Linda Kaye Anderson November 14, 1948 - December 22, 2021

Linda Kaye Morrical was a dedicated medical technologist for nearly 40 years who loved watching old movies, viewing the work of Impressionist artists, caring for animals, doing arts and crafts, and cooking. But nothing compared to her love for her family.

The Decatur, Indiana, native grew up in the Hoosier State and spent a portion of her life in California before settling in Ohio. She passed in Cincinnati on Dec. 22 after a long illness. She was 73.

Born Nov. 14, 1948, she was the oldest of Charles “Tom” and Helen Morrical’s six children. The family moved to North Salem, Indiana, in 1954.

In 1970, just before earning her bachelor’s degree in medical technology from Eastern Illinois University, Linda spent a school break working at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Indianapolis, where she met Anthony “Tony” Anderson while he was employed at Allison Gas Turbine, a division of the General Motors Corporation.

Their first date was Linda’s first airplane ride. He took her up in a single-engine Beechcraft Musketeer. You might say it was a connecting flight because the two certainly did connect.

About 15 months later, Tony asked her to accompany him to Idaho, where he was born and raised. Tony also asked Linda to marry him. “Let’s go on the trip, and I’ll think about it,” he recalls her saying.

They headed west, and when they reached Las Vegas, Linda had thought long enough. They exchanged vows in the United Chapel on the Vegas strip in 1971. In June 2021, the couple celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.

“She was a beautiful person,” Tony said. “A giving person. Very gracious. Smart.”

Linda put her medical technology degree to good use in hospitals and labs in the Midwest and on the West coast. She retired in 2011 from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

Their first child, Brooke, arrived in 1978, followed by a son, Blake, in 1980.

“To be a mom taking care of kids and working, that’s a tough job,” says Tony, who traveled globally for his career. “I wasn’t afraid to leave home because I knew (the children) were in good hands.”

Linda bought the children a globe to track their father’s travels. And when significant national or international events occurred — such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the space shuttle Challenger disaster, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait — she put her children in front of a television and said, “Remember this. This is history.” She then presided over the question-and-answer sessions that followed.

When her children were in high school marching band, Linda supplied them and their friends with ample rice cereal treats or bulk bags of fortune cookies. “She was pretty much everyone’s mom,” daughter Brooke said.

Linda’s passion was cooking, or as her inner scientist would say, “domestic chemistry.” She was quick to create feasts, whether for people who needed help getting on their feet or for her children’s wayward college friends.

People raved most about her baklava and always asked for the recipe. Her standard response: “Over my dead body. And not even then.” She also turned down television cooking appearances to protect it.

Linda cheated death twice. In 2014 she survived a terrible accident while driving to Alabama to celebrate the first birthday of her only grandchild, Elinor, when she was run off the road by a semi-truck. Her car crossed the median into oncoming traffic before rolling four times and landing upright. She then survived breast cancer a few years later.

Linda was baptized Roman Catholic on Oct. 5, 2021.

Survivors include her husband, Anthony “Tony” Anderson; daughter Brooke Linlee Anderson; son Blake Leland Anderson; and granddaughter Elinor Marie Rooney, all of Cincinnati; sisters Diane Ottosson of Oskaloosa, Iowa, and Nancy Morrical; sister-in-law Kathy Morrical of North Salem, Indiana; brother-in-law Lon Anderson of Nampa, Idaho; nieces Katy Kleinmeyer, Michelle Morrical and Melissa Dionne; nephews Kyle Anderson, Kasey Anderson, and Koen Anderson.

Visitation is 9 a.m. on Jan. 3, followed by Mass at 10 a.m. at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, 7820 Beechmont Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45255. The service will also be streamed live on the parish’s website, www.ihom.org, and be available to watch after.

Her ashes will be returned to earth in Hagerman, Idaho, at a future date.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be gifted to Hospice of Cincinnati, P.O. Box 633597,
Cincinnati, OH 45263-3597; hospiceofcincinnati.org.