Barbara van Dyke was born grew up in the hectic jazz and Prohibition era in the United States. Her father worked on Wall Street and helped to promote and publicize the pioneers of the computer age. By the age of seventeen Barbara had her own sports car, tried her hand at dirt track racing and learning to fly. There were visits to speakeasies and experiments making gin in the bathtub. Barbara's father died in his fifties shortly before the Wall Street crash. The future was precarious for Barbara's widowed mother and brother. For the first time Barbara was forced to think of someone other than herself. A chance meeting on a beach introduced her to the Oxford Group and her life was dramatically changed. She became secretary to Reverend Sam Shoemaker at Calvary Church in New York City when he was working in partnership with Frank Buchman. It was during this time that Alcoholics Anonymous was born. During the subsequent years she was part of a highly skilled team that supported Buchman's work, often cooking the meals that brought together people from diverse backgrounds. Despite being total opposites, her marriage to Alan Thornhill shortly after the war demonstrated that differences can be the very spice of friendship. Together they were constantly on the move but Barbara made a home wherever they were and continued with a spirit of radical hospitality. Over the years she helped to make Alan's work possible whether in the West End theatre or a country church in Sussex. After Alan' s death in 1988 she joined her daughter, Susan, and family in Richmond, Virginia, where she died.
