Barb Sieminski

Freelance Writer

Barb Sieminski is a freelance writer and photographer who received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in art and English from St. Francis College. She edited various college publications and won several national poetry awards. A former associate editor of Our Sunday Visitor’s Young Catholic newspaper, she also wrote a 12-year column, "Of Songprints & Pinewoods" for Today's Catholic (1989-2001) and began writing for the publication again in 2015. Other publications to which she contributes include Florida Catholic, Marian Helpers Bulletin, Seventeen Magazine, Lakes, Silent News, Music Journal, Business People, Hoosier Outdoors, My Daily Visitor, National Lampoon, Saddle Action and The Fort Wayne News Sentinel. Barb served as former Fort Wayne, Ind., Mayor Paul Helmke’s staff writer (1989-93) and was also a riding instructor, Special Olympics horse show director and editor of the Red Cedar NewsRider at Red Cedar and other area barns for 15 years. Fishing, sailing, reading, music and riding are among her passions. A former outdoor columnist and past concert critic for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, she continues teaching music privately and has accompanied Masses at St. Mary and St. Therese Catholic churches over the years, believing that, “The musician has no need of applause if s/he can catch the ear of the Master.”

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Diocese

Oblate lives Benedictine spirituality in the world

Becoming an oblate is one option open to women exploring a religious vocation. Nancy Rodgers, a Benedictine oblate from Fort Wayne, said oblates often don’t look any different than other […]

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Diocese

Couple visits holy places, sites of miracles

Dave Domenico and his family have traveled to the far parts of the world looking into miracles that have happened, and in the process been blessed with each impression. Domenico […]

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Diocese

Residential maternity homes offer ‘room at the inn’

On a holy night long ago, Mary, heavy with child but with no place to stay, was given shelter in a crude shed. Her betrothed took care of her as […]

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Diocese

3D technology creates excitement at Most Precious Blood School

Graham Greene, a prolific English novelist who captured the beginning childrens transition to adulthood, wrote: “There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future […]

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Diocese

Volunteer Time Off puts PHJC hands to work

It was Erma Bombeck, a convert to Catholicism, who made an observation that, “Volunteers are the only human beings on the face of the earth who reflect this nation’s compassion, […]

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Diocese

Carmelite sacramental embraced by laity worldwide

Going back to the year 1251, tradition holds that in Aylesford, England, Our Lady appeared to St. Simon Stock, a prior of the Carmelite religious order. She gave him the […]

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Local

Rosary Sodality adds needle arts ministry

In a little parish in a small town, a ministry to make something covered with prayers is doing great things. According to Mary Au, the Rosary Sodality of St. Louis, […]

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Father Nkwocha is a Wabash favorite

It isn’t often that a Catholic priest or deacon gets top billing in a community’s reader’s choice list, but Father Levi UC Nkwocha of St. Bernard Church in Wabash received […]

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Fishing is father-family time for Bradtmillers

Jesus commanded His disciples to be fishers of men. Christians follow that command in part by gently leading their children in His footsteps. It’s a path on which Beau Bradtmiller, […]

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Pete Duran: Here I am, Lord

He’s a Levelland, Texas, native but was living in San Antonio, Texas, working as a carpenter in 1967, when Pete Duran’s brother-in-law from Fort Wayne came for a visit. Duran […]

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Loving one another in faith: ICCL Panthers

Sometimes a story comes along that touches the heart and begs to be shared. So it was with Suzanne Letherman, Granger, whose husband, Pete, is a varsity Panther football team […]

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Diocese

New name of diocesan bookstore revealed

Cathedral Books & Gifts was christened with a more inclusive name on Friday, Nov. 2, during a ribbon-cutting and all-day open house. The store is now called Good Shepherd Books […]