Linda's Obituary
Linda George Greenwald passed away peacefully surrounded by her loving family on January 25, 2024 at North Country Hospital in Newport, Vermont.
Born Linda Alice George on April 12, 1925 in Ellenville, NY, she was the third of seven children of Esther and Herbert L. George. She grew up on Red Hill in the town of Denning in Ulster County in the Catskills of New York State. Like so many other rural families in the early part of the 20th Century, the Georges lived on a small farm on Red Hill and then later in the nearby town of Sundown. There they raised dairy cattle, chickens and other animals and grew their own vegetables in the rich, red soil of the Rondout river valley. Linda, with her siblings, attended a one room school in the early years of her life.
Linda went to high school in the nearby town of Ellenville and there decided to be a writer. Influenced by her high school yearbook advisor, Dorothy Hurlbut Sanderson, she applied to Syracuse University, and in 1942, at 17, Linda went off to college. She was a determined student who worked her way through school. She majored in Journalism and became the editor of the Syracuse Daily Orange, one of the few daily college/university newspapers in the country. While at college she met a handsome young man who was in the Navy V12 5-year accelerated BS/MD program named Robert Greenwald. Through good luck and God’s grace they had been seated next to each other alphabetically by last name in a common class. Linda and Robert were married on July 4th 1946 on a beautiful sunny day at her parent's home in Sundown. Linda's mother asked Bob if he wanted to butcher the chickens for their wedding feast. Bob, being a surgeon, more inclined to save lives than end them, declined the offer and asked Linda to do the honors which she did.
Dr. and Mrs. Greenwald lived in Brooklyn and Mt. Vernon, NY early in their marriage and moved to Cobleskill, NY in 1956 when Bob became Chief of Surgery at the newly built Cobleskill Hospital. Linda and Bob had four children. Thomas, James and Michael were all born in New York City, and daughter Wendy was born in Cobleskill. They were married for almost 34 years when Bob passed away in 1980 at 55-years-old after a lengthy illness.
Following her husband’s death, her niece Carol Wax and nephew George Cicchinelli lived with her and provided much valued support until Linda went back to school to continue her education. Joining her daughter, Wendy, at Bennington College in Vermont, she enrolled in the Master of Fine Arts program. There she wrote a novel based on the life of Emily Dickinson, a poet whom she greatly admired, and was awarded her MFA in 1986. Linda spent 63 years living in her Victorian house on Elm Street in Cobleskill raising her family, writing poetry and welcoming friends and fellow poets to share their work. During that time, she wrote and published numerous short stories and poems, including “Windchimes Tell” in Rolling Stone Magazine. She was hired as a college writing professor in her sixties and enjoyed a career in education when most people would be sitting in a rocking chair on their porches to while away the rest of their lives. She learned to drive in her late 40s and finally retired from teaching at the age of 88. Linda was an early and late bloomer, and bloomed throughout her life.
Over the years, Linda had many jobs and identities including writer, waitress, mother, den mother, Sunday school teacher, caregiver, (including to her parents, husband and siblings), real estate agent, college professor, grandmother, great-grandmother, poet and dear friend to many. She enjoyed the ocean and beaches of Cape Cod as well as the mountains and woods of the Catskills.
In 2019, Linda moved to Vermont's Northeast Kingdom to live with her son Michael and daughter Wendy Matthews and their families in Newport Center, Vermont which became her home. She continued to write poetry and to meet with her monthly poetry group by Zoom well into her 90s. Her life had come full circle from the Catskills to the northern Green Mountains of Vermont. She was never a flatlander.
Linda leaves behind her sister Alberta Esther George, her sons, Thomas and wife Barbara of Red Hook, New York; James and wife Carol Bradford of Syracuse, New York; Michael and wife Aline Carriere of Newport Center, Vermont, and her daughter, Wendy Matthews and husband Peter of Newport Center, Vermont; grandchildren, Robin (Greenwald) Marvelli and Kara Greenwald, Andrew and Timothy Greenwald, Laura and William Greenwald, and Julianna, Robert, Theresa, John, and Christopher Matthews, five great-grandchildren, many cousins, nieces and nephews, her beloved friends, Vijaya Luxmi, Nancy and Richard Rigley, Kimberly Ashley, and other devoted care givers who brightened her final years.
She was predeceased by her parents and five of her siblings Vincent George, Ruth Cicchinelli, Evelyn Kane, Herbert L. George, Jr., baby sister Mary George, and her dearest sister-in-law, Rosemarie (Greenwald) Wax.
She will be remembered by many for her love and study of the poetry and life of Emily Dickinson, her large body of poetry (including her Spider poems!) and her beautiful light-purple Victorian house on Elm Street in Cobleskill, NY.
A private celebration of her life is planned for July 4th 2024 in Claryville, NY in the Catskills where she will be reunited with her soulmate Robert on what would have been their 78th wedding anniversary.
Donations may be made in Linda’s memory to the Landis Arboretum in Esperance, NY at landisarboretum.org/donate.
WIND CHIMES TELL
not time but space
eyes closed you’ll
know the green plant room
an open window
east wind or breath
~ Linda Greenwald
