Newcomers Cilla and Warren Bamford have attended St. Barnabas since last September, and their biggest surprise is the people they’ve seen here who they knew from church in Pittsburgh. They know Jeff Boyle from their first church. They were walking across the parking lot the second Sunday they attended St B. and heard someone say “that looks like the Bamfords”. It was Keith and Mary Beth Standbridge. Warren and Keith served on vestry together at their second church in Pittsburgh when they moved across town They now, all except for Jeff, attend the eight o’clock service here. “I think that’s a sign we belong here,” they said.
Warren and Cilla both retired in April last year. Warren worked in the nuclear business at Westinghouse for 45 years. He did his undergraduate work at Virginia Tech and received his Master’s degree in engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he attended on a full scholarship. He grew up near Annapolis, Maryland, and attended Annapolis High School.
Cilla grew up in New England. She was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and then moved to Massachusetts. She moved to Virginia and attended Radford University. She and Warren met in their sophomore year and married four years later in 1971 in Falls Church, Virginia. She originally planned to be a teacher, but her interests led her to accounting and finance, so she has two bachelor’s degrees. Her first position was at Rockwell International doing cash management for all its domestic locations, and then she stayed home a few years to care for their two daughters. She was treasurer of their Episcopal church for five years and served on the finance committee for eight years. She worked for another corporation before ending up at a large Presbyterian church where she was responsible for full-charge accounting and was liaison for personnel, budgets, the annual audit, the endowment, and IT for fourteen years.
After retirement, Warren and Cilla moved to Loveland to be close to their daughters and four grandchildren who live less than 10 minutes away. They both enjoy gardening and the opera. Warren added that he “really, really likes sailing.” They are beach people who love to go to Marco Island, Florida, and Hilton Head.
“Everyone has been so friendly and welcoming to us,” Cilla said. “We’ve loved the sign outside the church that says ‘God loves you. No exceptions’ from the first time we saw it.”
Be sure to welcome the Bamfords to their new church home when you see them.