Linda K. Beidel

Linda Kocher Beidel, 83, of New Holland, Pa., died Wednesday, June 9, in Ephrata Community Hospital after complications that followed hip replacement surgery. She was the widow of Larry E. Beidel.

Born in Conemaugh Township in the hills outside Johnstown, Pa., she was the last of five children of the late Charles and Daisy Kocher, each kid born in the same upstairs bedroom of the Kocher home.

When she arrived in 1937, the Kochers didn’t yet have indoor plumbing, but they had a chicken coop in the yard, a cow in the barn, and apples growing on trees. Her father had an eighth-grade education, her mother a high school diploma, but all five Kocher children graduated from college, accumulating numerous graduate degrees among them.

Eight decades later, Linda lived in an apartment in Garden Spot Village in New Holland, calling out requests to a stereo that understood what she was saying (most of the time), “Bing-ed” (never Googled) a thousand questions a day on her phone or iPad (jotting down the most interesting results), and could look back (were she ever inclined to look back) on a life raising three children, playing countless board, card and word games with grandchildren, traveling much of the world, and peering through binoculars at harbor seals and herons from the front porch of a cottage perched on the ocean in Maine.

She had a heart of gold, an angel’s demeanor and consistently middling primary school grades in “Conduct” that suggested a mischievous streak through her childhood and teen-age years that had long been rumored but always denied.

She got her bachelor’s degree from Shippensburg University, where she met Larry. Their 61-year marriage started right after college, and Linda taught kindergarten at Octorara High School in Parkesburg, Pa., for one year, when the birth of their first child created a new path.

Linda spent a busy twenty-five years making her family’s home and ferrying her kids (and many of their friends) to countless games, practices and after-school events. She liked to get out and go-go-go, often to shopping malls and thrift stores, rarely spending much money at either. (She had a strict and possibly genetic “Bargains Only” policy.)

She played in a women’s softball league until at least her late 30s, with serious athletes who were often little more than half her age.

At Olivet United Methodist Church in Coatesville, she accompanied the Cherub Choir for many years, playing the piano by ear, and was a happy No. 5 on the four-person Olivet bell-ringing team — happy because she had all the fun of practices with four other ladies who lived to laugh, and none of the pressure of the performances.

She and Larry lived in Parkesburg, Coatesville and Pottstown, as they followed his career in public school administration, and in Edgecomb, Maine, as his second career as a financial planner wound down. The family summer car trips to Disney World and various colleges and historic sites transitioned, after the kids were grown, into European trips and cross-country train adventures. Her adventures abroad are what seemed to lead to her happy obsession with “happenstance”. “Happenstance” was loosely defined: Meeting someone in a queue in London whose second-cousin grew up only a few dozen miles from the hometown of someone her husband once worked with was met with a wide-eyed “I can’t believe it! Is that — what’s the word? — ‘happenstance’?”

While Linda and Larry caught many a symphony, concert, and museum, they spent much of their 63 years together (counting the courtship) in major league and obscure minor league baseball parks, at high school and college football or basketball games, sitting near a transistor radio that was murmuring play-by-play, or in front of a television, bouncing among multiple games, matches and tournaments. (The advent of the remote control and the family dynamics it engendered did result in them frequently watching the very same game at the very same time in different rooms.)

While she loved the Philadelphia teams, her deepest loyalty was to the Duke Blue Devils basketball team. That relationship began in the late 1970s, when she was mesmerized at the Palestra by the play and charisma of a high school player, Gene Banks of West Philadelphia High. She followed his career to Duke and was hooked. So, yes, she got on board before Coach K, and stayed with the Blue Devils until her last day. (In her fraught final days, the news that it would be Coach K’s final year was withheld.)

And though she would urge on her Blue Devils with everything she had, on those glorious nights when the final buzzer would sound in a Duke victory over arch-rival North Carolina, she’d immediately say, “I feel sorry for Dean Smith.” And she’d really mean it: Even North Carolina’s coach deserved to be happy, too.

She worked from time to time outside the home, including at a pre-school, as a church aide, and as an assistant in the nurse’s office at a ritzy boarding school. At the latter, Linda, whose mom had chased down, wrung and plucked chickens for dinner, got to see how the other half lived, with amusement and sometimes sadness, like the time she had to help a troubled young boy call home, and they could only get through to the governess.

She devoted many more hours to volunteering in her natural habitat — thrift shops — in Pennsylvania and Maine, including the Share and Care at Garden Spot Village.

She had her personality “profiled” at an organization meeting for the volunteers at Garden Spot, and that analysis concluded that Linda valued “joyfulness more than anything else,” that she wanted to “fill the world with fun and delight,” that she “likes to cheer people up,” and that she was loyal, faithful, conscientious and responsible.

All of us who knew her - as a daughter, sister, wife, mother, aunt, grandma, friend, colleague or acquaintance - could only hope that nobody spent too much money to find out what we could have told them, free of charge.

An extremely friendly introvert, Linda sincerely liked everyone she met or came across, even if she always — always — had her early escape route planned to her solitary sunny deck (and her single glass of box wine, the classy kind), or to her Bananagrams counter, or to her puzzle table.

There are so many friends at Garden Spot and her other stops along the way who she’d want to mention, but among those with whom the connection went deep were her sister from another mother, Viola Eby, placed by providence right across the hall at Garden Spot to provide insights into the latest play of Steph Curry and Tobias Harris, and to join her for breakfast when Eggs Benedict was the special. Linda also worked closely at Garden Spot with another last-stop bestie, Jodi Lefever in the volunteer office. Both those women were with her in spirit right up until she left this world (at least for that long — Linda was comfortable with whatever your own theology has to say about that), and the laughter she shared with them and countless others over the years still echoes for everyone feeling this unspeakable loss.

She is survived by her daughter, Kelly Beidel Epstein of Downingtown, Pa.; two sons, Rande Beidel (and his wife, Christine) of Rutherford, N.J., and Tim Beidel of Trevett, Me.; grandchildren Haley Grego (husband Alex) of Morton, Pa., Casey Beidel of Rutherford, N.J., and Harriet Edwardsen of South Portland, Me., and Alix Epstein of Downingtown, Pa., (whose timely, loving and heroic assistance to both her grandparents in their last days - literally coming to both their rescues - is appreciated by all); a brother, Glenn Kocher (and his wife, Lois) of Pittsburgh; a sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Patricia and Michael Bubb at Garden Spot in New Holland, Pa.; numerous nieces and nephews, and their children.

She was predeceased by her brother Donald Kocher, and her sisters Gaynelle Heim and Ann Kocher.

Linda will also be survived by her kids’ and grandkids’ imitations of her characteristic multisyllabic “hoot”, the proper spelling of which remains controversial (“Onomatopoeia? I have to Bing that!”), and which popped out whenever things were getting really fun during the times they were together. In other words, constantly.

There will be no formal service. Linda’s immediate family will no doubt gather many times to celebrate her life and her impact on all of them, and will try to honor her when together or apart by laughing on any and all occasions. Just as soon as they can again.

Groff High Funeral Home in New Holland. PA is entrusted with the funeral arrangements. online condolences may be made at www.groffeckenroth.com