Barbara Clemens,      Researcher 2015

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During this first year as a Steinway Diary team member, Barbara Clemens has researched the earthquake that shook New York City in 1984, as well as the American Opera Company that operated from 1886-1887. The German-American experience holds a fascination for her because all of her ancestors arrived from Germany during the mid 1800s. Although her family settled in the Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin areas near Lake Michigan, and not New York City, she still finds linkages that bind them.

Clemens has a bachelors degree in art, in fine art, from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois. She is a retired Department of Army civilian, who over her 30 year career, worked at various posts and installations in Germany and the USA. A transfer to The Pentagon brought her to the Washington DC area. While still working, she was a docent at the National Museum of American History for five years (1994-1999), followed by six years as a docent at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (1999-2005), followed by nearly three years as an outside grounds volunteer at the US Botanic Garden (2006-2008).