Sylvia Ann Bassford

Born Sylvia Ann Johnson in 1938 in Laramie, Wyoming, the third daughter of Harry and Neva Johnson, sister to Margene McLellan and Mary Lou Davis, Sylvia Bassford passed peacefully October 2nd, 2026, in Surprise, Arizona, near her Sun City home since 1998. She is survived by her son Brent Barr and daughter Susan Richardson.

Sylvia spent her early years in Laramie, where her parents owned a plumbing company. Sylvia’s maternal grandfather had worked on the building of the Union Pacific Railroad, and her paternal grandfather had found his way from Sweden, laying down roots in Wyoming and northern Colorado. The foundation of what would be exceptional sewing skills was learned from her mother, making doll clothes by hand and machine. It was her passion and would serve her well professionally years later. An excellent student, Sylvia also studied the piano, continuing to play into her thirties. She had fond memories of friends from Laramie, re-establishing contact with a few in her later years after respective lives had taken them all in different directions. Sylvia’s life had a number of changes in trajectory for sure. She attended Washington Elementary School and Laramie High School and was technically class of 1956. Her academic prowess enabled early graduation by a year however, and she moved on to Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, where she studied clothing design and construction, theatre and French literature. She won a clothing design competition while there whose prize was a six-month apprenticeship with a prominent couturier in Paris, France, Albert Lempereur. Life Magazine covered the story of the young lady from the little Wyoming town who ventured into the world of high fashion overseas.

The world would have to wait for Sylvia’s own designs, however. Upon her return from France, Sylvia returned to Laramie where she finished her bachelor’s degree in fine art at the University of Wyoming. She married Hugh Barr and had her first child, Brent, while living in Colorado Springs. Her second child Susan was from her second marriage to Gerald (Jerry) Bassford several years later. His doctoral studies took the new family of four to Bloomington, Indiana, where he attended Indiana University. In 1969 they moved again to Tempe, Arizona, where Sylvia completed her master’s degree in education at Arizona State University. She began her teaching career in the Tempe-Mesa school district as the traveling art teacher for the first few years and then as a third-grade teacher. She and Jerry were introduced to the world of croquet during that time and became members of the Arizona Croquet Club. They traveled to New York, Palm Beach, Bermuda and Santa Barbara for tournaments. It was also during these years that her passion for clothing design re-emerged, and she redirected her professional life. She ultimately relocated from Arizona to New York City in 1979, ending her second marriage.

Sylvia was undaunted entering the fiercely competitive arena of the 7th Avenue fashion world in New York, even after a significant absence from the field. She brushed up her skills with a few classes at Parsons School of Design and was soon running pattern making and cutting rooms for several large fashion houses. Her croquet contacts helped pave the way for her to do her own creations on a smaller, more personal scale. New York was changing and the croquet world had introduced her to North Carolina, and Charlotte was the next stop on her lifetime trajectory. She loved the green and being back in a more suburban environment after ten years on the upper west side of New York. She established a clientele for personally designed and created women’s clothing. She attended Myers Park Presbyterian Church there, but after ten years she never really felt as though she was part of the larger community. Hence, she returned to Arizona where her mother, now widowed, was living full-time in Sun City, AZ where she and Harry Johnson had retired in 1965, as snowbirds. Her two sisters were snowbirds now from Wyoming and Colorado and Arizona was the hub for Brent and Susan as well.

In 1998 she bought her home in Sun City, AZ and returned to the classroom to teach third grade for the Pendergast Elementary School for another decade plus. She retired ready to paint, always an avid watercolorist, and that is what she did until rheumatoid arthritis got the better of her hands. Her focus through much of the time from Charlotte, NC years until 2024 were her two sequential brother-sister sets of West Highland Terriers. The first set being the two puppies from her daughter’s dog’s litter of Westies; one big happy furry bunch. The second set were rescues and she was passionately devoted to them and their rehabilitation. Sylvia was blessed with kind neighbors and few close friends. During this time she joined the Catholic Church, attending St. Mary’s Basilica in Phoenix, AZ. She traveled to Italy and Sicily with a group from the congregation and made a number of trips to Astoria, OR where her daughter and her husband, Jim, now reside. She loved the green and the ocean and the abundance of flowers she would paint upon her return to Arizona. She had a keen wit and a generous nature and the ways in which she will be missed will continue to unfold.