Freda “Linda” Lee Good
Freda “Linda” Lee Good passed away in the evening on Sunday, March 19, 2017, just two weeks after her 96th birthday.
She was born March 4, 1921 to Thomas Victor Lee and Mildred Mary Bradley Lee in London, England.
In school she was known for her beautiful, clear speaking voice and was asked to read the announcements each day over the loud speaker. She often gave recitations and read poems at their assembly gatherings.
When WWII began, she enlisted in the 1st Airborne Division of the British Army in October of 1941 and was assigned to the Royal Corps of Signals, the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) branch for women. By 1943, about nine out of ten women in England were taking an active part in the war effort. Her service came to an end on V-E Day (Victory in Europe) in May, 1945.
She met and married an American soldier and journeyed to America in 1946 aboard the Queen Mary. She arrived in New York Harbor on her birthday and two days later arrived by train in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She and her husband set up home there. She had two children, a daughter Donna and a son Dexter.
The family moved to Santa Barbara, California, in May of 1966 and by June of that year Freda was working as Counselors’ Secretary and Registrar at the Santa Barbara Junior High School, where she stayed for the next eighteen years, retiring in 1984.
Freda kept an amazing journal of her thoughts, poems and stories. Here is one of her poems:
The essence that is me
Through the years unchanged.
True there now is knowing,
Fruit on the tree of life.
I did not give it weight,
Nor give it any thought.
Now that I am old and slow,
My thoughts are racing still.
A stranger bears my name,
But inside I am still the same.
-Freda Good (2007)
She is preceded in death by her husband, Richard Vernon Good (1991), and by her son, Dexter Richard Good (1997). Her surviving daughter is Donna Good Higbee.
Her friends deeply loved her for her warm, caring nature and fabulous sense of humor. She will be so deeply missed by her friends and her daughter.
There will be a graveside service on April 10, 2017 at 2:00 pm at the Goleta Cemetery.