Her father, Donald Grey Barnhouse, took up a teaching position at the University of Pennsylvania[2] and was pastor of the Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia from 1927 to 1960.
Following the divorce, she met William Beuscher, her peer at Columbia, who likewise would go on to complete a residency in psychiatry at McLean.
However, after the Episcopal Church allowed the ordination of women in 1976, she was ordained a deacon in 1978 and a priest in 1980.
Later, when Plath published The Bell Jar, Barnhouse was reincarnated as the character Dr. Nolan, the protagonist's psychiatrist during her stay at a mental hospital.
[6] At the beginning of the fourteen letters at Smith College, Plath discusses her pregnancies and her and husband Ted Hughes's writing careers, reflecting on how she will sustain her creative life as a mother.
Beuscher”) instructs Plath to hire a good lawyer and to bar Ted from her bed and her home.