Franklyn A. Barnaby, bagpiper at society galas

One day in the 1980s, Franklyn A. Barnaby and his bagpipes were on a double-decker bus, part of a wedding party heading along a busy Manhattan street, slowly.

"They got stuck in traffic," his wife, Adele, recalled.

Outfitted in Scottish ceremonial attire, Mr. Barnaby got off "and started to play in front of the bus."

And, so the family story went, she said, "all the cars stopped to let the bus go by."

Mr. Barnaby got back on the bus and, with more appreciation than usual, went on to play at the wedding event.

On Tuesday, Feb. 9, Mr. Barnaby, 83, of Medford, president of the historical society there in the late 1980s, died at the Medford Care Center from complications following a stroke.

Mr. Barnaby was a purchasing agent who helped outfit tanker ships for a former Manhattan firm and, in the late 1990s, retired from a similar responsibility at Keystone Shipping Co. in Bala Cynwyd.

It was in his free time on the pipes, his wife said, that he made his mark.

If music is inherited, it was from his father, Clarence, a vaudeville singer who, under the stage name Bert Weston, was in a Broadway musical, The Cradle Will Rock, produced by the Mercury Theatre and directed by Orson Welles in 1938.

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Franklyn Barnaby graduated from the former Haaren High School in Manhattan, enlisted in the Air Force, and served as a gunner on a B-26 Invader during the Korean conflict.

He studied drafting at a community college before entering shipping.

But from 1958, he trained himself on the bagpipes, and, his wife said, joined "an Irish Gaelic band and they formed the Glen Eagle Highland Pipe Band," based in Babylon, N.Y.

With that group, his wife said, he played at a Manhattan event for Princess Margaret, sister of Queen Elizabeth II, in a year lost to memory.

On his own, she said, he played at another Manhattan event for Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was Britain's last viceroy in India.

In 1976, the Barnabys moved to Medford, but he continued to perform with the Glen Eagle group.

From the 1970s into the 1990s, "he used to play at society events in Manhattan for the St. Andrew's Society," a charitable organization.

An elder in the Mayflower Society of New Jersey, he also was a Mason, and a member of the American Legion and the Odd Fellows Association.

He was a eucharistic minister for St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Medford.

Besides his wife, he is survived by son Douglas, daughter Heather Rodden, and two grandchildren.

A viewing was set from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Friday, Feb. 12, at the Bradley & Stow Funeral Home, 127 Medford-Mount Holly Rd., Medford, before an 11 a.m. Funeral Mass at St. Peter's Episcopal Church, 1 Hartford Rd., Medford, N.J. 08055, followed by interment at the Brig. Gen. William C. Doyle Veterans Memorial Cemetery, Wrightstown.

Donations may be sent to the church at the above address.

Condolences may be offered to the family at www.bradleystow.com.

wnaedele@phillynews.com

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