Faith High Barnebey really had two lives, it seemed. She had her first life with her first husband who was the mayor of Miami and then an almost entirely different second life.
She was the supportive wife of the first husband Robert King High, who was a very popular mayor in Miami for 10 years. He ran for governor twice, and she was very supportive of his campaigns. She was the wife who supported the husband; it was a different time in those days. But she was a writer then and she would write book reviews for The Miami Herald and do first-lady activities. After her husband died at a very young age -- he was only 39 and died of a heart attack -- he left her with six kids and she had to basically step up to the plate and run things herself for a while. She married for a second time to Kenneth Barnebey, who was a citrus executive. He was the vice president of Tropicana, which was a huge conglomerate based in Florida at the time. She wrote a book about the political campaigns of her first husband, “Integrity is the Issue,” and then she would write columns that many papers would pick up, including The Herald. And she'd write about things like faith and relationships and family values.
When you are writing the story of someone's life what are you looking for?
What I love to do with obits is, I love to bring that person's life to the page. Find something about their life that intrigues me. As I'm looking over the facts with her what I loved was here's this shy girl coming out of Coral Gables High School, a teenager basically. Just a couple years after that suddenly she's thrust into the public eye. I love the Miami Herald's description of her when she was first on the campaign trail, when her husband was just elected mayor in 1957, when petite Faith High began her 10-year career as first lady of Miami. She looked like a little girl playing grown up. Well, when I read that quote, I put myself in her place. I thought back to when I was in high school and what I'd be able to be in the public eye in such a way she had to be. She was a successful writer all these years and she didn't take guff from anyone. People who spoke of her spoke in the most glowing terms, that she was just this very kind, very religious woman, soft spoken. But when she saw an injustice she spoke out.
When you're putting together an obit, are you looking for something that people have never ever known? And if that's the case, what’s one that surprised you?
When I do an obit the goal is to tell something about the person beyond the résumé, because often times if there's a paid notice it will list the person's job titles and school and all that public knowledge for the most part. I love finding the kernel of truth there or surprise or the great anecdote. One example was the obit I did on Glenn Frey, the Eagle who passed away earlier this year. I knew that the Eagles did most of their records in Miami, but maybe the average fan and the average reader may not have known that. So oftentimes when a celebrity passes we can do a wire obit. But with Glenn Frey I insisted, no we'll do our own obit because there are many Miami connections that people may not know about. The most famous Eagles records from ‘One of These Nights’ to ‘Hotel California’ to the ‘Long Run’ were all done in Miami. Glenn Frey was on 'Miami Vice.' 'Smuggler's Blues,' the video, was filmed in Miami. It was just such a Miami story. So I just found that intriguing. I figured readers would really find that a surprise that 'Hotel California,' which was so symbolic -- I mean, the word California is in the title -- so symbolic of the West Coast, but it was made in Coconut Grove and North Miami Beach.
