Linda L. Thompson (Hawke)Since leaving Columbia River, I have had the wonderful experience of living in 5 other states, and just about every section of the U.S. George Thompson of Dallas Oregon and I met the first week we were at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, and married four years later when he finished there and I had graduated from the University of Portland. We next moved to Claremont, California, where we spent the next four years while he received his Doctor of Ministry degree at the School of Theology and I worked in the library. George's first church (Presbyterian) was in Brighton, Colorado, just outside of Denver. That is where we bought our first home, but we stayed only a short time. I hope someday to move back there – it was great country! A baby was on the way, and we moved back to the PNW to be near family, and stayed in a teensy town called Oakland, Oregon. It's in the boondocks south of Eugene, and it was there that Victoria, our one and only, was born. After four years in obscurity, George got the call to go east of the Mississippi, and we lived around and in Chicago for the next 15 years. I worked in a library, and went to the University of Chicago to get a masters degree, while George got two more doctorates, the final one, a Ph.D. in religion. Chicago was a great place to raise Victoria, and I loved working for the Chicago Public Library, in the main building, right in the Loop. I am a children's specialist, and collect Caldicott winners & honors, and popup books, and even did a little college children's literature teaching while we lived in Chicagoland. Victoria graduated from high school in 1998, and is now heading towards medical school at Northwestern University. Her folks, however, drifted south. George accepted a professorship at ITC in Atlanta—an inter-denominational seminary, and loves it. I am now working at the main library in Atlanta, and after a year I guess I can say I am getting acclimated to living in Dixie. We look forward to rehabbing our house, playing at gardening, and traveling. After 26 years of marriage, it will be interesting to see where the next decade finds us! Linda L. Thompson 404-730-1847 My very words exactly. |