I asked the same thing earlier and got clarification (and donated!)
Barry has no one to take care of the bills coming to his house, nor the co-pays in the hospital, not to mention the fact no family locally to support him.
As Liz stated, the hurricane in Texas put her in a bad way, she lost her house!
So I donated and hope that others will to help out Barry. Words are cheap, let’s do the right thing.
Greg
Update,
Barry is being moved to hospice care due to the fact that he is too weak and is unable to go through physical therapy to increase strength for surgery on the aortic anurism and there appears to be 5 plus major blockages. There is extremely high risk of it bursting. They are obviously hoping he will be here for a little while but doctors have given him 1 week to 2 years max and he has to have 24 hour care and is unable to return home. Family has control of the estate and they will be returning all equipment Barry was working on to the original owners. We were hoping for better news but are appreciative for each and every day that he is with us and for the many contributions he has made to the large-scale hobby all these years.
All information provided and posting permissions granted by Liz Harris, Barry’s daughter.
If new information comes available, we’ll do our best to get it to you.
Ken
Continued prayers for Barry and his family. He is in good hands with Hospice and will be comfortable. Praying for better news.
Richard
Prayers for Barry and his family
Barry was transferred to a therapy/hospice facility where he had a fall on his first day today. He hit his head and ended up back in the hospital E.R.
CT scans determined there were no major injuries from the fall and he is back at that facility. He would like to return home, however it has been determined that he can no longer live alone and needs 24 hour professional nursing care.
At this time it does not appear that he will be capable of building drives or repairing locomotives or rolling stock any longer.
All of the projects at his residence are currently being returned to their previous owners by his family.
If you have a locomotive or rolling stock that he was working on, please private message me and I will contact the family and work out a return or with their permission, get you in contact with them directly, especially if you have more than one item. Please be aware that due to limited finances that the family has to work with, all items have to be returned COD.
Apilogies but all items will be returned in the uncompleted condition or state of repair they were in when Barry entered the hospital originally.
A sincere thank you for everyone’s concern.
As unfortunate as all this is, we wish and hope for the best for Barry in the future and we hope to have him with us for a long time to come.
If anything else develops, we’ll sure let all of you know.
Barry says Hi to all of you!
Thanks everyone!
Thank you, Large Scale Central and everyone on this site for your patience and understanding and for allowing us to post this information.
You have some great folks here!(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-money-mouth.gif)
Ken
Imagination Station Kids On Track Model Railroad And Train Safety Program
E. Helena, Montana
All update permissions granted by Barry and Liz.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!
Hello again,
Just an update on Barry’s condition for the large-scale community. Barry’s dementia has excellerated to the point of not knowing some friends and family, along with some confusion about life in general, as well as other small things. Tests from his fall have come back as ok, fortunately!
He is now in a permanent nursing care facility (as previously mentioned) and is being cared for 24 hours a day. His health has deteriorated a bit more than expected and there is no way that he will be able to return home or be capable of working on trains any longer, as mentioned before.
I wish to thank you guys for allowing us to post this information about Barry. I know it’s not the norm for this site but in my eyes, Barry is deserving of the notoriety because he has contributed more to the large-scale hobby than anyone I’ve known and he has built old fashioned, high quality products, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.
Thanks to everyone for their love and support.
All the best to all of you and I’ll continue with updates as they come in.
This update provided to you per family request.
Ken
Imagination Station Kids On Track Model Railroad And Train Safety Program
Thanks for the updates. I’m sure we all appreciate them.
Update,
Barry is in another hospice facility and doesn’t remember to many of us at last report but for those of you waiting on trains to be returned, this message was sent to me today by Liz, Barry’s daughter. If you have something at Barry’s, please let me know and I will immediately contact her or get permission to give her contact information to you.
Here is the message;
Dad is doing good, has hardly any idea where he is. He thinks he is in texas now.
Getting the trains ready to go, tell the folks I will be calling them from the post office for their credit card to pay for shipping. That will be Saturday morning.
Liz
Liz ask me to post this photo of Barry and Liz at the hospital.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/e98hbhskj19h3lk/IMG9508481_2.jpg?dl=0
Boomer,
Thanks for posting the photo for me.
Smartphone incompatibility!
By the way, love your video from Back To The Future, if I’m correct?
Appreciate it! Ken
Boomer
The photo disappeared.
Let’s try it this way…
I think I need to drop Dropbox maybe. This seems to happen a lot. I don’t have much luck with photos. Hopefully it’ll stay this time. When I originally put this photo in Dropbox because photos don’t post from smartphones on this site, I understand it was the same type of site as Photobucket, without the ads. I guess there are drawbacks?
Joe/Boomer I’m showing both photos again.
Ken
Dropbox has a different purpose, not for hosting photos… you have a folder on multiple computers, when actually the files are in the cloud.
Delete it from your pc and it’s gone from the cloud. I think it can work, but I would use something else… (did you accidentally delete the photos from your dropbox?)
Greg
No, are they not present any longer? I actually didn’t look but will.
When I get extra time, I’ll look for another hosting site. Any suggestions? Lot of problems originally with photobucket.
Ken
You know what I think it is, at the top left you have to click on the lines and then click photos. It’s not showing all of them on that page. Barry’s photo is almost at the bottom for some strange reason.
Tried reloading his photo at the top bit it keeps relocating to the bottom??? Ken
I have had to be away from the list for awhile. Luckily I am healthy! Soon I can get back to work on the switching layout! So sorry to hear about Barry.
Thanks Doug,
I’ll pass the message on to the family. We sure appreciate it. He’s still in the facility with no change except he doesn’t remember anyone or anything. We’ll keep everyone updated as we know more.
Ken
And his home is sold, right?
I believe that is the case as far as i know from family. I just don’t have full verification of it just yet. But that was what I was told.
Oh, and all his trains and supplies are in Rockport, TX, with family.
Ken
