Sometimes I wonder if God has it out for feisty, charming and accomplished women journalists from Texas.

Forgive me if I sound angry, but over the past few months three of the state's most interesting writers have passed away, and it's been hard to fathom. They each were in their 60s — young by today's standards — who deserved more time on earth. While different in personality and temperament, they were just about the funniest three people you ever met, with an uncanny ability to find a note of humor in a troubled world. And they each knew how to tell a story in a way that grabbed you and never let go.

For 30 years at the Houston Chronicle, Barbara Karkabi championed the overlooked with her indomitable spirit. Linda Barth, who had the panache of Martha Stewart — only with a nicer personality, showcased great lifestyles in Houston House & Home magazine for nearly a decade. Maryln Schwartz was a best-selling Dallas author who explained Texas and the South to the nation in a side-splitting yet poignant way.

Before they died, each woman fought off cancer with humor, grace and the same fierce intensity that they brought to their everyday life. I had the great good fortune to know each of them. It's impossible to capture the essence of their spirit in this small space, but I'll try.

Barbara Karbabi: Sharing untold stories with the world

When Barbara and I worked at the Chronicle (until we were both let go in dramatic downsizing of the paper in 2009), we went for coffee every afternoon, where we gossiped about just about everything. She had a wicked sense of humor but an incredibly kind heart. She never said anything really nasty about anyone or anything — I kidded her that she couldn't even criticize a movie she didn't like.

At the newspaper, she always pushed to tell stories about Houston's women's movement and the city's growing and diverse ethnic population, even when editors weren't as enthusiastic as she was about such topics. A free-spirited traveler (when she was in her twenties, she had lived in Beirut and had once even been briefly kidnapped, a tale she told with gusto), she used this natural curiosity about the world to tell the stories other reporters might not be interested in.

At times, her writing captured the attention of the high and mighty. Software magnate John Moores contributed $25 million to a University of Houston program to develop a drug for river blindness after Barbara wrote an article about it. But more often than not, it was her stories on everyday Houstonians who would have likely been overlooked if she hadn't taken interest that was her metier.

After leaving the Chronicle, Barbara continued to champion women's issues as a board member of Friends of Women's Studies, which has developed an archive of recorded interviews of notable Houston leaders (sort of like the local version of Bravo's The Actors Studio). She was thrilled with the attention that Beyoncé Knowles brought to the program last fall when the singer showed up to watch her mother, Tina, be interviewed for the archives.

Barbara handled her battle with uternine cancer with the same laser-light intensity. When her hair fell out from chemotherapy and radiation treatments, she covered her head with colorful scarves and learned makeup tips at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where she also dragged her less-enthusiastic friends with her to exercise classes held regularly at the hospital.

She made a pact with herself: After she finished her grueling rounds of chemo and radiation, she would reward herself with a trip to Spain to visit longtime friends. She and her husband, Mike Snyder, went overseas in the fall. After she got back, we met at the Path of Tea, where she pulled out photos and postcards and talked excitedly about the wonderful time she had and her hopes for the future.

That's the last time we met in person. It's a memory I treasure.

Linda Barth: A recipe for peanut brittle and a good life

It seems that women who are born and raised in Texas are just flat more interesting than those who aren't. As a fifth-generation born in Cuero and raised at a family farm near Concrete, Linda always appreciated her rural Texas roots while carving out a sophisticated life in Houston.

Her Montrose home had an easy mid-century modern feeling with period furniture and large windows that allowed light to flood into her large dining/living area from a charming backyard garden. As editor of Houston House & Home, she was on a first-name basis with the city's most interesting designers, landscapers, builders and homeowners. She had strong opinions about design and she wasn't afraid to share them — but even her criticisms were tempered with a hearty laugh and a dazzling smile.

A visit to her home was like a look inside Martha Stewart's life. Iced tea was served in a big clear pitcher from a tray with fresh-cut lemons, silver spoons and cloth napkins. When peach season arrived, Linda waxed poetically about the many desserts that could be made — and created most in her small kitchen. And her peanut brittle was legendary.

Her friend Elena Vega posted a photo on Linda's Facebook page and recalled that, on that day, Linda was supposed to bring some of her famous peanut brittle to Elena's mom. "Instead, she came over with all the ingredients and a beautiful candy thermometer (that she gave me), and gave an amazing hands-on class on how to make the world's best peanut brittle . . . the lucky students were me, my mom and (mutual friend) Gabrielle Cosgriff. We had so much fun! I cherish that memory, that recipe and Linda's amazing generosity and love."

Sandra Cook, who succeeded Linda as editor at Houston House & Home, is collecting recipes for a tribute booklet that's sure to be treasured.

At CultureMap, we were fortunate to get Linda to enumerate her favorite comforts of home for a special series article. Thick towels, line-dried sheets, a hard mattress, soft pillows, fresh ice, good water pressure and good books — "I don't want to be in a house without books, the real thing with real pages and cloth and leather covers" — were on her list. But she also loved her laptop, which she would take to the kitchen to access recipe files and to bed to read the latest gossip.

After being diagnosed with endometrial cancer, Linda underwent chemotherapy and radiation in 2006. Even before her hair fell out, she shaved her head and wore adorable hats to work, where she never missed a day. A while later, she went into work with a big grin and great news. "I'm cured," she announced. "It's gone!"

But in September 2009, she found out the cancer had returned and metastasized to other parts of her body. She underwent experimental treatment at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, which at first seemed to help her and will no doubt benefit others with the disease in the future.

As her body withered under the onslaught, she returned to her rural Texas roots. She died peacefully last month at her cousins' home in rural Angleton. She didn't want a funeral service, but, fittingly, she asked for donations to the Houston Food Bank.

Maryln Schwartz: Understanding Texas and the Deep South

I first met former Dallas Morning News columnist Maryln Schwartz before the Republican National Convention in Dallas in the '80s and we became fast friends. We both had roots in Mobile, Ala., where our mothers shared the same hairdresser. As a Jewish girl raised in the Deep South, Maryln had the most perceptive understanding of that region — and all its contradictions — of anyone I ever met. Of her mother, Zelda, who was born in Russia, Maryln remarked, “She was the only person in the whole world who was both in the Russian revolution and at the premiere of Gone With the Wind.”

Her insights into the Deep South won Maryln a legion of admirers. She authored two best-selling books, A Southern Belle Primer: Or Why Princess Margaret Will Never Be a Kappa Kappa Gamma, and New Times in the Old South or Why Scarlett’s in Therapy and Tara’s Going Condo and became the go-to person to discuss Southern life on Oprah and other national talk shows.

In the first book, she quoted a South Carolina grandmother who told her granddaughter, "Your bosom can be fake. Your smile can be fake and your hair color can be fake. But your pearls and your silver must always be real." Maryln noted that the Francis I silver pattern from Reed and Barton was popular for the Southern bride who wants to have it all because "there are 28 pieces of fruit just on the knife handle."

Maryln settled in Dallas soon after graduating from the University of Georgia, where she became the most widely read columnist at the Dallas Morning News. While some didn't consider Dallas a Southern city, she did. "You go to any city anywhere in the world and take a menu, and if they list macaroni and cheese as a vegetable, you're in the South," she wrote.

After 36 years at the newspaper, she left abruptly in 2002. She took a permanent medical leave after some name misspellings and other seemingly minor inaccuracies cropped up in her columns; she blamed medication she was taking for diabetes, treatement for breast cancer and an undetected thyroid condition for the inattention to detail.

In her last column, Maryln reflected on her career and the changes she had seen:

After leaving the paper, her health grew progressively worse. When she died peacefully last fall at a Dallas convalescent center, she could barely hear or see. But she still could tell a great story, leaving me in tears of laughter in one of our last conversations when she recalled an encounter with George W. Bush in the elevator of a Dallas club soon after he left the presidency.

With The Help an Oscar favorite and Newt Gingrich's presidential run making news, I can only imagine what perceptive insights Marlyn could offer. There's no doubt she would have a lot to say.