Mary Jane Auld Linker

Mary Jane Auld Linker, 91, died Thursday, April 4, 2013. She has been a resident of the Carol Woods Retirement Community since 1996. She was born in Chester, SC and grew up in Greenville, SC. She was the daughter of the late George DeWitt Auld and Lillian McDill Auld of Greenville, SC. She was a 1939 graduate from Greenville SC High School and in 1943 graduated from Agnes Scott College with an AB Degree in mathematics and physics. She accepted a position with Eastman Kodak, Rochester, NY as a physicist, working in the fields of applied optics aneemulsioneesearch. In 1946 with a fellowship in physics at the Uneersity of NC at Chapel Hill she earned a MS in Physics, and was honeed with membership in the Sigma Xi Society. In 1948, she married Joe Burton Linker, Jr., and they lived in Raleigh, where she was a Physics Instructor at NC State Uneersity. In 1949 with the completion of her husband's MS in Electrical Engineering, they moved to Syracuse NY where he was with the General Electric Co. Two children, a son and a daughter were born and after teneears they moved with GE to Lynchburg VA. In Lynchburg she became a physics instructor at Sweet Briar College. Her senior course in applied photography was especially well received. Later she taught physics at Randolph Macon Women's College in Lynchburg before accepting a position as Assistant Professor of Physics at Central Virginia Community College in Lynchburg. Besides her family interests she was active in the Presbyterian Church, the League of Women Voters, and regular trail outings as member of the Appalachian Mountain Club. With her husband she hiked extensively in the central Rocky Mountains, the Southeast Mountain, the Canadian Rockies aneeastern provinces, as well as much of the Appalachian Mountains ineeorgia, NC, VA, and New England, and in England and Switzerland. She was a regular and long distance swimmer up into her neety's, and for 25 years was a voluntary Americaneed Cross Swimming Instructor. More recently she has enjoyed developing art skill in water color, having presented many shows of her work. Her family will remember her for her gift of support and superb cooking. The Linker's two married childreneeagle Scout and Valedictory graduate of VA Episcopal School the late Dr. Joe Burton Linker, III of Athens, GA, was a practicing Rheumatologist & Immunologist, a UNC Morehead Scholar but a graduate of Yale and the Univ. of VA Medical School, with a son Hart a classical saxophone graduate of Johns Hopkins Peabody Conservatory, and Mrs. Jane Auld Linker O'Leary of Greenville, SC a Northfield School graduate who finished at St. Olaf College and the Cornell School of Nursing at New York Hospital, with a son Paul, a paramedic. Among those surviving are her husband Joe Burton Linker, Jr. of Chapel Hill, a sister Mrs. Carolyn Greyard of Greenville, SC, and a brother, George DeWitt Auld of Greenville, SC. A family graveside service will be held Tuesday in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. Rather thaneemembrances with flowers, support of the Mary Jane Auld Linker Scholarship Fund at Decatur GA's Agnes Scott College, 141 East College Avenue, Decatur, GA 30030, might be considered worthwhile.