Linda Lou West Johnston

Linda was born on April 21, 1946 in Kansas City, Missouri, and was adopted as an infant by Dr. Robert Kenneth West and Louie Lucille Gooding West. Linda grew up in Kansas City, Chicago, and Shreveport, Louisiana. On Bastille Day in 1962, she met Stanley Warren Johnston and they were married in 1966. They were madly, passionately, totally, and irrevocably in love for the rest of their lives.

Linda earned a degree in Mathematics from Centenary College of Louisiana, and a Master’s in Statistics from Rutgers University in New Jersey. She worked as a computer programmer, statistician, financial analyst, business analyst, and manager for Western Electric and AT&T in Princeton, Basking Ridge, and other locations in New Jersey and New York City. Linda was an avid reader of all sorts of fiction and non-fiction. She enjoyed, and was good at, crossword puzzles, Scrabble, Jeopardy, and other word and trivia games. She enjoyed many kinds of music, from classical to country, but as a rule preferred things composed at least fifty years ago. She enjoyed travel and made hundreds of trips both nearby and across the globe; Switzerland and New Zealand were two favorite places. She loved gardens and gardening, and always knew the correct Latin botanical names of all her plants. Linda’s primary lifelong avocation was sewing. She made most of her own clothes, many useful and beautiful items for the home, and countless gifts for others. She enjoyed learning new techniques and teaching others. She was an active member of several sewing organizations including the American Sewing Guild, Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas Clothing and Textile Advisors, and Kitsap Quilters.

At age 47, Linda and Stan simultaneously requested leaves of absence from their employers, and subsequently took early retirement. Having researched for several years where they wanted to live in retirement, they chose Bainbridge Island, Washington, and bought land there in 1993. In 1995, they moved there and built a house of their own design, where they lived happily ever after together.

Linda passed away on July 15, 2017 from ovarian cancer. A memorial service will be held at Kiana Lodge (14976 NE Sandy Hook Rd. Poulsbo, WA) on Thursday July 20 at 11:00 AM. Memorial contributions would be appropriate to either the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (www.fredhutch.org) for research on ovarian cancer, or Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas Clothing and Textile Advisors (www.kop-cta.org) to teach sewing skills to the next generation.

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