a secretary for the medical school at Ohio State University. Naoma was often asked out by the young med students. One of them suggested a three-date scenario where she would sleep over at his apartment, and both of them would be fully dressed. For the second sleep-over, he would be naked and Naoma would be dressed. During the third date, both of them would be naked. Naoma politely declined and had a good laugh at his sophomoric approach.

At Ohio State, Naoma met her future husband, Michael Gron. They were married September 20, 1969 in a large wedding at the Methodist Church in Worthington, Ohio.

Before the wedding, her parents offered Naoma $2000 cash to have a quiet little wedding, but Naoma elected to go with the big one.

At the wedding, Naoma's brothers did a bad deed. Duncan got the idea of putting Limburger cheese on the radiator of the bride and groom's old 1953 Chevrolet. Duncan showed David how to grate the cheese into the radiator fins. After thoroughly treating the radiator and engine, Duncan still had most of a block of the smelly cheese left over, so he simply opened the driver's door and tossed it under the driver's seat, next to the heater outlet.

Mike's father drove the car to the reception, holding his head out the window to breathe. Later, Naoma and Mike thoroughly washed the engine and radiator, but for reasons unknown to them, the car still stunk. When they parked the car, they tried leaving the windows down to air it out, but then when they got in to drive it, it would be full of flies. They found that by driving fast with all the windows down, most of the flies would get sucked out of the car.

They tried leaving the windows closed when the car was parked, and boy, did it stink to high heaven when they climbed in on a hot summer day. A year after their wedding, Mike discovered the moldy cheese under the driver's seat, and after that the smell slowly subsided. They finally traded the Chevy. Apparently, neigher Mike nor Naoma ever had a desire to eat Limburger cheese after that episode.

David was remorseful over the incident, and some said the reason he never married, was out of fear of retaliation.

After their marriage, Naoma and Mike moved to New Jersey where Naoma got a job as a legal secretary in New York City, and Mike sold advertising for insurance companies.

They lived in an apartment for a few years to save money to buy a house. When they did buy, they bought a large five-bedroom, rambling, three story house in the exclusive area of Upper Montclair, New Jersey. They did an excellent job remodeling the house and after a few years sold it for a tidy profit.

The house they bought next was even larger and more run down than the first. It was a three-story, 24 room mansion that was built in 1864, when Lincoln was president. It cost them only $125,000 and was listed on the historic register.

One year Naoma's brothers each took a week vacation to help them refurbish the house, and a year later, David returned for a week to continue the work. Every room needed major work, and after four or five years of part-time work, only five rooms had been completed. However, they were show-places, beautifully remodeled.

When Naoma and Mike divorced in 1983, they sold the house to an investment banker for a quarter of a million dollars. The buyer put an additional half million dollars into the house to complete the project, and it was said that the house was a virtual show home, probably worth several million in 1990 dollars.

Naoma got a job working for the Lionel Corporation. This was the famous company that had made toy trains, then selling toys through retail outlets called "Lionel World." The company no longer manufactured toy trains, and suffered losses which forced personnel cutbacks. Naoma left employment at Lionel but continued friendships with several persons at the company, including the president.

Naoma moved to West Orange, New Jersey, to a rented room in an old mansion and got a job working as a secretary for Laura Ashley, Inc. in the company's U.S. headquarters at 1300 MacArthur Blvd., Mahwah, New Jersey.

Being intelligent, resourceful, and hard-working, Naoma was promoted to executive secretary for the president and chairman of North American Operations. Her duties were varied, including such odd things as spending a week baby sitting the president's 14 year old daughter while her parents were on vacation, getting tickets to a popular show at the last minute for the president's party (a impossible task for someone who lacked Naoma's resourcefulness and important contacts), and arranging meetings for the board of directors at various locations around the world.

While at Laura Ashley, Naoma dated, but by 1989, she was not serious about anyone, although there were several who were very interested in her.

November 2, 1991, Naoma married Stephen Bailiff Welk, a co-worker at Laura Ashley. They were married in a mansion of mutual friends in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. Although very fond of northern California, Steve came to appreciate the charm and character of the East Coast. Naoma and Steve bought a very large, 21 room house in South Orange, New Jersey. Steve worked for the Collegiate Division of Barnes and Noble Publishers.

The fortunes of Laura Ashley began to fade, and Naoma got a job as executive secretary for the vice president of human resources at the world headquarters of Master Card, located in a high rise on Central Park, Manhattan, New York. She began to move up in the corporation, skipping four levels in 1994 to become a manager of community relations. Naoma received company recognition and was interviewed by NBC News for her work setting up a reading program for disadvantaged children. Master Card volunteers spent their lunch hour reading to young kids.

The expense of getting a huge home in good shape required copious monetary outlays, but within a few years, the house was a show-place, bettering the homes Naoma had lived in previously.