Fall 2001, pg. 200. Commentary: A daughter of Maine.

Maine Bar Journal

2001.

Fall 2001, pg. 200.

Commentary: A daughter of Maine

Maine Bar JournalFall 2001Commentary: A daughter of MaineThese words were delivered at the memorial service in Augusta on October 1 for former MSBA President Linda Smith Dyer, who died at her home in Winthrop of cancer on September 27 at the age of fifty-three.

There is a special place in heaven for people who dream, for people who scheme a bit, for people who get things done. There's a special corner there for those who not only talk the talk, as they say, but who walk the walk.

Linda Smith Dyer was one of those people. Today she has found her place with God.

This is a sad occasion. But it is not an occasion to be maudlin. Our friend Linda did not like "maudlin." She was a real person, full of common sense, who did not tend to get emotional.

Linda Smith Dyer was a daughter of Maine. She was born here, she grew up here, went to college and graduate schools here, raised her family here, worked here, and she died here.

She was homegrown but not parochial.

She was simple in her tastes, but sophisticated in her thinking; insightful but not overbearing; intelligent and modest; practical, patient, and persistent.

Linda and I collaborated on a number of issues. Like most of you, I spent many hours with her, sometimes in Houston, Texas, sometimes in Portland, Maine, at her home in Winthrop, in the halls and lobbies of Augusta, at bar meetings, or simply relaxing on the shores of Fish River Lake.

I admired Linda greatly. I admired her because she was good at math, and I am not. She was businesslike, and I am not. She was logical. I am emotional. She was patient. And I am not.

She had a vision of the way things should be, a vision born of good instincts and nurtured by adversity.

There is no straight path to success, and Linda knew this, for her life took many twists and turns

The most beautiful rivers are not perfect and straight. And Linda knew this. The most lovely and most abundant parts of the river are the bends and crooks that sometimes surprise us, make us pause and plan and pace our journey differently.

The most beautiful mountains do not rise steep above the earth, but, like our own Katahdin, they make us climb, work, and bend around craggy points and labor over long plateaus before we reach the summit, the best vistas sometimes the most unexpected and hardest earned.

Linda knew these things from an early age.

Growing up on a dairy farm, learning the moods of heifers, doing chores, she began showing cows at county fairs before she even entered school. John Nutting recently remembered that he first met Linda when she was only six, showing her...