Biography for Linda Traylor Chism

I can’t believe that we are so close to the next reunion.  It will be here before we know what is happening. 

 It has been wonderful the past 3 years.  I’ve experienced a lot of new endeavors.  Love is the greatest gift of all.  How thankful I am, for such loving, wonderful, kind and friendly people. I’m very thankful for my church.  It is a fast growing church.  It started in 1990 with 93 members and now we have well over 6,000 members.  Even though it is a very large church, everyone is very close.  We have the best Sunday School class; everyone, loves and helps each other.   

 I’ve found several classmates. I am still looking for some of the other ones.  As you know I finally found my dear friend, Toni Ann Tatum Eshom—now Piper.  After I found her unbeknowing, Paul Piper went to see her in California and low and behold, they got married and he moved her back to Texas; such a blessing. 

 My husband and I have been married Fifty years June 22, 2006.  We went together four years before we married; so 55 years all together.  I thank God for our lives together.  We had a beautiful wedding with several of my classmates being in the wedding party.  I did finish high school in Fort Worth at Trimble High.  I was one of 452 that graduated.  It was such a big school and I was scared to death, because I didn’t know a soul.  But, that all changed.  I graduated at the top of my class.  They always teased me, because I wore my Brownwood High School class ring instead of getting a Trimble High School ring.  I always told them, I would always be a LION.  I stayed in touch with a bunch of my senior year friends for along time, but they could never take the place of my “school.”  I am thankful for the opportunities that I had my senior year.  I learned a lot that year that will stay with me for ever.  When I went to work, a diploma from Trimble meant a lot.  After both my children went to school, that diploma landed me a job that I retired from in 1993 after 26 years.  After I retired, I took another job in management.  I stayed there about 3 or 4 years; then I retired from that job.  After being retired for a couple of years I went back to work at a retirement center, where I was activity director.  I went back to school.  College at that age was sure different.  I found out that I wasn’t the only person my age going back to school.  That was exciting.  After awhile I retired again.  Now, I am working part time at Expedient Home Health Care.  It pays really well and I work from my home.   

 We have a beautiful daughter, Cheryl Charisse Cotton.  She is married to Dr. Tomas S. Cotton.  I have 2 wonderful Christian granddaughters.  Payton Charisse will be twenty by the time this is printed and Kelsie Lea will be 17 by that time. After our son’s death, we helped raise our grandson. We have a handsome, smart and wonderful grandson, Christopher Shane Chism.  He graduated college from S.M.U.  He married Sarah McCoy in August 2005.  She is also a graduate from S.M.U.  My mother is 89 by the time this goes out.  I’ve been her caregiver since 2002. Being a caregiver, if you’ve, ever been one, is a big responsibility.  I’ve learned so much about the revised role.  I’m just so thankful that I still have my mother. 

 In 2004 I started a chapter in the Red Hat Society.  Our chapter is the Lady Bugs.  There are about 50 members. This is the most wonderful group of women.  We started out forbidding the word OLD to be used.  Also, we decided we wanted to make a difference in our own lives and the lives of others.  We decided that we would not allow anyone to be negative.  There is too much of that in our lives.  You can be happy and positive and have a lot more fun.  We’ve learned that, “what you say, is what you become.”  We are all Christian women from all walks of life and religions.  We all come together as one.  It is not a group of ladies that think it is just about me.  It is a group who believes it is all about US.  We play together, we pray together and we fellowship and have fun together.  We put our Lord first in our lives, which is what everyone is supposed to do.  We make it a practice not to talk about aches and pains, pills, surgeries we’ve had, babies we’ve had, about our problems in our lives.  We’ve all heard it and don’t want to dwell on those things, because, who really wants to hear it.  Alice Eudy Cary got me interested in the Red Hatter’s.  I will always be grateful to her for her advice and help.  Also Sandy Clark has been a really wonderful person to talk to about the Red Hatter’s.  She has a very large group.

 I’m looking forward to the years ahead.  Life is so good and we need to make the most of it while we can.  We need to live happily and joyful. 

 I love you all and I’ll be looking forward to seeing you at the reunion and the rest to come. 

GOD BLESS YOU AND GOD BLESS AMERICAN.  I LOVE YOU ALL   

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