Barbara Mardiat Tomlinson, 62, of Rockport, died Jan. 22 at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital where she was being treated for lung cancer.
She was best known in Lincoln County as “Bloodthirsty Barbara,” the pirate who has led the invasion of Damariscotta during the Pirate Rendezvous since the event began in 2008 and who also invaded Windjammer Days in Boothbay Harbor as a member of Pirates of the Dark Rose. She will be remembered by event attendees not only as a dashing red-haired pirate queen with a white iris and black pupil in her left eye, but also as the “mother” for these events who used her talents to encourage hundreds of children to participate in the drama and action of the pirate re-enactments.
She was born Aug. 29, 1951 in Bayshore Long Island, N.Y. to Dorothy Zuraskas Mardiat who was first generation Lithuanian, and Arthur Mardiat, a merchant mariner from Estonia who emigrated to New York right before WWII.
Barbara’s talent for drama, music and dance began at an early age. By age five, with her mother’s encouragement, she was in dance lessons and started winning competitions. She eventually initiated a career teaching jazz and tap with June Taylor (of the Jackie Gleason Show) in New York City. After a shot at Broadway, she ended up in Florida working and acting for Burt Reynolds and singing in clubs with her husband Charles Peek on guitar.
When the couple moved to the mountains of North Carolina, Barbara continued her professional singing career in all kinds of music, fronting a rock band, a jazz ensemble, bluegrass, and clogging and singing in barns with the old time musicians in the evenings. During the daytime she worked full time as a veterinary technician at the Wilkes Animal Hospital and also taught at various dance studios as well as starting her own Mother Goose School of Dance. She continued acting in productions in the area and at the Wilkes Community College, where she also earned a degree in horticulture.
After her marriage ended in 1988, she was set up on a blind date with Tomm Tomlinson who was building a windjammer at his nearby family farm. They married exactly a year later, and because of her veterinary training, injured and orphaned wild animals started showing up at the door of the Airstream travel trailer that the couple was living in at the boatyard. To get the animals out of the cramped living space Barbara established a wildlife rescue facility called Wild-Haven, Inc. where she and her volunteers cared for everything the public brought to her except bear and mountain lion. She was commended by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and Wild Haven was designated the fawn deer center for northwestern part of that state.
Wild-Haven took in birds as well as animals, and birds of prey became Barbara’s passion. She financed Wild-Haven with fees from her educational presentation called “Sharks of the Night, Masters of the Air” featuring the falcons, hawks, owls, and vultures she couldn’t release. She became a Master Falconer, serving as the vice-president of the North Carolina Falconer’s Guild for many years. She was also a keen trapshooting competitor with her customized shotgun. She became an accomplished white-water paddler in her canoe.
In 1995 she moved to Maine and began a professional sailing career on windjammers. Following in her father’s profession, she served 18 years in the fleet as mess cook, assistant cook, and head cook for 30 passengers, as well as deckhand, and finally as naturalist on the windjammer ketch Angelique. She also was one of the owners of the historic schooner Lewis R. French from 2004 to 2011, and was first-mate of the gaff topsail yawl Must Roos, the vessel the couple finished in North Carolina and launched in Maine in 2006. Barbara named their boat Must Roos meaning “dark rose” in the Estonian language in honor of her father.
In 2004 Barbara co-founded a piracy themed entertainment company called “Pirates of the Dark Rose” with her husband. She served as Blade Captain of the group, creating fights with cutlasses and rapiers for the battles the company stages at pirate festivals from Key West, Fla. to Eastport. Barbara also loved the other pirate weapons, cracking her whips and firing her blunderbuss as “Bloodthirsty Barbara,” the Pirate Queen, she fired authentic cannons from boats as well as full-sized field pieces on land. Her favorite small arm was the blunderbuss, a historic shotgun-like firearm, that she handled with smooth professionalism.
She is survived by her husband Tomm; mother, Dorothy Mardiat, who lived with them and was also part of her pirate crew; brother and sister-in-law Buz and Susan Mardiat; and niece and nephew, Sky and Savannah of Grant, Fla.
By Barbara’s request, a memorial cannon shot will be fired over the Penobscot Bay she so loved, and a Remembrance Celebration will be held for her beginning at 1 p.m., Tues., May 27 at her home, 122 Camden St. in Rockport. Friends are invited to attend the Remembrance Celebration and are welcome to bring any stories or artifacts they may have to share about Barbara’s life.
