Linda Carol Bricker Obituary - Visitation & Funeral Information

Linda Carol (Ball) Bricker was born on December 13th, 1949 to Howard and Evelyn Ball in Corvallis, Oregon. She passed away on December 31, 2020 after a long and difficult decline from corticobasal degeneration, in the care of Frank Bricker, her husband of more than 50 years. Linda and her family were grateful that despite her health condition, she was able to spend her last years and days at home on the farm where she had grown up, raised her family and welcomed her grandchildren. Home was important to Linda, not just as a place but as a concept, and she embodied the warmth, welcome, and coziness of home like no other. As her many friends and relatives know, the long driveway up to the house at the farm led to wood stove warmth, simmering soup, baking bread, good laughter and a door always open to friends, family, and the many folks on the blurry line between the two. Linda attended Fir Grove Elementary school, where she later sent her children and worked as a teacher’s aide. She graduated from Albany Union High School in 1968 and studied education at Eastern Oregon State College. Frank and Linda met at registration their freshman year, were married the following fall on September 16, 1969, and made their first home together in the campus married student housing unit. Their early adventures together included hiking, camping, hunting, fishing, and cross-country skiing. They spent one summer as fire lookouts, calling the lookout tower at Riddle Mountain home. In late 1980, anticipating the birth of their 3rd child, they moved from Corvallis back to the farm where Linda had spent most of her childhood, taking over the day-to-day operation of the family farm. “Farm Wife” was a role Linda both embraced and excelled at. Sometimes that meant driving tractors or combines, but also tending the impressive vegetable garden, filling the attic with home-canned goods, and wrangling the three children and assorted family livestock. She relished a good story; she read extensively and loved to read aloud with her family, particularly books and essays that would leave her laughing so hard she had to pass the pages off to someone else, until everyone was laughing too hard to get any words out. She was also a writer, whether creating stories of her own, contributing essays about motherhood to “Welcome Home” magazine, writing notes of encouragement to extended family or documenting her everyday life. The annual family Christmas letter was carefully crafted, revised, run past everyone included for their approval, and gave a real window into life over the past year. This loving and welcoming home extended to all sorts of critters, as Linda never outgrew her young farm-girl love of animals. From the entertainment provided by the home flock of chickens, to the snuggling of many generations of farm cats, we can’t remember her saying “no” to any animal that might show up -- except for that one mean rooster that had been dumped at the end of the driveway. This meant that home and the surrounding pastures were filled with not only the standard parade of cats, dogs, hamsters, finches, and goldfish, but also the family milk cows (Daisy, Clementine, and Brownie, the most generous audience to her singing), bummer lambs, and one motley herd of scrawny steers purchased by her father Howard on a whim at the auction and delivered to the pasture without notice. Goats in general made only temporary visits as a favor to friends. She forgave readily, and even the unreliable young quarter horse who broke her rib was allowed to remain on the farm and live out his wholly unproductive life as a pasture mower and pet, joined in retirement by two ancient horses belonging to her cousins. They arrived already old and lived over a decade on the lush green pasture and gentle undemanding life there. A common exchange with visitors, on learning that Trouble was 26, was “how long do horses live?” answered by a smile and “I guess we are going to find out.” Linda loved nature and being outside, whether it was growing a family garden, exploring the woods on the farm, or camping with the vast extended family at the annual Tompkins Family reunion in the coast range. We remember her sitting by the pond in summers, weaving baskets, soaking the reed in the pond at her feet as a pack of cousins swam. She was an accomplished knitter, weaver, and quilter and shared her knowledge of those skills as an active member of Weavers Guild for many years and a 4-H sewing and cooking leader. She loved helping friends complete “Quilt in a Day'' projects. While working at OSU’s Foreign Languages and Literatures department, she and a few friends created a tradition of collaborating to sew a handmade quilt to welcome each new baby born to faculty, staff, or graduate students in the department. She enjoyed the process of creating these items with her friends at least as much as the finished product. Linda loved music, and relished singing at a campfire, outdoor school, church gathering, or any group large enough to blend and cover her general inability to actually sing in key. In a large enough swell of singers she could happily ride the wave of sound, and loved feeling a part of the music. In an informal church service, someone once complimented her on her harmonizing, and she whispered to her daughter with a giggle “I was actually trying to sing the melody!” She was equally supportive of her children’s’ first out of tune musical adventures as well, happily listening to beginning piano, strings, and reeds. The house was filled with joyful noise that sometimes developed into real music. To her two grandchildren, “Grandma’s house” was one of the best places in the world. She believed most everything could be cleaned, including children, and was therefore not afraid of anyone making a mess as long as they helped deal with it in the end. This philosophy amazed some of her children’s’ friends and was a part of why Kayla and Owen Baker relished “Grandma’s house” from the start. They would come flying out of their car eager to hit all the highlights as soon as possible: feed the chickens, collect the eggs, pick some berries, climb the tree, “make spiderwebs” with the old yarn collection, and convince Grandma to make them a lunch of “hiding pea salad” or mashed potatoes. When young, her grandchildren might end up covered in mud, dust, feathers, flour, or marshmallows on any visit, so an extra set of clothes and willingness to be hosed off if needed was standard packing for a visit to Grandma. Linda loved feeding people. Thirty people packed into the house for Thanksgiving dinner delighted her, and she could easily whip up giant trays of gorp bars for outdoor school students from Fir Grove, countless potluck dishes during her many years of active membership in the First Christian/Disciples of Christ congregation in Albany or for extended family holidays. She produced so many loaves of homemade bread in her lifetime, sometimes with hand-ground wheat flour, and nightly family dinners featured an incredible amount of cooked from scratch and home-grown dishes. She was the undisputed family expert on berry jam, jars of which became the prize Christmas present for all recipients. She was known for her gentleness, and a calm and level-headed presence. In her many years working in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Oregon State University, she provided organization, structure, and also diplomacy to the department. She was known for bringing home-baked treats to the break room and slipping zucchini and tomatoes from her garden into faculty mailboxes. She took Russian classes during her lunch hour for fun, always excited to learn new things. She loved the variety of people she met and worked with there, welcoming many of them out to the farm for visits. We remember her smiling—a wide, welcoming grin present even in the earliest photos of her childhood. A smile which never really changed, and shone welcome and love through her whole life, remaining bright even as other means of communication faded. Linda said once that “it’s good to have people who’ll miss you” and the life she lived means a great many people, are missing her now, including her husband, Frank, her children and their families: Patty Baker (and husband Justin, children Kayla and Owen), Mary Bricker (and partner Noah Jackson), and Steven Bricker (and wife Cassie). Also her siblings: Karen Brown (and husband Wally), of Rose Lodge, Oregon, Gene Ball (and wife Patti) of Albany, Oregon, and Rima Paul (and husband Kim), of Albany. Too many dear friends to fit in one paragraph are missing her too. Gathering together with these folks to share food, stories, and laughter was one of her favorite things. Like many other families this year, we made the difficult decision to postpone coming together for a large group celebration of her life. As we look forward to the time when we will all be able to gather in her memory, we are deeply grateful to all who have reached out to share their favorite story, photo, recipe, or other way their own homes and lives were richer for having known Linda. To send a flower arrangement or to plant trees in memory of Linda Carol Bricker, please click here to visit our Sympathy Store.

Tributes

Linda Carol Bricker

December 13, 1949 - December 31, 2020