Barb Henrickson

Barbara Henrickson is one of the protagonists of the HBO show Big Love. She is the first wife to Bill Henrickson, the show's central character, and has two sister wives, three children, and one grandchild.

Life Pre-Show
Barbara "Barb" Dutton is the daughter of Nancy (Davis) Dutton. She has one sister, Cindy (Dutton) Price. Barb and her sister were raised in a traditional LDS family. Their parents were Rockefeller Republicans, and her mother campaigned for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s, an action that Barb says inspires many of her actions as an adult.

Barb attended the University of Utah, where she met Bill Henrickson, a former lost boy from the Juniper Creek compound. The two fell in love and were married and became the quintessential LDS couple. They had three children: Sarah, Ben, and Tancy.

Shortly after Tancy's birth, Barb was diagnosed with uterine cancer. Although she was expected to die, she survived, but was left unable to have any more children. While sick, Bill brought in Nicolette "Nicki" Grant, daughter of the Juniper Creek profit Roman Grant, to take care of Barb and the children. Bill had planned to marry Nicki to give his children a mother after Barb's death, but when she survived Bill decided to return to polygamy instead and take Nicki as his second wife. Barb reluctantly went along with this decision. Bill and Nicki then went on to have two children: Wayne and Raymond.

Some time while Nicki's boys were babies, the family hired Margene Heffman, a young employee of Bill's hardware store Henrickson's Home Plus, to help babysit. Bill fell in love with Margene and decided to take her as his third wife. The two went on to have two children: Lestor and Aaron.

Early in their marriage, the family all lived in one big house. Shortly after the birth of Aaron, they purchased three large houses in Sandy, UT, one for each wife, with a shared backyard.

At an unknown time after surviving cancer, Barb began substitute teaching and studying to get her teaching license.