Linda Buring was born in 1938, the first born child of my aunt Thelma Goff.
Linda was long gone by the time I came along, and I only met her once. My father carried this picture of her in his wallet most of his life, along with photos of her half-brothers, Billy and Donny. When Linda came to visit, I must have been in junior high school. She came to dinner with her sister, Brenda, and Brenda's first husband, Bob Kemp. I can't remember if Aunt Thelma was with her. In fact, I don't remember very much about the visit at all, other than the fact that Linda was very beautiful.
Linda looked just like Aunt Thelma. Her hair was coal black, and her skin was like ivory, a trait belonging to the Goffs. I don't think Linda ever identified with the Goffs, however, but she was never forgotten by them.
Linda was sent to California when she was a young girl to live with her father. My mother remembers how my dad cried when Aunt Thelma put her on the train. My parents would have only been dating at the time. I think (but don't recall for sure) that Linda was around ten years old when she left. So the one time I met her, she would have been in her forties.
I found what I believed to be Linda's death certificate online. I don't want to be too specific, because, I haven't sent for it yet, and if it isn't her, well... On the document, her mother was listed as Thelma Somerset, which of course, is wrong. Thelma Goff was born in Somerset, so her children filled in only what little bit Linda had told them about her life.
If anyone has any information about this first cousin, please feel free to share. Her children and grandchildren remain estranged and unknown to us. I would love to meet them if I only knew where they were.
2 comments:
I was wondering if you had found any further information on this. A very dear friend of mine has been searching like crazy online for her mother.....Linda Buring. She has some indications that Thelma Goff may have been her mother, but cannot prove it.
I'm the friend in question (thank you Alicia; love ya hun), and she is correct. How she found this, I will never know, as it has never popped up on any of my web searches but she is dead on. Linda was my Mother... not that I knew her past the first month or so.
I have indeed been looking for a long time for any of her family; finding connections for her is extremely difficult. I do not have personal knowledge of her character to help me make determinations, but I have what my Father told me, and none of it was good.
Without saying too much on here, she supposedly had a lot of mental issues and was very... flighty. Not that I have room to judge but... it makes it difficult to track her with any reliability. However, if the record you mentioned ends in Los Angeles with her having a Mexican last name, you have the right one.
I have some serious health issues and so aside from the obvious desire to find my family (ANY family, as I have none) I also really need to get some health history that could help me.
I am anxious to contact you; unfortunately right now I am in a rather big crisis, lol. In short, I am suddenly left without phone, I have not had a vehicle for well over a year and due to my health I rarely leave my home so getting ahold of me is pretty much restricted atm to e-mails, but I would love to speak with you. My Facebook (I am on it nearly constantly) is www.facebook.com/creative.wordz. Conatct me there if you would and I will give you my e-mail. Also I have done rather extensive genealogical research in the last few days on Ancestry.com and can send you an invite to view the trees. Trees, plural... because I was unsure of her mother being Thelma and started a separate tree for her in order to try and sort it out. I also have a Facebook profile I made just for researching her; it is www.facebook.com/lburing.
I look foreward to hearing for you and sincerely hope you see this message soon. Thank you
Sincerely,
Johnnie Lee Collins
Post a Comment