Barbara Swicegood Ford

Barbara Anne Swicegood Ford passed away on July 8, 2026, in Charlotte, NC, on her 92nd birthday. She was born July 8, 1934, in Danville, VA, to Walter James Swicegood and Mary Veigh Riddell Swicegood. The youngest of four children, Barbara grew up in Yanceyville, NC.

Tall and athletic, Barbara loved playing basketball, led her high school team in scoring, and continued playing in early adulthood. A woman of remarkable work ethic, she spent 42 years at the Sears catalog facility in Greensboro, NC, and parlayed her interest in finance and tax law into a second career with H&R Block for 30 years.

Growing up in a small town perhaps fueled Barbara’s deep sense of wanderlust. In her late teens, she traveled alone by train to visit her brothers in New Orleans. This was just a prologue to a lifetime of travel that eventually took her to more than 30 countries, often accompanied by her beloved brother, Charles.

Barbara’s sense of curiosity extended into the past. Long before the internet, she meticulously traced her father’s family back to 1500s Austria. She also mapped her mother’s lineage to her great-grandfather’s birth in Ireland in 1828, picking up his trail after he immigrated to the U.S. as a stowaway in 1849. (Maybe Barbara’s wanderlust was also genetic.)

Barbara was also proud of her family’s indelible stamp on Southern culinary history. Her great uncle, Jesse Swicegood, was one of two culinary pioneers who perfected Lexington-style barbecue and taught the craft to Warner Stamey, founder of the iconic Stamey’s Barbecue restaurants. Barbara carried on the tradition by creating her own version of Lexington-style barbecue sauce, enjoyed by generations of her family. Although she happily shared her recipe, no one could ever quite replicate its magic.

Barbara will be warmly remembered for her wry, wicked sense of humor, perhaps derived from growing up in her family’s funeral home. Her father embalmed the deceased in the basement (where a mischievous Barbara would occasionally sneak a peek), and he conducted funeral services with her mother’s help down the hall from the family’s living quarters.

Some of Barbara’s happiest times later in life were spent in peaceful days with her brother Charles at his home on Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia and in Greensboro. She spent her final years in Charlotte, NC, near her daughter.

Barbara’s most enduring legacy is her love for and devotion to her children, in whom she instilled values of integrity, kindness, hard work, resilience, and the importance of education. She chronicled her children’s early lives, her own life story, her words of wisdom, and her ancestral research in an extraordinary book, a priceless testament and gift for her children.

Barbara was preceded in death by her parents; three brothers, Walter James “J” Swicegood Jr., Dewey Malloy Swicegood, and Charles Riddell Swicegood; and her children’s father, Bernice Stanley Ford.

She is survived by her children, Kenneth Hunter Ford (Jill) and Tracy Ford Harrison (Jim); grandchildren, Ian Hunter Ford (Morgan), Madeleine Veigh Harrison, and McIntyre David Harrison; and a great-grandson, Charles Hunter Ford. She also leaves behind a large and beloved extended family of nieces, nephews, and their children.

A graveside service honoring Barbara’s life will be held Saturday, August 1, at 11 a.m. at Mountain View Cemetery, Danville, VA, with a reception following. The family has entrusted arrangements to Townes Funeral Home and Crematory, Danville, VA.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Emerald School of Excellence (emeraldschool.org) or the Alzheimer’s Association (Alzheimer's Association ).