Barbara Bovard
(January 29, 1922 – November 19, 1998)
Barbara Eleanor “Bobby” Edge Bovard (aka Barbara Edge and BEB), a pioneering female L.A. fan of the 1930s and ’40s, started contributing to fanzines before Forry Ackerman dragged her into organized Shangri-LA fandom.
Her father, William Taylor Edge, married another woman when Barbara was 2 years old; her mother, Edna Orton, married Albert James Bovard, who died when Barbara was 4 years old. Edna continued to be known as Mrs. Bovard, and Barbara appears to have adopted the surname, at least as a fan name.
After meeting her mother and then Bobby herself, Ackerman wrote in Light 119 (August 1942): "She [...] was inoculated with the stf bug by her mother, who gave her Astounding to read about 10 years ago when they lived in Seattle & Bobby was so young she pronounced it 'A'sounding'."
In 1942, she lived in Washington, DC, about which she wrote, “actifanlife is terrible” (Light 123). In 1943, she moved to Fairbanks, Alaska, and belonged to FAPA. In 1945, she moved back to L.A., but apparently gafiated soon afterward.
She appears to have settled down in Los Angeles; in 1950, Barbara E. Edge was working for the city library as a typist, and her father's 1963 obituary referred to his daughter "Miss Barbara Edge of California". When Barbara died on November 19, 1998, her last address had been in the 90006 ZIP code, just a mile or two west of the downtown library.
She may have gone by the name "The Atlantean."
| Person | 1922—1998 |
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