Barbara Chandler
“ | I am close to my mother, but I would advise some space between you and your mother. And I recommend finding yourself a Girlfriend/Sweetheart to remain with in your later years of life. Mama's not gonna be around forever. | ” |
Chris gives advice to a Sonichu fan.[1] |
“ | she threatens to kill me in her episode of emotional rage. | ” |
Chris on Barb.[2] |
Chandler Family | |
---|---|
Barbara Chandler | |
Birth name | Barbara Anne Weston |
Nicknames | Snorlax, Barb |
D.O.B. | 1 October 1941 (age 72) |
Gender | Female |
Nationality | American |
Race | White |
Marriages | Ran Coleman Yeatts (1961-19??) Robert Franklin Chandler Jr. (1980-2011) |
Children | Cole Smithey |
Occupation | Office worker (retired) |
Barbara Anne Weston Chandler[3] (born 1 October 1941[4]) is the widow of Bob Chandler and mother of Christian Weston Chandler and Cole Smithey. The sole recognition for her motherly qualities is the Mother of the Year 2000 Award Chris created for her.[5] She has not won the award since.
Family and early life
Barbara is the fifth child (out of eight) of Joseph Otto "Joe" Weston (1896-1954) and Carrie Edna Wynn (1911-1967). They married in 1926, when Carrie was either 14 or 15 years old and Joseph was around 30.[6] Barb's maternal grandfather was an alcoholic moonshiner, who carried out affairs and failed to provide even the most basic support for her mother's family.[7]
Chris stated in a leaked video that he and his mother are not liked by the members of the Weston family who have outlived Aunt Corrina.[8] It is not clear whether Chris meant to say that after Corrina's death all the Westons started hating him and his mother, or alternatively that by the time of Corrina's death no Weston other than her had a cordial relationship with Chris and Barb. Regardless of how this statement should be interperted, it appears that Barbara's relationship with rest of her extended family is strained.
According to Facebook status Chris wrote on 30 January 2012, Barbara lost her virginity at some point during her high school years.
Cole and his various fathers
Barbara grew up and raised Chris's older half-brother Cole in Richmond, Virginia, near Virginia Commonwealth University and West Avenue.[9]
Barbara gave birth to Cole in 1963. Throughout his life, Barbara has lied to Cole about who his father is because she's Maury Povich trash.
Based on the experiences with his various stepfathers, Cole thinks that Barbara has a "proclivity to isolate herself via scurrilous mates."[10]
Jack Dale Smithey
Barb insists that Cole's father is Jack Dale Smithey, to whom she claimed she was married, but records show she actually wasn't.[10]
In 1995, an Internet post by a man claiming he was looking for his friend's absentee father, questioned the whereabouts of Jack Dale Smithey. According to the post, Smithey lived in Richmond in 1963 (the time Cole was born), and was a Merchant Marine. He later worked as a trucker for Pilot Trucking in North Carolina, but had not been heard of since 1964.[11]
Cole eventually hired a private detective who tracked down Jack Smithey in Sarasota, Florida.[12]
Ran Coleman Yeatts
Records, which Cole later found after making a trip back to Richmond, show Barb married one Ran Coleman Yeatts in 1961. Yeatts was from South Hill, Virginia, and was enrolled at Wake Forest College as late as 1960. He was scheduled to graduate in 1961, the year he and Barb married.[13]
To further fuel Cole's rage, Yeatts would visit him and was introduced as a "friend" of the family when he was a child.
After Cole hired a private detective, Barbara hung up the phone on him when he called to ask about his father.[12]
Yeatts died on 6 June 2007 in South Hill. His obituary made no mention of Cole and, curiously, none of Barbara either.[14]
Jerry Harmon
Jerry Harmon is Barbara's former lover and alleged sinister step-father of Cole Smithey, Chris's older half-brother. Barbara claims to have married Jerry after her relationships with Jack Dale Smithey and Ran Coleman Yeatts. However, in the course of Cole's investigation into his family history, he was unable to find a marriage certificate.[12]
“ | I grew up in an abusive household with Barbara and my former stepfather Jerry, where physical and mental punishments ran the gambit from bare-assed beatings to cold showers to bizarre scenarios acted out with glee by two deeply neurotic adults... Even at a very young age, I knew that they would abandon me. They were both irresponsible and incompetent parents who exposed me to traumas that I would rather not remember. | ” |
Cole on Barb and Jerry's parenting skills.[12] |
In his article Saturday Night Special, Cole would further elaborate about his first step-father. According to Cole, Jerry was a professional magician who lived with Barbara in a second-floor apartment adjacent to the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. Jerry allegedly kept a gun in his nightstand drawer, which his stepson would play with, and was out cheating on his wife when an intruder came to the apartment, leaving Barb to have to fire the gun (her shot almost killed Cole).
Marriage with Bob
Bob and Barbara met in a bar on a karaoke night. Barbara was there with friends and Bob was singing.[15] Cole's friend Chuck, who worked at the bar, has a vivid memory of them being drunk retards.[16] According to Chris, Barbara did the pursuing: "She chased him down the hall." They got married in 1980.[15]
According to Chris, Barbara had not had sex with Bob for at least two decades before his death. They had been sleeping in separate rooms for the past few years.[17]
During a portion of the time Chris spent attending junior high and high school in Midlothian, Virginia, Bob and Barbara lived separately. Until Chris finished the eighth grade, a space of roughly three years, Bob lived in Midlothian with Chris while Barbara remained in Ruckersville to look after 14 Branchland Court. In Mailbag 32, Chris claimed that the separation allowed Barbara to continue working at her job with Virginia Power until retirement.
With both Barbara and Bob retired, they resided with Chris in their Ruckersville home. It is difficult to ascertain what their relationship was like, but sources such as the tour of the house would suggest that Chris's parents neglected the family home and spent most of their time apart in separate areas of the house.
Barbara became a widow on 6 September 2011 when Bob died.[18]
Pampering of Chris
“ | Yeah, but then my Mom is pretty much jealous of me loving another woman more than her. | ” |
Chris, describing his Oedipus complex.[19] |
According to Cole, Bob and Barbara left Chris alone every day for years with the abusive babysitter while going out drinking, effectively ignoring the onset of the earliest symptoms of autism.[20] After Chris's initial diagnosis, and after their negligence was inevitably thrown back in their face, Barbara resorted to any means necessary to coax Chris into talking, most notoriously by bribing him with toys.[21]
While both Chris's parents are largely responsible for Chris's current state, Barb has more often than not been the most active in protecting Chris from recognizing any failure or shortcoming on his part, doing everything from being his sole commission with Cutco to going as his date to his seinor [sic] prom.[22]
This pattern of accountability continues even into Chris's adult years. On at least two occasions, most notably after he was banned for good, Barbara visited the GAMe PLACe attempting to protect and defend her little snowflake and argue his case with Michael Snyder, but to no avail.
As first evidenced by the "GAMe PLACe/4Chan picture" incident, she is extremely paranoid regarding Chris's online misadventures, likely because she fears that he'll get arrested and go to prison. Given some of the violent states of some of his videos and Chris's track record, she's probably not too far from the truth. She may also suspect that Chris is a pedophile, as she thought it possible that he may have fallen for a To Catch A Predator-esque sting operation during the Julie fiasco. She even seems to suspect that Megan Schroeder, one of the few women Chris has known who wasn't out to troll him, is partially responsible for the persecution he has endured over the years. She does her part to keep his activities under control by acting as Chris's personal concierge, as seen when she interrogated Ivy for about half an hour before letting her speak to Chris.[23]
Barbara constantly babies Chris and tells him how handsome he is.[24] She also told Chris that the reason he often "blanks out" or gets confused isn't that he's a lazy dumbass, but that he's a "creative genius and is simply overwhelmed by having so many creative ideas".[25]
However, it seems that even Barb has her limits. Like Bob, she was ashamed of Chris's effeminate escapades, claiming that she didn't raise a daughter, and that "tomgirl" is not a thing. She tried and failed to get Chris to stop wearing a bra and panties, even offering to pay him to stop.
To cap off their relationship, Chris allegedly revealed in private conversations that Barbara occasionally spoons with him.[26]
Health problems
Physical
Like Chris, Barbara has been obese. As little as ten years ago Barbara was reasonably slim, but, along with Chris, ballooned out in more recent years, to the point of resembling an American Rose West. Her massive size earned her the affectionate nickname Snorlax from the trolls. Barb's size may have led to her sleeping a lot[27] and usually skipping church.[28]
In October 2009, Barbara spent her birthday at the hospital with what the Chandlers thought was food poisoning.[29] Barbara was diagnosed with colitis, a gastrointestinal disease characterized by the inflammation of the colon. It manifests in diarrhea and cramps. Which kind of colitis has yet to be determined. It seems the Chandler family's diet has finally come to affect her, and in order to survive she will have to change her eating habits; considering their stubbornness, this clearly will end badly.
Hearing the plight of the Chandler family, fans of Sonichu have created the website "Barbara Chandler Has AIDS" to spread awareness regarding AIDS and to collect donations for research foundations and charities.[30] Chris himself denied his mom has AIDS.[29]
According to eyewitness reports, Barbara lost weight in 2012.[31] Her weight loss is visible in photos Chris took of her at a 2012 Mythbusters tour stop in Washington, DC.
In a tweet to Cole from June 29, 2013, Chris tells him that "[he] ought to be over here putting bandages on [their] Mom's holey buttocks." It was not clear exactly what sort of problem this referred to, though it didn't sound pleasant. On October 14, 2013, Chris elaborated in a Facebook post, stating, "my mother stresses me with her continuous rants about her damn miniature scabie flies, her suffering, the low finances and shit!!!" Consensus was that the so called "holey buttocks" were in fact lesions. It is now believed that Barb currently has a colony of parasitic mites (rather than flies) that have burrowed into her bountiful booty. Naturally, while Barb is being eaten alive, Chris whines about having to take care of her.
On 23 August 2013 Chris revealed that Barbara had been afflicted with breast cancer but managed to survive.[32] He did not give details about when was she diagnosed with the ailment, at what stage it was and what kind of treatment was Barb given.
Mental
During the Ivy Saga, Barb threatened to her family that she might kill herself, as a response to the stress she was going through.[33]
Chris labels Barb a "pack rat"[34]; however, "hoarder" may be a more appropriate title. Barb compulsively hoards her purchases, which helped turn 14 Branchland Court into the fire- and biohazard it is today, including making the living room completely uninhabitable.[35] Trolls attempted to get the house featured on the A&E show "Hoarders" by emailing the show's producers, who made a number of attempts to get in contact with the Chandlers but had no success.[36] When Bob was admitted to the hospital for the final time, he was quarantined for bug bites, obstensibly due to the conditions at the Chandler house. [37]
In a May 17, 2011 email to Jackie, Chris claimed that his mother flew into a rage over his Tomgirl inclinations, forcing him to submit to a haircut and threatening to kill him.[2]
Legal problems
On 28 October 2011, Chris and Barb were caught in an incident with The GAMe PLACe, and were actually arrested with several serious charges, with Barb's including felony assault and failure to stop. The two were later released on bail. After a succession of court hearings, Barb, along with her son, was arraigned on her felony charges on 10 July 2012. She was sentenced to community service and was put under a two-year probation, as well as being ordered to pay Michael Snyder's medical bills. When informed of the latter fact during the trial, Chris explained that his mother, a retired, obese, seventy-year-old woman, would take care of the charges for him. No one was particularly surprised at this revelation.
Appearances
In the comics
In Sonichu #0, Barbara makes a brief appearance in "Classic Sonichu Strips".
In Sonichu #9, the male Dating Education students are given Barbara dolls to talk to.
Audio
- Private Skype chat with Sarah May.
- 4 February 2009, Mumble 2: Barbara denies singing while vacuuming Chris's room.
- 17 February 2009, BlueSpike PSN Chat 2: Barbara talks to Chris but when Julie wants to talk to her, Barbara says she isn't "able to talk to anybody right now."
- March 2009: Barbara takes over the phone from Chris when Clyde calls after the date with Emily.
- Kacey Call 15: Chris keeps Kacey on the phone for nearly fourteen minutes while Barb talks about the value of humility, her poor health, and her relationship with Bob, among other things.
- November 2009, Kacey and Liquid Call: Barbara tells Chris to "just hang up on the bitch!"
- 10 August 2010, Matthew Noble call: Barbara claims that Megan "lied" to Chris and abruptly hangs up mid-sentence. Throughout the call, she can be heard denying that she and Bob are the slightest bit in the wrong. At one point she complains about the time Michael Snyder kicked her and Chris out of the GAMe PLACe following Chris's final ban from the store.
- Prank calls: Barbara yells in the background and foreground of several prank calls.
Videos
Barbara has appeared in two videos to date as of February 2012: off-camera in the Christian Weston Chandler Interview, and on-camera (for the first time) in You're Always Pretty.
Gallery
This is when The Simpsons went downhill.
Barbara's retirement party from secretarial services at Virginia Power in 1996.[38]
Barb with Aunt Corrina, Uncle Tom, and Aunt Harriet.
Poor Barb, Chris put Sonichu on HER birthday cake.
Barb is always pretty.
Sources
- ↑ Mailbag 13
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Jackie E-mails 26
- ↑ Email to Blanca
- ↑ http://www.harveypowers.com/wynn/wynn/d155.html
- ↑ A Week With Christian Chandler, page 13
- ↑ http://www.harveypowers.com/wynn/wynn/d141.html#P141
- ↑ http://www.harveypowers.com/wynn/wynn/d118.html#P141
- ↑ Message for John Kyle
- ↑ Emily Date Conversation Transcript#Raising Chris-Chan (16:46 - 00:00)
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 6 March 2007 email from Cole to Chris, page 2
- ↑ http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/SURNAMES/1995-04/0798938259
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Cole Smithey E-mails
- ↑ http://www.archive.org/stream/howler1960wake/howler1960wake_djvu.txt
- ↑ http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/timesdispatch/obituary.aspx?n=Ran-Yeatts&pid=88787372
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Mumble 3.5
- ↑ 24 July 2007 email #1 from Cole to Chris
- ↑ IRC (27 December 2008)
- ↑ http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/dailyprogress/obituary.aspx?n=robert-franklin-chandler&pid=153539600
- ↑ Mumble 10
- ↑ 6 March 2007 email from Cole to Chris, page 3
- ↑ Song of Christian
- ↑ Cutco
- ↑ Ivy Q&A
- ↑ Sonichu Girls and White knight emails
- ↑ Kacey Call 12
- ↑ PVCC NEW info: on Chris and Barbara spoon eachother! (YouTube)
- ↑ BlueSpike PSN Chat 3.7
- ↑ Church audio
- ↑ 29.0 29.1 9 October 2009
- ↑ "Barbara Chandler Has AIDS" Awareness Website
- ↑ This is how the Trial went
- ↑ Facebook#Breast Cancer Awareness
- ↑ Ivy Q&A
- ↑ Father Call
- ↑ Tour of Chris's House
- ↑ http://imageshack.us/f/28/cwcaeemails.jpg/
- ↑ Rocky Shoemaker call
- ↑ DVD, note 2
External links
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