1952 to 1969 - Childhood: Raised in Bedford, Virginia
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Raised with her older brother, Gary, there were also many visits with her cousins who lived in Roanoke and Brooklyn: Ida, Sharon, Karen, who kept up relationships for their entire lives. They were a tight knit group
Evelyn, Linda’s mother, ran the tiny town’s only clothing store, “Raflo’s”. Linda often played in the store among the clothing racks, and went on purchasing trips to New York City with her mother, a delight and highlight for them both.
Frank, Linda’s father served in the Navy in World War II. Stern as befits a Judge and war veteran, he by description evidenced a strange sense of humor both Linda and one of her cousins remarked sometimes hit sideways. But he clearly loved his family, and Frank on weekends took Linda on outings to the Blue Ridge’s Peaks of Otter where he taught her to lie flat to drink from the Big Spring. Whatever the combination of factors, Linda’s upbringing engendered in her a familiarity about and for authority, and she recalled dancing impertinently but with child delight more than a few times on her father’s courtroom bench.
But Linda’s father was struck down, a debilitating stroke while Linda was in high school, and her mother for the next near-twenty years provide his total care. This set a model or template for Linda, no doubt, but a complex and mixed one.
