Former South Delta Secondary teacher and Tsawwassen resident Barbara McClatchie Andrews is being remembered as an inspirational person who was passionate about photography.
“She was very much her own creative spirit,” said longtime friend Kit Grauer, who added McClatchie Andrews was “fiery, intense, and excited about looking at the world in a different way.”
McClatchie Andrews, 74, was found on the side of a highway, strangled to death, last Friday in Mexico, according to media reports. It’s been reported she was killed, with the motive likely being robbery, by a driver she had hired to take her from Cancun to Merida.
The former photography and French teacher had moved to Merida, Mexico over a decade ago after retiring, Grauer said.
“She was absolutely fanatical that photography was art and that as an artist, one got to go create a vision and sustain a vision of the world,” Grauer said.
McClatchie Andrews ran an at art gallery at her home in Merida and was still very much an active photographer, Grauer said.
“She was passionate about photography and I think she really shared that with her students,” said SDSS teacher Julie Lymburner, a former colleague.
Lymburner noted McClatchie Andrews’ impact in Delta was far-reaching and that she maintained many close friendships with retired Delta teachers.
Lymburner said at least annually McClatchie Andrews, who was an avid traveller, would host slideshow presentations of her photos and travels.
“She had travelled the world. She was comfortable out there as a real independent woman, fitting in no matter where she went,” she said.
Bobby McDowell was a student of McClatchie Andrews’ at SDSS in the mid-1990s and now teaches graphics, photography and yearbook at the Tsawwassen high school.
McDowell said his former teacher had basically let him and a friend create their own film class.
“She was definitely someone who was pushing everyone to work to a much higher level,” he said.
He said she was always very helpful and very encouraging.
Her website notes her photo essays have appeared in National Geographic and that she’s had one-woman photography shows in Mexico, the U.S. and Canada.
