Linda Lee Leslie

Linda Lee Leslie, 79, of both Bailey, Texas and New Bern, N.C., passed away in her home in New Bern on Oct. 21 after a long illness. Linda had deep family roots in both Texas and New Bern, was a nonprofit fundraiser in Washington, D.C., and North Carolina, and managing partner of her family farm in North Texas, which continues to grow corn, soybeans, wheat and occasionally cotton. Her ancestral roots in the Bailey area (population of about 300) go back to her great-great grandfather Joseph Fenner(https://tinyurl.com/5cf8u3h8), who received a land grant after serving in the Texas War of Independence as a member of Shackelford’s Company under Colonel James Fannin’s command in 1836. Because he was on a scout party, he and a handful of others survived the Goliad Massacre although his brother Robert Fenner died in the battle.

That family history led Linda to New Bern in the early 1990s, after a cousin determined the Fenner progenitors – Richard and Anne Coddington Fenner – immigrated there from Dublin, Ireland, in 1757. A lawyer from a prominent legal family in Dublin, Richard served as deputy clerk of council, deputy secretary and deputy register of the Court of Chancery under then-colonial Gov. Arthur Dobbs. Anne was the niece of the governor’s wife. Richard later served as the New Bern recorder in the 1760s, and delivered (https://www.jstor.org/stable/23515037) the welcoming remarks when Gov. William Tryon in 1764 relocated to New Bern. He also served as one of the founding seven trustees of what later became the New Bern Academy. Two of their sons, Richard Jr. and Linda’s great-great-great-great grandfather Robert, were officers in the Second Regiment, North Carolina Continental Line during the Revolutionary War. Around 1780, family members sold the property and moved to Halifax, N.C.

In 1992, Linda and family partners purchased the then-dilapidated property that her Fenner ancestors acquired in 1759, returning it to family ownership for the first time in two centuries with plans of an academic restoration of her 18th century ancestral home. The Fenner house – arguably the oldest house in New Bern still on its original foundation – continues under restoration near New Bern’s historic Tryon Palace.

For more than a half century, Linda was an ardent advocate of women’s equality. In the 1960s, she was among a growing group of women to join the National Security Agency. She chaired the Counseling and Curriculum team of the Dallas (Texas) Women’s Coalition, which issued in 1973 a report, later made part of congressional testimony, "A Study of Sex Discrimination in the Dallas Independent School District” (https://tinyurl.com/8wtbcdn) (see page 17). Linda also served on the national board in the early 1980s of the Women’s Equity Action League, also known as WEAL. With “Yellow-Dog” Democrat roots, she was politically active in Texas, and as precinct chair took great pride in November 1972 when Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern carried her traditionally Republican Dallas precinct.

Linda was also proud of her travel stories that she co-authored with her spouse-equivalent Bill Choyke for a dozen years starting in the late 1980s. Their pieces were published in The Washington Post, The Dallas Morning News, the Boston Globe, The Tennessean in Nashville and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, among other publications. At Linda’s direction, they wrote about travel from a historical perspective, such as a story on Camp Rapidan (https://tinyurl.com/yvzw27f6) near Madison, Virginia, a fishing camp and the first presidential retreat established by President Herbert Hoover in 1929. "Presidents have only two moments of personal seclusion. One is prayer; the other is fishing -- and they cannot pray all the time!" the story begins, quoting Hoover.

Born in Sherman, Texas, on Dec. 21, 1941, to John T. and Mary Nell Lipsey Leslie, Linda grew up on the family farm in Bailey and attended The Hockaday School in Dallas. She earned both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in history from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where she was a member of Zeta Tau Alpha.

Linda is survived her companion of 39 years, Bill Choyke; her son, J. Rodney Brister II, and his family Priscilla Non and Linda’s granddaughter Elizabeth Anne Brister; her daughter, Linnie Lee Brister of North Texas, and her significant other John Carter; and Spice, her feral cat of 23 years. She was proceeded in death in 2012 by her younger sister Doris (Sallie) Leslie, and her parents.

Celebrations of Linda’s life will be in Texas and New Bern in the coming months. The family requests that any donations be made in her name to either:

• The New Bern Academy, c/o Tryon Palace, P.O. Box 1007, New Bern, NC 28563, or online at tryonpalacefoundation.org (https://www.tryonpalacefoundation.org/support/ways-to-support). Please designate “New Bern Academy”, on your check or online donation form, or include a note saying, “for the New Bern Academy.”

• Or, to the boarding program at The Hockaday School at www.hockaday.org/makeagift. Checks can also be mailed to The Hockaday School, Attention: Development Office, 11600 Welch Road, Dallas, Texas 75229. Please note Linda Leslie in the Memoriam or Tribute section.