Amherst, Isla B. Cembalisty, age 99, of Amherst, passed away on October 3, 2014, surrounded by beloved family and friends after a period of declining health. She had been residing at the New England Health Center, Sunderland, for several weeks.

Isla Geraldine Barker was born in Bisbee, Arizona on July 12, 1915, the daughter of the late John Wesley Barker and Nellie Eileen (Downing) Barker. Her brothers John Wesley “Jack” and Martin predeceased her. After the untimely passing of her mother, Isla’s father remarried. Isla, still a young child, shared a warm loving relationship with her stepmother, Juana Torres (Barker). The family moved to El Rosario in the Mexican state of Sinaloa where the extended Torres family resided. The Barkers divided their time between family in Sinaloa and the copper mining camps in Mexico and Pinar del Río, Cuba where her father worked as a mining engineer. She grew up loving golf, horseback riding and hunting with her father in Mexico and Cuba.

Following her 1930 graduation from the Matahambre American Grammar School in Pinar del Río, Isla traveled to Massachusetts where she attended Northfield Seminary. Upon her completion of high school, she attended Bay Path Institute and studied at San Joaquin General Hospital School of Nursing in Stockton, California, graduating in 1939.  

Isla and her late husband, Joseph Frank Cembalisty, shared fifty-four years of marriage before his death in 1994, having married in Northfield on October 14, 1940 at the Northfield Seminary Sage Chapel. They lived briefly in Brattleboro VT, then Orange MA, and in 1953, built their home in Amherst where they raised their two children.

Isla worked as a pediatric nurse at Cooley Dickinson Hospital, assisting Dr. Selkirk of Northampton and also Drs. Gage and Weeks of Amherst. Isla was well known and much admired in the Amherst/Cushman area. She had a love for animals, was an avid reader, seamstress and cook. Isla’s name became “Mum” to family and friends after her first grandchild was born. Friends knew they were always welcome at her table where there was delicious food and memorable merriment. Particularly missed will be Mum’s lemon meringue pies, brownies, golumkies, canned jelly and tomatoes, but the all time BEST would be her homemade bread and rolls.

Isla leaves behind her son, Wesley John and his wife Jo (Fishel), of Evergreen, CO and daughter, Eileen (Cembalisty) Legg and her husband Robert, of Pittsfield, NH as well as six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

A celebration of Isla’s life will take place April 25, 2015 at the Pentecost Cemetery, Pentecost Road in Northfield, Massachusetts at 11:00 AM. A luncheon will follow at the Ginger Garden Restaurant, Amherst (corner of Northampton Rd. & University Dr.) at 1:00 PM. In lieu of flowers, those who wish to honor Isla’s memory may send a memorial to a charity of the donor’s choice. Obituary and memorial register at www.douglassfuneral.com

Service details, Social networking, Memorial Guestbook and Slideshow are available here.