Lois Linsly – Virginia Beach
Lois Hancock Linsly, 87, passed away quietly on Sunday, June 5, 2011. She had suffered congestive heart failure several weeks earlier, and never recovered her strength.
Born Lois Jean Hancock on May 24, 1924, she grew up in Elyria, Ohio, the daughter of Dr. Robert Wesley Hancock and Doris Irene Powell Hancock. She graduated from Denison University in 1946, with a degree in English. She met her husband, Jared Linsly, Jr. who passed away last year while based in Dallas as one of American Airlines’ first stewardesses following World War II. For the rest her life she was a proud “Kiwi,” the name adopted by the early American Airlines flight attendants.
The 62-year-long marriage to Jerry and her love of travel would characterize the rest of her life. The Linslys had five children, listed below, and Lois worked as a librarian in the Virginia Beach School system for eighteen years, doing post-graduate work at the College of William and Mary and later earning her Master’s Degree from Old Dominion University. But being a loving wife and caring mother, as well as a dedicated professional, were not enough. Lois was an inveterate joiner and an indefatigable traveler. She was an active volunteer with Reach to Recovery, an association of breast cancer survivors, the First Presbyterian Church’s Women of the Church in Virginia Beach, the Antiques Society, Learning in Retirement, the American Association of University Women of which she was an officer for many years, Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority, and various less formal groups such as a badminton league, a mali jongg group, and several book clubs.
She traveled to the four corners of the Earth, sometimes with Jerry and sometimes with different friends. In addition to many trips across this country, her destinations surrounded the globe, from Alaska to Europe to North Africa to China. When she wasn’t traveling she was reading avidly about the next place she might visit.
In the final analysis, however, the best word to describe Lois is “strong”. In her last thirty years she endured three bouts with cancer, four hip operations, two open-heart surgeries, and a severely broken ankle. None of these ever deterred her from her next adventure. She was always stronger than the setbacks fate chose to deal her, and she always prevailed.
She is survived by a brother, Robert Wesley Hancock, Jr., a son, Jared and his wife Marisa Cuneo-Linsly; daughter, Gail and her husband Toy Savage; son, Robert and his wife Sarah; son, John and his
wife Jacquie Whitt; daughter, Nancy Adams; grandchildren, Caroline Savage Stanford, Ann and Virginia Savage, Robert and Kyle Linsly, Keenan and Hannah Whitt Linsly, and David L. Adams, and many other cousins, nieces, and nephews. Each of
them will miss her smile, her warmth, and her boundless energy.
Thank you to all the wonderful caregivers on the second floor at Harbourway, Atlantic Shores, and the compassionate staff at Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital.
A memorial service will be held at First Presbyterian Church, 36th Street and Pacific Avenue in Virginia Beach, at 11:00 AM, Monday, June 20, 2011. Flowers are welcome. Donations in her memory can be made to Reach to Recovery c/o The American Cancer Society, 4416 Expressway Drive, Virginia Beach, VA 23452, and to the Virginia Beach Rescue Squad.
Online condolences may be expressed at www.cremate.org.