Linda Kidd Stephens – Shuler Funeral Home

Linda Kidd Stephens, 90, of Hendersonville, NC passed away Friday, August 5 at Carolina Village after a period of declining health. She was predeceased by Alvis Henry Stephens, her husband of 62 years. Surviving are sons Scott and David (Mark McKenzie). Also mourning her passing are nieces and nephews Elizabeth Maynard Avett (Fred), Janet Stephens Davis (John), Jimmy Stephens (Joyce), and Tommy Stephens (Pat). Linda Stephens will also be missed by grandchildren Jake, John (Carrie), and Joshua Stephens (Rosanna), and Mary Stephens Pohl (Neal), and great-grandchildren Abigail Stephens, and Clare, Judah, Jane Catherine, and Shiloh Pohl, and Keyla Hensdill.

Linda Stephens was born in 1926 in Moore County NC, daughter of Martha Era Cox and Murphy Lassiter Kidd, the third sibling of four including Thelma Kidd, Clara Tessenear, and Leroy Kidd. A bit of a tomboy and a farm girl in rural NC, she learned the ways of the creeks and vegetable garden before a family move into nearby Apex.

After high school graduation in Apex NC where she was editor of the high school newspaper, Linda received an AA degree at Mars Hill College and worked as a legal secretary. She married a returning high school classmate, naval aviator Alvis Stephens at Apex Baptist Church on October 20, 1951.

Over many bountiful years Linda Stephens was a wife, a Navy wife, a loving mother and grandmother, and along the way pursued real estate sales in Northern Virginia with great success. She learned to play golf as a means to enjoy time with her husband, and became proficient in the game, and enthusiastic in its following. She leveraged a keen eye for furniture quality from the last century and tastefully decorated a succession of family homes. And all the while, Linda Stephens prepared and set a dinner table which nurtured her admiring family of generations.

Linda Stephens was generous in her thoughts of others and engaging in her perspectives on life’s teachings. Her love of meaningful words and artful expression has left lasting phrases in her offspring’s vocabulary: many can relate to her description of Hendersonville traffic as moving “slower than a herd of turtles”.

Linda and Al retired to Hendersonville in 1985. They counted their blessings as they traveled the Southeast in later years, often in October remembrances, sharing a love for history and new places. Linda supported the First United Methodist Church faithfully and also counted Carolina Village as one of their blessings.

A memorial service for friends, family, and acquaintances will be held at First United Methodist Church, Hendersonville at 11 am on Friday, August 12. A private family celebration will immediately follow.

Memorial gifts may be made in Linda’s name to First United Methodist Church, Mission Fund by CLICKING HERE.

Service

Friday, August 12, 2016
12:00 AM

Hendersonville First United Methodist Church - Directions
204 6th Avenue West
Hendersonville, NC 28739

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August 10, 2016

"Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these." Dear Mama, Even the greatest people in this earth were not arrayed such as you: cloaked with simplicity,kindness, grace, class, and wit. I suspect an earlier version of you was like my four year old Jane, who favors you: sassy, tiny, and wild. I would have liked to know that tomboy but somehow I have an idea of who she is because I see her in myself. You are more remembered for your grace: for being a beautiful flower in so many people's lives: so gentle and kind, so unwilling to speak ill of others, but lending each person grace and kindness in such an intimate way, as only the gift of a flower might do, when given by a friend. You knew about flowers. You were also so shrewd and smart and spoke your words with such precision, it is a challenge to all who are careless with words. You seemed to know that words shouldn't be thoughtlessly spent, a characteristic inherited by your sons. Mama, perhaps you are the only one besides Aunt Catherine and myself, who knows what it is to be the only girl surrounded by Stephens men: to know it is more adventurous and fun and to often prefer the company and subjects of men, but also to find it lonely: a loneliness which can be recompensed by flowers and the knowledge that all your grandsons have found their mates and as of yet the ranks of men are being outnumbered with women and now little girl tomboys who may gleefully and quietly talk with you now from treetops and take your face and eyes, innocence, shrewdness, and kindness, but most especially, you, into this world desperately in need of flowers of the Linda Kidd kind. You are the age of the Queen Elizabeth, the longest living queen the world has known, and in our family, you have been our Queen. Never more so than this year have I felt my grandmothers and the line of women with me, and longed to know them all. I will miss you and think of you forever. Proud to be yours, Mary (Bush) Howerton (Kidd) Stephens Pohl

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August 10, 2016

Mary Pohl says:

"Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these." Dear Mama, Even the greatest people in this earth were not arrayed such as you: cloaked with simplicity,kindness, grace, class, and wit. I suspect an earlier version of you was like my four year old Jane, who favors you: sassy, tiny, and wild. I would have liked to know that tomboy but somehow I have an idea of who she is because I see her in myself. You are more remembered for your grace: for being a beautiful flower in so many people's lives: so gentle and kind, so unwilling to speak ill of others, but lending each person grace and kindness in such an intimate way, as only the gift of a flower might do, when given by a friend. You knew about flowers. You were also so shrewd and smart and spoke your words with such precision, it is a challenge to all who are careless with words. You seemed to know that words shouldn't be thoughtlessly spent, a characteristic inherited by your sons. Mama, perhaps you are the only one besides Aunt Catherine and myself, who knows what it is to be the only girl surrounded by Stephens men: to know it is more adventurous and fun and to often prefer the company and subjects of men, but also to find it lonely: a loneliness which can be recompensed by flowers and the knowledge that all your grandsons have found their mates and as of yet the ranks of men are being outnumbered with women and now little girl tomboys who may gleefully and quietly talk with you now from treetops and take your face and eyes, innocence, shrewdness, and kindness, but most especially, you, into this world desperately in need of flowers of the Linda Kidd kind. You are the age of the Queen Elizabeth, the longest living queen the world has known, and in our family, you have been our Queen. Never more so than this year have I felt my grandmothers and the line of women with me, and longed to know them all. I will miss you and think of you forever. Proud to be yours, Mary (Bush) Howerton (Kidd) Stephens Pohl

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