Barbara Condon Sonsini was born in San Francisco on November 7, 1930 and studied at Pomona College in Claremont and received a master's degree from Stanford University.
After studying also in Geneva and Vienna, she taught German and French for many years at the Cupertino high school.
In her youth she was a talented amateur tennis player, while in bridge she was few time a member of the US national teams while at national level, together with a couple of placings, she won the 2012 Machlin Women Swiss.
Married to Larry Sonsini, she had a daughter named Alison.
Due to ovarian cancer, she disappeared on November 28, 2018.