Alice Barkus

On Thanksgiving Day 2025, the family, friends, and community suffered a blow. We lost Alice Malinda Townsley Barkus. She died quietly, surrounded by her family, with her husband holding her hand.

She did not live quietly. Far from it. She lived joyfully, generously, lovingly. Always with a smile to share and warmth for the people lucky enough to be near her.

Alice Malinda Townsley was born July 3, 1949, in Charleston, WV, to Harry and Juanita Townsley. She had two siblings, Harry M. Townsley and Corinne Townsley Crandall, both of whom survive her. She married Neal Barkus in December 1973. They remained deeply in love until the end.

Alice’s education never stopped, since a more voracious reader never existed. She graduated from George Washington High School on the Hill in Charleston, then from Denison University (BA) and Virginia Commonwealth University (MSW). But she would say her most important education came from the Charleston School of Ballet and Girl Scout Camp Little Notch in New York. At Little Notch she was hit by lightning. Then we really knew we had something special.

The list of her community endeavors is long. She was a docent for the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., and ran its student theater festival. She served multiple terms on the Board of the United Way of the Eastern Panhandle and the Board of the American Conservation Film Festival in Shepherdstown, WV. She was a founder of the successful Puzzlemania fundraiser for Friends of Music, also in Shepherdstown. She was a Board member, and later a volunteer with the Events Committee, for her beloved Potomac Valley Audubon Society. For all this, she was recognized as a Woman of Distinction by the Girl Scouts — Nation’s Capital.

Her joy was the home and garden that she and Neal built outside Shepherdstown, and the series of stray cats that showed up, sensing she would love them. She often spoke of the three months she and Neal spent in Florence, where she enjoyed being an Italian housewife, and her 50th wedding anniversary party, where she had most of her life friends together in the same room.

Her real legacy remains all the fine young women whom she mentored, including four nieces and three goddaughters, and for whom she continues to be an example.

She was a spectacular person.

Online condolences may be offered at www.BrownFuneralHomesWV.com.