TRIBUTE TO THE LATE MRS (PROF.) ANNA REYNOLDS BARNES
BY
HUSBAND
EDWIN PHILIP DANIELS BARNES

The Beginning
It all started during the 1967/1968 academic year when you entered the University of Ghana as a student in the Faculty of Agriculture. I was then in my third year as a Chemistry student. I was a member of the University of Ghana basketball team and you, having been a fantastic athlete at Wesley Girls High School, continued with her activities at the University. A lecturer at the Crops Science Department of the Faculty of Agriculture, Dr. Suppiah Sinnadurai, happened to be helping with the coaching of the basketball team. If my memory does not fail me, it was at a social function organized by Dr. Sinnadurai to which he invited some students of the Faculty of Agriculture and the basketball players at which I met you. We became friends and my Chemistry became an important driving factor. At the end of her first year, you were referred in Chemistry. During the long vacation I happened to be working in the Chemistry Department and you were involved in the usual vacation programme for students of Agriculture. We were thus both on the campus and it fell on me to help you with the Chemistry in which you had been referred. You took the examination but by the time the results were released you were back home in Takoradi. Using the most rapid form of communication available at that time, I sent you a Telegram informing you of your success in the examination. The telegram landed in the hands of your late father and, according to what I was told later, the question that was asked by your father was “Who is Edwin?” The answer was simple, if you deem it to be so. “Oh these Post Office people! The person who sent the telegram is called Edwina but it seems they made a mistake and forgot the “a” ”. The old man was satisfied and the matter was left as such.
I believe with the impression I had made in helping you to pass your referred paper, we became very good friends when the University session started for the 1967/1968 academic year. The rest as they say is history, though as usual in such relationships there were always ups and downs until we finally tied the knot on 26th September 1976 in Commonwealth Hall of the University of Ghana.
The Home
For you, the home was very important. Starting from our initial accommodation in one of the Civil Service flats in the Airport Residential area through Ayido Flats and Ayido Crescent at the University of Ghana to our own accommodation in Ofankor, you made sure the home was really a home for us and the children as well as the occasional visitors who came to stay with us. Though in the early years of our married life we had househelps, these people were basically responsible for cleaning activities around the house. Cooking was primarily your responsibility. Our last live in househelp was with us in 1978. Since then between the two of us and the children we managed to maintain our various residential accommodations in as best a way as possible. This arrangement, I believe, made it possible for the children to acquire skills which they are finding useful in their current lives.
Managing the home has not always been easy. There is division of labour of a sort with you being responsible for ensuring that there were certain things in the house while I had responsibility for some others. Working in the Animal Science Department of the University of Ghana, having meat in the house was never something that I thought about. I knew that at any point in time there would be beef for our needs. There was also the bacon and sausage as well eggs. Of course, these were not obtained gratis from the Department but I am sure that at any point if there was only one kilogram of beef available in the Meat Laboratory of the Department, you could get half of this for the house and your many friends. As I stand here I can see a number of people who benefitted from you as the Head of the Meat Laboratory. There were other people who used your name to get their meat even when you were not aware of it. Because one could guarantee the quality of the meat and other products coming out of the Meat Laboratory, I became wary of eating meat and other meat products when outside the house. I preferred to eat fish instead!
There were other things such as bread, fruits, vegetables and the various carbohydrates which you ensured were in the house at all times. I always knew they would be replaced once they got exhausted in the house. With respect to fruits, there was always the threat not to buy some more since sometimes what was brought in was left to rot! But the next time in town and new fruits are available on the table or in the refrigerator.
I now am in the unfortunate position of having to go looking for these items once what we have in the house is finished.
Then we have the various workers who come home to undertake various activities for us. You have the telephone numbers of a number of them while I also have some others. We kept talking about creating a sheet with all such numbers on them so that anyone of us could call them as and when needed. Unfortunately, this never materialized. How do I call Richard when we have some carpentry work to be done? How do we change the curtains for the Christmas since I have no idea as to the number of the young man who comes round to do it for us? I just see going into your phone to check on such things as invading your privacy since our phones were private to us. I never answered your calls even if I knew the caller was one of the children unless you asked me to and neither did you!
A critical household member is our dog Emperor. While it treats some of us with scorn, it always had a level of respect for you. When coming into the house from town, Emperor will quietly walk away for you to open the gate and bring your car in before shutting the gate again. For us mere mortals, we would have to chain Emperor before we could open the gate and enter with our cars. You could just say “Go” and Emperor will move away from wherever it was standing. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Emperor knew you were the one who fed it and you had to be obeyed and respected. In your absence, I will see if I will gain this honour. But first I will have to know where to buy the gari and other things you feed Emperor with.
You have also started something which we are trying to continue – feeding of the birds which come into the house. You started giving them food in the mornings and evenings while you sat on the porch enjoying the spectacle. The birds continue to come every morning for their food rations and we have been fulfilling this obligation and it is going to be part of the things I will be doing to keep your honour going.
At Legon, we had a backyard farm from which we could cut at least a bunch of plantains at least once a week and a number of friends here today are beneficiaries of this largesse. We only started developing our backyard garden in Ofankor about a year ago though we already had some orange and mango trees whose fruits we have been enjoying. The kontomire leaves are ready to be plucked and some of the plantains will be ready for eating in a few weeks. I guess I will have to enjoy them without you. We were waiting for the sweet apple to be ready for eating around Christmas time. I am not sure if I can enjoy them without you. The other sweet apple tree has also started flowering!
Who is going to take my watch to the repairer when its starts malfunctioning? Who is going to buy me my favourite deodorant? I still have some of what you bought for me some three years ago but I was expecting replenishment early in the new year. Who is going to buy for me the African print shirts which people comment about? How am I going to lay my hands on the various receipts, documents, etc. which I just put away unceremoniously and you have that way of keeping safely since you knew they would be needed one day? The list is endless.
We had literally come to an agreement that I should not buy you any more new African print clothes until you had sewn all that I had given you. You knew even as we said it that this Christmas would not have gone by without you getting a few new ones.
You have been ever present since we moved into our house in Ofankor in 2003. Your presence in that house will forever be felt.
Work
Since joining the University of Ghana, you have had a very positive attitude to your work and this saw you rise to become the Head of the Animal Science Department and also the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture as it was then and an acting Pro-Vice Chancellor and nearly an Acting Vice Chancellor, a situation you were thankful for in view of what was going on in the University at that time.
There were challenges especially when you were the Head of the Animal Science Department and I found myself using my experience as an administrator in the Civil Service to assist you perform your duties efficiently and effectively. I cannot remember the number of times that I helped you to draft letters in the “public service way” so as to reflect exactly what you wanted. The University had not built your administrative capacity to be a Head of Department.
I remember vividly the case of your colleague who would not accept and indirectly recognize you as a Head of Department. We developed a strategy for addressing the problem and the person became a very devoted colleague who appreciated all that you were doing.
I have met a number of your former students who expressed their satisfaction with the way you handled them as students. Some are back in the Animal Science Department as lecturers and there are others using the knowledge you imparted to them in their various fields of endeavour.
Your working life led you to go to the United States of America for a programme in the late 1980s and I was left with the responsibility of taking care of the children. It was tough but I believe I did as well as I could. At the airport when I picked you up on your arrival, you commented on the fact that I was looking too lean. I assured you that I was okay and it could be that because of the good life you had had in the States you were seeing me with another pair of eyes. You made the same comment on seeing the children. I am not sure whether this was the reason which made it difficult for you to want to leave us for any length of time!  
When living in Legon, we tried to undertake some commercial activity by rearing chicken. Those who bought the chicken were very happy with our chicken and they were a ready market for us. Unfortunately, interest waned after a few years and we had to bring the activity to an end. There was also a suggestion from a friend to go into processing pork into sausages and bacon. It sounded an exciting idea but it ended in our discussion. I realized that, like me, commercial activities were not your forte and you were very comfortable with your academic activities which occupied you your whole working life. 
Social Activities
Over our working life we got involved in lots of social activities organized by the University, my employers, friends and family. I know that with those organized by my various employers you generally commented about the fact that I tended to be the one who always had his wife present. Though you indicated on many occasions your desire not to attend the next one, there was always a change of mind and heart and we would be at the next event.
You really were not the one who wanted attention focused on you. Receptions organized to commemorate your 60th and 70th birthdays had to be shrouded in some forms of secrecy though we were always caught out.
You loved dancing but not as much as I did. Thus, on many occasions where there was dancing you mostly found yourself sitting down while I engaged in my favourite pastime with others.
One major social activity which we laughed about a lot was the state dinner for a visiting Head of State which we attended after a lot of persuasion. We found ourselves being pushed into some corner and we were not lucky even to enjoy some of the dinner. We came home to enjoy our own dinner. That was the last time I made any attempt to invite you to any such function and I did not attend any afterwards myself until my retirement from the Civil Service.
You were the silent and quiet hand getting things going during the annual Clan Barnes get-togethers held on the 26th December of every year. This year it would not have happened because of the COVID, but how will they look like in future?
Religion
Being a member of the Reynolds family of Saltpond, you were religious in your own special way. You did not wear religion on your sleeve but, in your actions,you exhibited the tenets of our Lord Jesus Christ. As the good Book says, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” and you practised this very religiously. It was not only material things that you were willing to give but most importantly a very critical irreplaceable one – your time. I am sure there are a number of people gathered here today, most especially your WGHS year group members as well as family members, who will attest to this. Then there are the many students whose theses you had to work on or even help with in relation to the various problems they had with their academic problems.
Living in Legon, we used to worship at the Legon Interdenominational Church. However, at a point in time we felt that there was the need to move out of the Legon environment at least once a week and thus decided to join the Accra Ridge Church. As usual you were responsible for ensuring that our dues were paid up to date and thus kept our membership card. Such things were always safer with you.
Conflicts
As in any human institutions, we had our conflicts. These usually resulted in “cold wars” and not violence. We found ways of resolving them over time though looking back I believe some of them lasted longer than necessary. A friend of mine once said that it was better to have somebody in the house to quarrel with than being alone. Though I do not subscribe to the concept of quarreling as a means to stay together, at the moment I would welcome it as a means of having a companion in the house. 

The End
Though you retired from the University of Ghana in 2005, you took up a contract appointment until 2015 when you decided it was time for you to have total rest from your academic work. However, you still went to Legon either on Mondays or Wednesdays for bread and fresh vegetables for use in the house.
At your age there were the usual minor problems but I believe I was the one with the occasional serious problem. On 22nd November 2020, following discussions with our medical family, you checked in at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital for what was to be a minor surgery. Knowing very well that you would be back home before you were missed, the information was not conveyed to most of the members of your family and your many friends. Unfortunately, the good Lord had other ideas and you were called to glory on the morning of 29th November 2020. I believe the good Lord wanted you more than I did and who am I to challenge the actions of the good Lord?

Ewurana, Requiem in pace
Ewurana, Da yie
Ewurana, Nyame mfa wo nsie