Wilhelmina “Willie” C. Barnett

Wilhelmina “Willie” C. Barnett, of Kansas City, Missouri passed away October 26, 2025, at Bishop Spencer Place. A private graveside remembrance will be held. The family requests no flowers and suggests memorial contributions be made to Kitty Cat Connection, https://checkout.shelterluv.com/donate/kcc or Kitty Cat Connection, PO Box 902085, Kansas City, Missouri 64190 or an animal rescue of your choice.

Wilhelmina was the first child born to John Wilhelm Freytag and Emma (Bischoff), on February 21, 1928, in Joplin, Missouri. She and her family came to Kansas City, Missouri during the early 1930s. She worked hard at school, and earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Education from Central Missouri State University by her early twenties. She held a major in English and a minor in Social Studies. She earned her Master’s Degree from UMKC by her late twenties. Willie taught English, Speech and Drama for several school districts, including Sugar Creek, Kansas City, Missouri and Independence throughout her life. She taught thirty years full time in public education, and four and a half years part time for the junior college, before retiring in 1987. Wilhelmina met Richard F. Barnett while teaching at Van Horn High School. They were married in 1960 at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Independence. Four years later, they had Sara, their daughter.

As a child, Wilhelmina was often put in charge of younger children when staying at the Day Nursery (part of the American Baptist Church) while her parents worked. She learned early how to guide and teach. She sang to them and created stories to entertain them. As a teenager, she worked at the Baptist Book Store downtown. She enjoyed that job immensely, appreciating the people she worked with and for. As a girl she liked to go into Grace and Holy Trinity (right next to her grade school) to sit amidst the quiet beauty of the church, and to talk with the priests who were always kind to her.

Wilhelmina was a loving, determined person. She was a survivor of the Depression and tried to correct injustices throughout her life. She was a person who spoke out to correct bad conditions as she discovered them. She helped improve situations for various persons in the same nursing home where her mother once lived. She helped animals in need, including the pets she and the family took in over the years which included Flippi, McKenzie, Molly and her two feral charges, later in life. She felt deeply for the people and things she cared about. Willie had a good sense of literature and the arts, and students loved the plays she staged in her English classes. She was talented in storytelling and could create children’s tales at the spur of a moment. She gave the sense of being strong, smart, kind and courageous when she needed to be.

She had a warrior spirit in her pretty, petite frame. One of her favorite childhood hymn was “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. Her daughter could sing it word for word by age two. Willie was quick to quote comforting passages during dark moments. Her favorite Bible passages were Psalms 23 and 1st Corinthians 13.

Willie was preceded in death by her parents; husband Richard, who passed away in 1996; brother John Freytag (2015) and wife Cathy (2024). She is survived by her daughter Sara Reese and husband Hank; nieces Jackie Landers (Frankie); and Gwen Zumwalt (Brian); and great nieces Rachel, Elaine, and Kera.

Willie was a soul who was loved dearly and will be missed greatly by her daughter and the many that know her.

“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” – TS Eliot