Linda Gail Jones

“Seeing is believing.” For many, those words simply represent a motto. But for Linda Gail Jones, it summarized in every way who she was. She was modest, and being quite the people-watcher she was observant, taking in everything around her. She was a realist, someone who was efficient and practical in everything she did. She was a friendly person who truly cared about those around her.

Linda was born on October 16, 1947 at Pearson-Wilson Hospital on Church Street in Louisville, Mississippi. She was the daughter of Clarence Carlton Black and Ethel Mae Dempsey. Linda had the ability to relate well with her family and friends. She was raised with 6 siblings; 5 older sisters, Joyce, Virginia, Betty, Alice, and Claudia and 1 younger brother, Charlie. Linda was constantly involved in activities with her family. She and her siblings had the typical rivalries while growing up but they deeply cared for each other and shared many life experiences over the years.

Growing up, Linda enjoyed being around her family and friends. She took part in a number of activities as a child. In her spare time she enjoyed laying out in the sun, having a transistor radio up to her ear, riding horses with Pat Allen and going on vacations with her sister Joyce, Uncle Connie and cousins Anne and Johnny. She enjoyed playing childhood games of the time, such as, Hide-in-Go-Seek, Mother May I, and Red Light Green Light. Her family lived a simple country life and didn’t have much in the way of material things. She always said, “They made their own fun!” Linda often shared memories with her children of picking cotton, walking barefoot on old back country roads and helping out as much as a young girl could on their dad’s 80 acre farm where they grew food for the family, as well as cotton and soybean crops.

Linda enjoyed learning. She had a great memory and was particularly skilled at retaining factual information. She was generally quiet in class, learning best through observation. She often showed great concentration and was competent at completing the tasks at hand. Good with de-tails, Linda was painstaking and accurate in her efforts. She attended eleventh grade in high school and later received her GED. Linda enjoyed some courses more than others, having favorite subjects and teachers. Her favorite class in high school was English. Later, she completed a course at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in the Pediatric Aide Program. Her instructor, Mrs. Sarah Waller, R.N. wrote,

“Linda’s assignments were completed on time and her classroom participation was above average. She appears to be very interested and concerned about her patient's care and welfare, performing well on all the nursing units. I feel she has benefited from the course and has the capability to succeed in a more advanced program. She certainly would be an asset to the University Medical Center and the health field.”

Linda said if she had had better transportation and childcare she would like to have finished nursing school. She also said she would have enjoyed being a secretary or office manager where she could feel helpful while taking pride in her work and keeping things organized.

Most folks would say that Linda was shy until they got to know her. Those who were privileged to know her well learned that she was a solid, good friend. She was reluctant to generalize about people, and she based her friendships on her personal experiences. Because of this, Linda best trusted those people that she truly knew. She was concerned about how those around her felt, and she always seemed to uncover the positive side of people. She could relate to others and had the ability to see their point of view, to “walk a mile in their shoes,” as the saying goes. The friends that she made, she kept. While growing up, some of her best friends were her sisters, as well as Pat Allen, Debbie Hudson, Don Hill, Sheri Vaughn and Ginger, Johnny Waggener, Donny Aldridge, Patti Torrence, Bridgette Clark, Bob Sykes, and her niece Anne Loyd. Later in life, she became friends with Arlene Ponder, Pansy Ivy, Angie Ainsworth from Kindergates, Teesa, the missionaries, Jimmy Pierce, Pam Hodges, Kelly Barlow, Kathy Wheeler (her friend at the fish house), and her niece Gina Tew. She most enjoyed spending time with her sisters. She and Claudia were life-long friends and went nearly everywhere together.

Love can’t be defined but must be experienced. That was so true for Linda. On December 31, 1966, Linda and Charles Edwin Ostrander married in Jackson, Mississippi, at the young age of 19. They lived in Louisiana for a couple of years while Charles worked off shore. When things didn’t work out between them, she and the girls moved back to Brandon. Later, she met Larry Douglas Jones. They were married May 15, 1972, in a little church outside Puckett, Mississippi. Witnesses were her sister, Claudia, and Larry Barnhill.

Linda was a good mother to her children. She had “old fashioned” parental values. In this way she seemed to radiate an aura of warmth and caring to those around her. She always had a perfect hug and an “I love you” to freely give. No matter how hectic life around her might be, she seemed to know and track everyone’s schedule. Linda was blessed with three children, two daughters, Jeri Lynn and Gaylyn Ann; and one son, Michael Keith. She was also blessed with 11 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren with one on the way! She spent a lot of time with her daughter, Gaylyn's children when they were growing up. Gaylyn always said her mom was the best grandmother her kids could ever want! Linda's grandchildren are Brandon Keith Thompson, Cameron Lee Thompson, Carolyn Anne Chandler Hickman, Bennett Scot Chandler, Christopher Lane Chandler, Jacob Lake Chandler, Matthew Thomas Chandler, Michael Cameron Chandler, Brooklyn Anne Chandler, Sara Grace Mosby, and David Miller Mosby.

If you gave Linda a deadline, she would meet it. At work, Linda was always on task. Without hesitation, she could adhere to any assignment and see it through to its completion. Her primary occupation was her greatest joy in life; being a mom. She loved caring for her family and her children felt her joy and excitement as she carried out her responsibilities as a mom. Linda was a devoted stay-at-home mom until her children were older. She provided childcare at a daycare for many years, and worked at a box plant before starting her own cleaning business. She was organized and planned the best way to accomplish things with remarkable consistency. She was good at staying on track and was considerate in listening to what others had to say. In this way, Linda had a true gift for being able to come up with practical resolutions to difficult problems.

Linda liked to have fun and especially loved spending time with her family. Laying out in the sun was her favorite past time! She also enjoyed the statistical data and facts behind sports. In this way, she was something of a sports fan and enjoyed watching her Bulldogs play football; The Brandon Bulldogs for high school and for college football, it was the Mississippi State Bulldogs and her second favorite team, the Alabama Crimson Tide. Back in the day, when the Utah Jazz were winning National Championships, she and her granddaughter, Carol Anne, had fun teasing each other about the Lakers VS the Jazz.

She was full of laughter and had a lot of fun pulling practical jokes; such as oreo cookies on front doors and on cars, red invisible lipstick, Sam-the world’s ugliest dog, April Fool’s jokes to name a few!) She had a great time telling scary stories! She loved painting fingernails and toenails and shared this activity with her daughters, granddaughters and daughter-in-law. She found great pride in decorating her home and saved and budgeted well in order to surround herself with the things that brought her joy in her home. A few of Linda's favorite TV shows through the years were; The Young and the Restless, Days of Our Lives, Alf, HDTV, American Idol, and The Voice. She liked to stay informed and kept up with the local and national news. She had fun making brownies and eating rotel cheese dip and chips while watching movies and having girls night with her girls, granddaughters and daughter-in-law. She enjoyed having her grandsons over to play games and loved beating them at Chinese Checkers!

An individual who respected and maintained traditional values, her faith was important to Linda. Her compassion, consideration and sympathy toward others was evident in her personal beliefs. She believed it didn’t take going to church to make one a good person. She had a strong faith in God and found great comfort in prayer. She prayed fiercely for her children and grandchildren and always had a prayer in her heart for those she loved.

As a child, Linda went on vacations with her sister, Joyce and Joyce’s family, to Santa Rosa Is-land in Pensacola Florida. She also went to Look Out Mountain in Tennessee with them. As a young adult, she enjoyed trips to the Gulf Coast, to sun on the beach, and going to Vicksburg with her daughter Gaylyn and her grandkids to see the history there. She liked going on picnics at the reservoir and taking the kids to Roosevelt Park for the day. She enjoyed taking day trips up to Louisville to spend time with old friends and family members, to visit the graves of family buried there and visit the old home place where she grew up. When she was 39 years old, she and Claudia flew to Orem, Utah to see her daughter Jeri Lynn and her one month old grandson, Brandon. While there she went snowmobiling in twenty feet of snow! In 2004, she and her sister, Claudia, and her niece, Claudia, flew to Centerville, Utah, to visit Jeri Lynn and her two grandsons. They went on a 3.5 mile hike up a nearly 6000 foot mountain! In 2011, she took her first trip to Las Vegas to visit Jeri Lynn. She walked all over Vegas enjoying the sites. She visited Caesar’s Palace where one of her favorite singers, Tom Jones, had often performed. She later found out she had had a broken foot during that time but she never let that slow her down one bit! She loved Vegas and went back in November of the following year. While there, she spent Thanksgiving with her niece, Anne and all of Anne’s family. Linda’s sisters, Joyce and Claudia, were there, too. Linda’s grandson, Cameron and two great-grandsons, William and Spencer, got to spend time with her and even went to the top of the Las Vegas Paris Eiffel tower together! In the Fall of 2014, she and her sister’s Joyce, Virginia and Claudia took a road trip down to Biloxi to spend a much needed girl’s weekend together and had a great time. Linda’s last vacation was to the beaches of Florida with her son Michael, daughter-in-law, Kristie and her grandkids, Sara Grace and David Miller.

Linda also made room in her life for pets. She enjoyed having a fish tank with a variety of fish for nearly 30 years. She had dogs; Blacky, Brandy, Bosephus, and Comanche when her kids were young. Later she had a cat named Sweetie Girl, who became the love of her life. Linda always hated cats until she visited Jeri Lynn in Utah and met Stratford. She said he was her first cat love. She then decided she wanted a cat and rescued Sweetie Girl from a shelter when she was six months old and kept her until she died 8 years later. The other fur-baby love of her life was Michael and Kristie’s Yorke, Chloe. Linda was as loyal to her pets as they were to her.

Linda's retirement finally arrived December 1, 2011. In retirement, she spent her days with her family being very involved in their daily lives. She continued to stay in touch with many of her old friends.

Linda passed away, surrounded by family in Brandon, Mississippi, where she lived with her sister on the same land her parents purchased when they moved to Brandon in 1963. In late July of 2006, Linda was diagnosed with stage 4 GastroIntestinal Stromal Tumors (GIST), a rare intestinal cancer. Dr. Wolfe and Dr. Carroll, of St. Dominic’s Hospital, performed surgery and removed 17 large tumors and hundreds of tiny tumors from her pelvic cavity. One of the tumors was the size of a large bowling ball. At the time, Dr. Wolfe gave her three months to live. Studies showed that patients typically survived 7 months. One person had lived for two years after the initial diagnosis. Because this type of cancer does not respond to chemo or radiation, Linda began taking Gleevac, a pill that had recently been approved for Leukemia and showed good promise for slowing the growth of GIST tumor cells. For the most part, Linda had good success at keeping the tumors away. She suffered side-effects from the medicine and as the years went on the side-effects became more severe. At one point, she tried Sudent, a different medication, only to experience unbearable side effects. She switched back to Gleevac and continued to take it until February 2015, when she learned that the cancer had returned and was again at Stage 4. Dr. Caroll agreed to perform the tedious surgery, which lasted more than five hours. He later said that it was like “chiseling a bowling ball out of it’s skin”. This surgery was hard on her and her family noticed many changes in her.

A month later, she fell and broke her hip and arm. She underwent a partial hip replacement and spent three weeks in rehab. Through physical therapy, sheer determination and the support of her family she regained her strength and was able to walk again. Then in October, she learned that the tumors had returned, “with a vengeance” this time, and there was nothing more the doctors could do for her. She was placed on hospice care.

Her family pulled together for the next five months to do their best at making her last days on Earth as comfortable, and as full of love, as possible. She had many visitors, cards, phone calls and prayers during this time. She was surrounded by her large family on Thanksgiving and loved every minute of it! On March 21, 2016, after nearly a ten year battle with cancer, she died in her home, at Claudia’s, surrounded by her family. Linda is survived by daughters, Jeri Lynn Ostrander and Gaylyn Dotson (Ronald); son, Michael Jones (Kristie); sisters, Joyce Jones (Ralph), Virginia Patrick (Ron), and Claudia Jones (Marshall); grandchildren, great-grandchildren; and many nieces, nephews and cousins.

Linda is preceded in death by her parents Clarence and Ethel Black; her sisters, Betty Hill and Alice McKay; brother, Charles Carlton Black; nephew, Steve McKay and niece, Mary Black.

Services for Linda were held at Baldwin-Lee Funeral Home in Pearl, Mississippi. She was laid to rest next to her brother, Charles Carlton Black, at beautiful, peaceful Crestview Memorial Gardens in Brandon, where she shares a monument with her sister and best friend Claudia Jones.

It is said that some people can’t see the forest for the trees. Linda was able to focus on each individual tree, tending to its needs, thus making the forest stronger as a whole. Linda was a trustworthy, pragmatic and sympathetic person, the kind of woman to whom everyone was drawn. She was loving and kind; always putting others above herself. She was a great listener and offered great advice to those who sought it. She was thorough and practical. She was very literal with her words. You always knew where you stood with Linda. She will be missed.