Biography: Barbara Taylor Shults died on June 11, 2025, three days after her 96^th birthday, at Poplar Grove in Little Rock, Arkansas, where she had lived for three years after suffering a stroke.  Barbara was born on June 8, 1929, to Robert Lamar Taylor, Sr. and Hazel Thomas Taylor of Arcadia, Louisiana.  She grew up in Arcadia with a large extended family in the area.  When she was young, she and her older brother Bob and her parents spent most Sundays at a large family gathering at her grandmother’s house, and Barbara was close to and greatly influenced by her many cousins, aunts, and uncles.  Arcadia was a small town, but in the summers, downtime for her father’s cotton seed oil mill, Barbara and her family traveled throughout the United States, visiting national parks, cities, and everything in between.  Barbara left Arcadia to attend Mary Baldwin College for one year, then transferred to LSU, where she was an English major and a member of Delta Delta Delta sorority.  At LSU she met Robert Shults, whom she married after graduation in 1950.  They lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while Bob attended Harvard Law School and then moved to Little Rock in 1953, where Barbara lived for the rest of her life.

In Little Rock, Barbara quickly became involved in the community, joining St. Paul Methodist Church and the local chapter of PEO, a philanthropic organization emphasizing women’s education; she was active in both until her death.  At St. Paul, she had a variety of roles and responsibilities over the years.  In 1994, she became involved in a thirteen–year project to create stained-glass windows for the sanctuary, devoting countless hours to learning this new skill and helping transform the church’s worship space.  A bit later in her life, she decided to share her lifelong love of flowers with the St. Paul congregation by providing the church with floral arrangements, cutting and arranging flowers for two services every Sunday for over a dozen years.  She loved the task of finding flowers to share; many of her neighbors gave her permission to cut whatever she chose in their yards, and she carried her clippers in the car, always on the lookout for something beautiful, wherever and whenever it might appear.
Over her many years in PEO, Barbara held every possible office, some for more than one term. She recently was honored as a 75-year member! The friends in Chapter AZ were supportive in good times and bad, dear to her for all her years in Little Rock.  In 1953, Barbara also joined the Waverly Bridge Club, a wonderful group of friends who had raised families together on Waverly Place in Little Rock and who played bridge twice a month for over sixty years.

In 1958, Barbara was a founding member of the Women’s Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools, a leading organization publicly pushing for the reopening of the city’s high schools during the desegregation crisis.  She served as secretary of the WEC, which met frequently and worked tirelessly throughout 1958 and 1959 and remained an important civic organization until it disbanded in 1963.  Barbara and early members of the WEC spread the message of the importance of public schools and helped increase the numbers of the group from 48 founding members to a total of over 1600 members.  Throughout her life, Barbara was a strong supporter of public schools and education.  She helped open the school library in Jefferson Elementary School’s early days and then volunteered in the library for many years.  She also volunteered in the Head Start Program in Scott, Arkansas, from its inception.
Nature was an integral part of Barbara’s life.  She loved to spend time in the woods of Arkansas, and her favorite vacations were in the mountains, from the Rockies to the Smokies to the Ozarks.  She loved birds and kept a life list, which grew to notable length.  One of her greatest passions was gardening, and she enjoyed sharing the beauty of her flowers and yard with the church and her friends and family.  All year long, she brightened her home with fresh flower arrangements throughout.

As capable as she was on her own, Barbara always saw her most important role as a supportive one.  She found great satisfaction as a devoted wife to Robert for over sixty-eight years, encouraging him in all his endeavors, and as a loving mother to their children Steve and Gay.  Her home-cooked meals every day kept the family close, for the dinner table was always a place for both sharing events of the day and discussing larger ideas.  From managing the household to hosting parties to planning family trips, she worked quietly to make everything run smoothly.  When circumstances called for it, she took care of Robert’s parents, who loved her as a daughter, and a few years later, she cared for her own aging parents.  She loved and supported her six grandsons and the families they created, sometimes providing creative ways for them to spend time together. Barbara was also, to many fortunate people, the sort of friend who listens and helps without looking for recognition.  She seemed to start each day with the question, “What can I do to help?”  Her answers to that question were imaginative but also practical.  Ferrying a friend to doctors’ appointments, taking a pie to new neighbors, cleaning the house of a friend with a new baby, or sitting silently with a grieving friend were as natural to her as caring for her own family.

Barbara Shults is survived by son, Steve Shults (Murry Newbern) of Little Rock; daughter, Gay Shults MacQueen (Donald MacQueen) of Princeton, New Jersey; grandsons Ed MacQueen (Barbara Vega-Valles MacQueen); Ian MacQueen (Danielle Graham); Grant MacQueen (Jessica Peet MacQueen); Henry MacQueen (Catherine Charnov); Peter Shults (Amanda Orcutt); and John Shults (Rosemary Han Shults); and twenty-one great-grandchildren.

A service celebrating Barbara’s life will be held on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, at 10:00 a.m. at St. Paul United Methodist Church, 2223 Durwood Road, Little Rock, Arkansas 72207.  In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to St. Paul United Methodist Church, the Arkansas chapter of the National Audubon Society, the Arkansas chapter of the Nature Conservancy, or a charity of your choice.  Arrangements by Ruebel Funeral Home, Little Rock, Arkansas.