Daughter of Eric and Olive Stephens. With her two brothers she grew up on the family vineyard, Wyncroft, near Mt McKenzie in the Barossa Ranges, and lived a carefree outdoor life. She did most of her schooling by correspondence. During the war she trained as a nurse, completing her training at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. Before her marriage in 1950 she worked as an air hostess for two years. In 1968 she returned to nursing to support her three children, then worked for twelve years as a supervisor at the Julia Farr Centre.
Barbara started writing in about 1978. A lot of her inspiration is drawn from real life experiences. She is a member of the SA Writers' Centre, and was earlier a member of the Kensington & Norwood Writers. She reads at Friendly Street and belongs to a group called Passion of Poets. Her poems have won Beta Sigma Phi prizes on a number of occasions over the past fifteen years. She had ten stories read on the Channel 10 children's programme, Mulligrubs.
