| Newest Herald Column "RHUBARB RAMBLINGS" By Linda Flowers
Linda Flowers, the Herald's newest columnist, likes to write about country life and her family.
She knows about family life, being the youngest of nine children. Her father was Pat Wilson of Calhoun and her mother is Violet Suttle Wilson Mellott, who lives on Letherbark. Her mother grew up in the Bear Fork section of the county.
"I've always wanted to be a writer. As a kid I enjoyed making up and writing stories. My 6th grade teacher told mom I had talent and she should encourage it," said Linda.
Unfortunately, no one in her family gave encouragement. "I spent my life wanting to be a famous author. Now, all I care about is the joy of writing," she says.
She has won some honorable mentions for her work in writing contests.
"I love to watch people. I don't mind to wait anywhere,
because people are so entertaining. Just everyday people are my inspiration and of course my family provides a lot of fodder for stories."
"I like to write about funny things. I laugh easily and find joy in just about everything around me. I particularly love cats and dogs and farm animals. They inspire me, but I also love people. I can take just about any everyday situation and make it funny."
"Dad died in 1971 at age 57 of Hodgkin's Disease. He was a coal miner and he and mom lived in Widen for many years and several of the children were born there."
Linda and her family recently attended the Widen Days homecoming, where hundreds of former residents return to the ill-fated coal town.
Linda says they left Clay county and moved to Webster, where the long mine strike pretty well shut down mining in Widen about 1952.
Born in Webster Springs, she attended Sand Run Grade School in Bolair. "It was a wood building, old and big. Each class room held two grades. The principal was my teacher grades 5 through 8. Even though we were small, we were well educated and when we met our counterparts from the other schools in the county at the new consolidated high school it was soon evident that the Sand Run kids received the better education."
Linda was a freshman at Webster County High the first year it opened, graduating in 1978. In 1984 she started LPN training at Arch Moore Vo-Tech at Frozen Camp.
She worked fourteen years at Roane General Hospital, five years as a Public Health Nurse at Mid-Ohio Valley Health Department at Grantsville, "back when the Health Dept. provided lots of direct services," five years at St. Francis Hospital in Charleston, and a short stint as a traveling nurse and at least four years for nursing homes in Spencer.
Linda says she thinks Calhoun is the greatest place on earth.
"I am now married to David Flowers and live on the farm with my mom."
Lately, Linda has been hard at work on her mother's biography. She hopes to have it ready to sell by Christmas. She has three novels started and two are about country living.
"I want to write wholesome, enjoyable material that I wouldn't be ashamed to show the preacher. I realize that foul language and sex sells, but I am a
Christian and have no intention of lowering my personal standards."
You can read "RHUBARB RAMBLINGS" under Columns on the Herald menu.
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