Barbara Toborg, the driving force of the Broad Channel Historical Society

Rembering Barbara Toborg

By Margaret Wagner

Barbara Toborg to the Rescue after Hurricane Sandy. — Barbara Toborg to the Rescue

During the past few months I was able to get to know Barbara Toborg, she was much more than the woman at the Civic Meetings who sold the Broad Channel Calendars. Barbara & Fred called me to help them get their house sold. As I worked on the sale of their two homes on East 6th road in Broad Channel, I was also getting to know this lovely couple, and how they loved their Broad Channel home and community.

I recently joined the Broad Channel Historical Society, and Barbara was happy to show me some of the pictures from the collection. I told her I would be happy to help her move the collection from her house to the new historical room. So over the course of a few short months we worked on getting the new historical room ready. We would sit and go over how she acquired pictures, and how they would be copied and put into there proper binder according to year, and category. After looking over just one or two binders, I could tell the many hours that have been put into this collection over the years.

In these boxes, there were letters that people have written to Barbara over the years sharing their stories of their lives living in BC. Thanking her for allowing them to share their families history of a place they so loved.

It soon became very apparent to me that it was a labor of love, it wasn't just hours she put into this collection this was years and years of work.

One day I called Barbara to see if she wanted to go bring more material to the historical room. Sadly she informed me that she had cancer and would not be able to do any more work for the historical society. I told her how much I appreciated the collection and all the time she gave to it. She told me she knew it was in good hands. Two weeks later Barbara passed only 3 months after her beloved Fred died.

We called a meeting a few weeks ago of the Historical Society I'm sure she was smiling down on us, as we sat in our new room in the building at the BCAC Memorial Field. We sat around our new table & chairs and started a discussion of picking up where Barbara left off. She was right the Broad Channel Historical Society is in good hands.

Barbara Toborg

By Dan Guarino

By preserving and promoting Broad Channel's history, Barbara Toborg was one of those people who became part of it. Without the work of Barbara and many others, I don't know if we would have the richness of detail, the stories and people, that make up the very unique and fascinating story of our past. Because of them and her, the story of Broad Channel is spread out now for us and for future generations to discover, be proud of and delight in. When my late wife, Liz Guarino, and I moved in, now nearly forty years ago, Barbara and her husband Fred welcomed us into this community and we became friends. Through Barbara we were introduced to a history of this island town that we would never have guessed at!

Barbara at the 2018 Historical Day

It was through Barbara that our book, “Images of America: Broad Channel” came about. As head of the Broad Channel Historical Society, when Arcadia Publishing made contact about the possibility, Barbara reached out to my wife, then a freelance writer. Liz said she'd do it if I would, and so a proposal was written, then accepted and contracts were signed. After months of hard work, the first published history of Broad Channel was a cherished reality. Of course, who else could we ask to write a better forward, the very first words of the book, summing up BC, than Barbara. Years later that first book would lead to a second for me, on which I relied heavily on Barbara to maintain the accuracy of my work.

Barbara at the 2018 Historical Day

Over time we were happy to join in on Broad Channel Historical Days, with our book and my BC photos. Always with Barbara's support. I was honored to work with Barbara on many projects, including the BC calendar. Barbara also introduced many, many people to BC. Inquiries would come from all over, invitations to come and visit our island home were extended and Barbara welcomed many to our community. Many students, coming over all the way from Europe, couldn't not believe an amazing town like ours existed at all, let alone within New York City. Likewise she welcomed filmmakers and photographers and everyone who had an interest in getting to know BC. It was a thrill, through her, to see again and again the delight of discovery in their eyes.

And through her work preserving our living, rich and often surprising BC story, she has welcomed us into it and invited future generations to discover it for themselves. In weaving all those colorful strands that have bound our amazing Broad Channel past to our present, and our future, Barbara has become part of that story.

In that she will be always a part of our story, our town, our Broad Channel. What better way could there for our friend, our neighbor to be remembered?

Bless you, Barbara.

Dan Guarino