Some Biographical Material

Somebody is writing a book about my disease - Wegener's Granulomatosis - my attempts to keep alive with horseback riding and therapy, and my life in general. The book is to be called 'Riding for my Life'. Here's an introductory piece sent to the biographer:

 

My name is Barbara Louise Napier my maiden name was Beaumont. I was born in San Jose California in 1953. I was 60 a couple of weeks ago but I feel 30 most of the time. I am 5'9", 126lbs with very thick light brown hair. Good thing I have so much hair because when I lost the side of my head, I had enough to cover the bare spot. I moved almost every year because my father was a scientist for IBM. My main home was the Bay Area from San Francisco to Santa Cruz. I spent elementary school in England and a year in Spain in 1963. I married at 21 to my high school jerk. I don't know how women let themselves believe that they aren't worth anything and how these men can get that idea into their heads. I had a University education and that bothered him. His dream was to be a drug dealer when he grew up. I worked and supported the family. I have already written about him elsewhere so I won't go into any more detail. He was never home and always out with other women that is why it was a surprise when I found out that I was pregnant. I had a little girl Jessica Erin and the two of us lived happily at home alone. Three years later I was pregnant again, another little girl, Amber Nicole. I had not seen my husband in a week or so when I had her and the house was full of druggies and young women so I hid with my girls in the back room of the house. I told him they had to leave. They didn't, so when my youngest daughter was three weeks old I moved in with my parents and that is where I stayed until I moved here. I was a psychology major specializing in Learning Disabilities, and had then gone to work in a school with aphasic preschoolers. I was doing that for seven years. I started to train dogs for the deaf and before I finished I moved to this little village in Spain. I didn't speak the language and I had two tiny children and a Great Dane. My parents owned a farm here so I had a roof over my head and the rest was up to me but it was worth it to get away from that horrible man, not that I saw him much. We had the best life you could imagine. Everything was very primitive. You will read about that on my blogs.
I met an English Blue Blooded man, his parents came here at the same time as mine and there were not many young people. We got together, married in Gibraltar, had a boy, Daniel William in 1985, and have had a fantastic relationship ever since. The girls took his name, they were never officially adopted because the father wouldn't allow it but even their passports are in the name of Napier, all of their school stuff also. Everything they own is in the name of Napier. My husband's name is Lenox Napier, the girls call him Daddy. They met their biological father when they were about nine. Hated him and have never spoken of him again. Lenox is their daddy for sure and they love him to pieces. I bought the farm adjoining my parents so the children could just run from one place to the other with no traffic or anything. We lived in that house until Lenox' father died and since his house was so much bigger and had a pool we thought it wise to move there. It was a move of less than a kilometre. I was forced to let my brothers live in my house with no rent eventually I had to give it to the older one to keep peace in the family but if it was ever sold he would take out his money and me mine and then we would share the profit. That didn't happen. He recently sold the house for a fortune and I didn't get a penny. When my mother was mentally ill the two brothers got her to change the will and keep me and my sister (the only family who stayed in America) out. They now own everything and won't even pay back the loans that we gave them to get through the bad times. My older brother is dying so everything will go to my little brother who is a shaven headed tattooed biker who wants to kill us as if it was us that stole the entire inheritance from them!
Enough for now. Lots of this is in my other stuff so I don't want to repeat too much. We are no longer rich we are poor and had our business taken from us by our accountant and the sales managers some time ago. They owe us a fortune and now they want to take us to court for calling them names on the internet. I guess I am starting to get mad. I better stop. We will talk later. Let me know what kind of thing you want.

Much Later. Barbara died on Thursday June 4th 2014.

She died after a long illness, bravely borne. I've posted something on Spanish Shilling. As far as her siblings go, there's a little more to add here. The oldest was her sister, Susanne, who has never been in contact with me - not once - in my 31 years of relationship with Barbara. I expect she is not worth knowing. The older brother Jim was a psychopath. He was in Mojácar in the seventies and was actually deported for ten years for drunkenness, drugs and house-breaking. His misbehaviour caused the parents to split, with Barbara, a young woman of 19, looking after the younger brother Mike for a year and a half in California. Jim never worked in his life and usually lived off women he seduced (or off his mother's pension, if times were bad). He took over Barbara's stables on the family compound and turned them into his own property. He sold Barbara's cortijo for a fortune (we had been forced to sell it to him at 'cost' to keep the family peace). He died early 2014. The younger adopted brother, who - with the help of a local abogada - ended up as the owner of the entire family estate (an estate with several houses on it located above the village which looks over the Mojácar cemetery) hasn't spoken to me in years and couldn't even bother to make it to Barbara's funeral.
What revolting people!