Linda Helen Swift Reeder was born in Calloway County near Kirksey, Kentucky, on May 12, 1931. Her parents were the late Lala Helen Roberts Swift and Lurwin L. Swift. She is survived by her husband, Robert L. Reeder; her son, Robert Alan Reeder; and her daughter, Linda Kaye Reeder Pryor (Wesley); and several nieces and nephews.
She attended Kirksey School until moving to Paducah in 1941. Here, she attended Andrew Jackson Elementary School and Brazelton Junior High. In 1945, she moved to Southeast Missouri and graduated from Oran High School. She then returned to Paducah, where she met and married her husband in 1950. Linda has lived in Kentucky, Missouri, Connecticut, Alabama, Tennessee, Maryland, Nevada, and England due to her husband’s work.
In Paducah, Linda worked at Grants, Paducah Dry Goods, and Penney’s, and then became a switchboard operator at Southern Bell Telephone Company. At 31, she attended Paducah Junior College, then Murray State University, graduating with high honors with an Education Specialist Degree. She did post-graduate work at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. She was a remedial reading teacher, taught the learning disabled, was a school counselor, and a psychometrist. Linda worked in eight public schools in three states and retired in 1987 to become a full-time writer. She wrote historical and contemporary fiction, short stories, and poetry, and had more than two dozen books published in print and ebooks.
Linda became a Christian at age 12 and was baptized at Fountain Avenue Methodist Church. After marriage, she joined East Baptist Church and later Lone Oak Baptist Church.
She considers family her first priority, and her children were her greatest achievement. She was blessed by a circle of friends scattered around the world through personal contacts and internet connections. Linda said in recent years that she has done everything she wanted to do in her lifetime, but not as much of each as she would have liked due to being a “late bloomer.”
Private family graveside services will be held at Mt. Kenton Cemetery with Rick Reeder officiating.
