Barbara Towner Spann was born on October 31, 1929. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in American History, Philosophy, and Religion in 1951 and a Master of Religious Education in 1952 from Southern Methodist University. She worked for the Smithsonian Press, retiring in 1992 as Managing Editor of the Series Section. Spann died on July 11, 2001 of pneumonia at her home in Henrico County, Virginia.

In February 1973, Fairfax County contracted Spann to undertake a study of the historic house, “Carlby”. She was responsible for documenting and presenting the historical significance of the house for inclusion on the Fairfax County Historical Landmarks Survey, later known as the Fairfax County Inventory of Historic Sites. Carlby is a Georgian style house built in the mid-eighteenth century by George Booth (1679-1763?) in Sussex County, Virginia. In 1946, Captain Carl Washburn Porter and his wife Beatrice McKnight Porter purchased the house, known at the time as the “Old Mitchell House,” and had it moved to a property along Dogue Creek in Fairfax County, Virginia that was originally part of George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. As of 2018, the house still stands at 4509 Carlby Lane in Alexandria, Virginia.