Linda J. Little

Linda Jane Long was born on June 15, 1943 in Poplar Bluff, Missouri to her parents Vera and Byford Long. She had her mother’s red hair and her father’s smile.

Linda’s adventurous spirit and lifelong patriotism took root early in her childhood as a military brat. Her father’s service to the U.S. Army was also the cause of fourteen of her childhood moves. The Long family was hauled all over the world, living in Maryland, Arkansas, Georgia, and North Dakota, where Linda took up ice hockey. A six-week voyage by ship brought them to Japan, followed later by a move to Hawaii, where she was caught skipping school to surf. Linda gathered friends and lively stories wherever she went. She attended four different high schools before graduating in Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Linda lived richly as a devoted servant to Christ and was just as likely to be found sewing banners for Chapel of the Cross as playing Hand and Foot with friends and family. She was no stranger to a golf course or a card table, had a beautiful singing voice that made up one part of the trio with her sisters, and the fish in any lake or river hated to see her coming. She also brought joy and perhaps a bit of mischief to a bowling team or two. Tender-hearted and strong-willed, she could make you question every choice you’d ever made with a single, withering glance—a look so infamous it had its own name: the “Mommaw Look.” Her feistiness never got in the way of her rooting for those she loved.

Above just about anything else, Linda was a devoted, loving wife. She met her beloved Jack while working at the Poplar Bluff courthouse, taking the depositions of some sordid characters. The Long family had a standing joke – after Linda’s older sister Bobbi married, her father, serving in Vietnam, sent a letter declaring, “The next time one of you girls decides to get married, I’ll send you $100 and a ladder to elope.” Jack wrote to her father to ask for her hand in marriage, saying, “I’m asking for the $100. I won’t need the ladder.”

Jack proposed to Linda in the kitchen of her apartment in the presence of her mother and baby sister Sandra. Linda’s father had responded to Jack’s letter with a request that they wait to marry so he could give his middle daughter away, but Linda, willful as ever, opted to go ahead and get married as soon as she could. Linda and John H. Little married on a Friday evening after a long day’s work at the Lutheran Church in Sikeston, Missouri on January 31, 1964, making a Long a Little.

Linda’s love of travel continued with her husband and their four children, RVing all over the U.S. She loved attending the theatre, listening to big band music, leading girl scout troops, working for the Jefferson City Department of Transportation, volunteering for the Lutheran Women’s Mission League, and watching Old Westerns. She was a fabulous grandmother to her seven grandchildren, never missing a chance to root them on in all they did.

Linda and Jack danced through life for 52 beautiful years together until Jack’s passing in 2016. Linda missed him every single day up until she peacefully went home to him on November 9, 2026.

Linda is survived by her four children and their spouses. Mary Persigo and her husband Mark, John Little and his wife Monica, Angela Werner and her husband John, and Pamela Bradley and her husband Troy. She is also survived by her dear younger sister, Sandra Nall, sisters-in-law JoAnn Adams and Carolyn Little, and grandchildren Kyle Bradley, Lyndi Derheim, Amanda Bradley, Carrianna Leonpacher, Madison Bradley, and Jared Bradley. She also left behind many great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and her impish but adored orange cat, Mittens.