The daughter of Theodore and Alice Toole Barnes, Beulah Barnes Weaver was the granddaughter of Irish-born Virginia painter/portraitist John Toole (1815-1860) and his wife, Jane Suddarth Toole. Beulah inherited from her mother a painting of a winter skating scene (now in the NGA) by Toole, and in turn passed it to her son, B. Woodruff Weaver of Washington, who finally sold it in 1955.