Remembering Jim's Mom Kathryn: my Grandma : May 2026

This letter from Faith to Jim provides a wonderful, detailed look at the life and character of her mother, Linda.

Family Life and Personality

Linda is described as a happy, likeable person who loved to laugh and accept others as they were.
She and Jim often showed affection openly, which Faith remembers being occasionally embarrassing as she got older.
Faith recalls her mother as being more open-minded than her father, eventually allowing Faith to wear bangs and be a majorette in the 6th grade.
While Faith has no memory of her mother cleaning the house, she notes that Linda always made her bed and loved having fresh flowers on the table.

Faith provides a list of meals Jim would prepare for the family, including oatmeal, creamed tuna on toast, tuna noodles and peas, grilled cheese with tomato soup, and even rabbit or liver.
Linda enjoyed attending auction sales; Faith specifically remembers her purchasing green goblets and other "pretty dishes".
Linda loved to sing praise songs during car trips, such as "Jesus Loves Me," "The Bible," and "This Little Light of Mine," though she frequently suffered from carsickness.

Faith remembers "putting two and two together" after finding papers in a drawer, realizing her mother was pregnant with Kay before being officially told.
The letter touches on Linda's health, mentioning a brain surgery and a subsequent visit to the Mayo Clinic.
Faith recalls a humorous moment when Aunt Jo asked the doctor if laughing would hurt Linda after her surgery; the doctor responded that if laughter could hurt her, she would have died long ago.
Faith also remembers a train trip to Sioux Falls with her mother and brother Gary, noting that her mother put on lipstick the moment Jim was out of sight.

Linda once spoke to a group about "working women" around the time of World War II.
Faith mentions a man named Lance Van Dyke, a former teenager in Hills, as a remaining source of information regarding her parents.