My playmate and cousin - Linda Thomas

Linda was my most constant playmate early on. We lived in the same house or very close to one another until high school.

When we were 6 & 7 or so, we received identical large tricycles for Christmas. We could tell them apart because hers had a ‘thumb bell’ on the handle bar. She got the bell for her birthday on the 28th of December. {I always felt that her having a birthday so close to Christmas was a raw deal. Often she got the big gift for Christmas and the accessory for her birthday.}

Anyhow, both families lived on Idylwood at this time. Linda and I created a tricycle path on our back yard and chased one another around this path on our matching tricycles. Somehow we decided to put a 2x4 across the path as a traffic control device. One day she was riding and I put the board down in front of her. She asked me to move the board and I refused. Linda, always one of direct action, picked up the board and laid me out with it. That reestablished our relationship, at least on the tricycle path.

This photo is probably from 1956 or so. It includes Nora, Terry and Linda. Linda is more like a sister to me than Janice was. We were less than a year apart in age and we lived either in the same house or a couple of houses apart until we were in junior high school.

We played together, hunted 4-leaf clovers, trapped bees in glass jars, rode bikes and just had a wonderful growing up period.

I was outgoing and by contrast she was painfully shy and self-effacing. This may have contributed to her having remained single her whole life.

We were farther apart in junior high school — partly because I was just enough older to go to James Bowie a year before her. I developed a new clique of friends who were rather nerdy while she dealt with the athletic set. She was a remarkable athlete — basketball and tennis in high school. This was before the reforms induced by Title IX, so she never got the coaching and support to move on in sports.

She went to Lamar, got her degree in education and began teaching in the Vidor school system. As an added role there she coached girls in volleyball, basketball and tennis.

During her teaching period we had almost no contact other than at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

At some point after I returned to the Lord I thanked her for her prayers for me while I was in the wilderness. She said, “Donny, I have to confess that I gave up on you. But your return is an answer to your parents’ prayers and has changed me. I won’t give up again.”

She built a house behind Gordon’s and Helen’s and just loved it. She kept every gift any student ever gave her and she had collections of kitschy stuff. She had a workshop out back. She also tended a garden with Gordon until he died and then by herself.

She ascended through the ranks in the Vidor school system, retiring from an assignment as a principal in one of the Vidor Junior Highs.

She was a key member of the Bevil Oaks Baptist Church, serving as librarian and on many committees.

We grew closer after my retirement with 20-minute phone calls just about every week. We laughed, complained, shared hopes, fears, joys. She occasionally described Christ’s discipline as a trip to the woodshed.

After Gordon died she really looked after Helen, and then when their houses were flooded in Harvey, she was heartbroken. We retrieved all we could from the two houses, but it wasn’t much.

She and Helen moved together to an apartment while they dealt with insurance claims. Linda found a builder and a lot in Lumberton and got a new house underway. Then Helen died.

Linda moved into her very attractive house with her pooch.

We visited irregularly but not often enough.

She went home to Jesus on 14 July, 2025 — sooner than I would have liked.