Barbara "Barb" Lynn Burnes Hester

Barbara “Barb” Lynn Burnes is the oldest of Helen Louise (Eesley) Burnes and Edwin William Burnes’s six daughters, and Chuck’s first cousin once removed on the paternal Eesley side. She married Phillip “Phil” Hester and took his surname.

Why she matters to this archive

Barb made photocopies of all of Grandpa Charles Leonard Eesley’s 1940s letters — the collection Roberta keeps in original form. The photocopy set is the form in which the letters are most likely to leave the immediate family-keeper layer for a reading or transcription pass: the originals can stay with Roberta in Worthington while a working copy circulates for any deciphering work. This is the path Roberta named in her June 2026 correspondence with Chuck: she planned to ask Barb about access to Barb’s copies rather than make a fresh set of copies from the brittle originals.

The 1940s Charles Leonard letter collection page on this archive — which currently describes the collection as held, not yet read, not yet digitized — would be the next layer of documents to land here if Barb’s photocopy set ever opens up to a transcription pass.

Details otherwise withheld — living.

Sources: Mary Eesley Bean, Eesley Family History (gives the September 13, 1950 birth date for Barbara Lynn Burnes); family-naming and letter-photocopy correction from Roberta Burnes, June 2026.