By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Jamie Linder-Eldridge dealt with cancer as aggressively as she tackled journalism for nearly three decades before her death on March 17.
Known professionally as Jamie Sue Linder, she was originally from Crossville, Tenn., where she and three sisters grew up on a farm and lived near her grandparents’ dairy operation. Pigs, horses, cows, tobacco and gardens were part of daily life, and Linder carried her experiences into journalism.
More than simply part of her upbringing, she chose to make agriculture a professional passion for what she estimated was a third of the total work throughout her career.
“(I like) the entire scope of it,” she said of farming. “It affects pharmaceuticals, everything. Agriculture is our life. It’s the world; it makes the world go around.”
Linder, 47, graduated from Tennessee Technical College with two degrees, each a double-major: a B.S. in English and History and a B.S. in Journalism and Spanish. She wrote and edited for several publications, including the Monroe County Advocate & Democrat, The West Side Story in Farragut and the The Tennessean of Nashville, never wanting to leave her Tennessee origins.
“People just couldn’t imagine how wonderful it was to grow up in a farm,” she explained.
Linder wrote even when she had to do other things to pay the bills. In addition to being an editor, reporter, freelancer, author of two books and ghostwriter, she worked as a restaurant manager, for a fitness club and for a grocery brokerage. Her husband of seven years, Matt Eldridge, 40, was working for the brokerage when they met.
“I prefer writing,” Linder said, choosing her favorite part of journalism. “It’s harder; forces you to think. Makes you feel smarter.”
She put her skills to use for the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, both as a research librarian and a freelancer for the Agricultural Extension Service, contributing to the Extension’s alumni magazine. “She was a very good writer, I thought, and very resourceful,” said Sharon Littlepage, retired, once director of external relations for Extension and the alumni magazine’s editor.
One of the projects Linder worked on was a comprehensive history of UT Extension from its inception to 1997, when she completed her manuscript (see related article). Lisa Byerley Gary worked for UT’s Institute of Agriculture while Linder wrote the book, and recalls Linder finished in less than a year.
“I have no idea how she did it in the amount of time she did,” Gary said, explaining the book is the product of research and dozens of interviews. “She must’ve worked day and night.”
William Eigelsbach, who works in Special Collections for the UT library, remembers meeting Linder when she began the project, seeing in her “a deep love of history that was reflected in the diligence she brought to seeking out every archival document possible for her book.
“She’d spend 12-14 hours straight writing, so determined was she to get people’s stories of their service recorded for history,” he said.
In 1998, Linder was diagnosed with melanoma, which went into remission. In 2005 she had a malignant lump removed from her breast. The melanoma quickly developed into brain tumors and attacked her system with such ferocity that Eldridge had to quit his job to help care for her and their son, Steele, 6.
In late February, physically weakened from her battle with cancer, Linder was nevertheless putting her papers in order – boxes of old articles and magazines, photos, research materials. UT will add her works to its research library for the benefit of other writers and scholars.
“She loved journalism,” Littlepage recalled. “She loved the art of writing.”
This farm news was published in the April 4, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
