Margaret Guss Barnaby Papers

Margaret Ada Guss was born in North Adams, Massachusetts on February 22, 1903 to Roland Wilkins Guss and Martha Cameron Guss. She grew up attending schools in Middleton, Massachusetts and Cincinnati, Ohio. She received an A.B. degree in English Literature from Oberlin College in 1925. During her time at Oberlin, she was active in the Oberlin Cosmopolitan Club and the United Church Choir.

After graduating from Oberlin College, Guss taught at the Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company in Bessemer, Alabama for two years. In 1927, she began her secretarial career. Guss returned to Oberlin to work as a secretary in the Admissions Office, then moved to Boston in 1929, where she was Secretary to the Editor of the Congregational Publishing Society. On July 30, 1934, she married her husband, George Stewart Barnaby, who owned a floral business. From 1937 until 1969, Margaret Guss Barnaby held positions at the Harvard School of Public Health. At Harvard, she worked as Secretary of the School (1937-56), Administrative Assistant to the Dean (1956-68), and Director of Alumni Affairs (1968-69). In recognition of her twenty-five years of service to the school, she was named the first honorary member of the Faculty of Harvard School of Public Health in June 1962, for which she received a certificate of recognition and a Harvard chair with an inscribed nameplate. From 1968 until her retirement a year later, she served part-time as Director of Alumni Affairs. Her roles at the Harvard School of Public Health included advising three deans and two acting deans, managing the school’s financial affairs, and advising faculty committees on academic policy. Her various roles allowed her to maintain relationships with Harvard alumni in the World Health Organization and she regularly corresponded with alumni located around the world.

In addition to her dedication to the Harvard School of Public Health, Barnaby was active in civic organizations in Brookline, Massachusetts. She and her husband were both elected Town Meeting Members. She was an officer of the Harvard Congregational Church Women’s Guild and a secretary of the Brookline Community Council Sub-Council on Health, World Service Community; she also volunteered in a hospital.

Following her retirement from the Harvard School of Public Health, she and her husband moved to Bridgton, Maine. They resided there during the spring and summer months and spent the fall and winter seasons in Green Valley, Arizona. Barnaby regularly volunteered in a library in Green Valley. She remained in Arizona after her husband’s death in 1985.

Margaret Guss Barnaby died in Tempe, Arizona on September 8, 1991.

Sources Consulted

Margaret Guss Barnaby student file (RG 28), Oberlin College Archives.

Note written by Allison Schmitt '21