Lindner
Mary Jane Lindner, age 94, departed this life on January 22, 2018 while living at the Webb House Retirement Center in McMinnville.
She was born to Sylvanus and Marie White on March 29, 1923 in Butte Montana. Growing up in Montana she learned what it was like to grow up during the later frontier days. Her parents taught her values of travel and education. She received a B.S. degree in Nursing from Montana State University where she met and married the love of her life, Gordon M. Lindner on May 2, 1944 in a simple ceremony in Great Falls, MT. Spring of 2017, they celebrated 73 years of marriage before his death in late May.
At Montana State Mary Jane was a member of the Alpha Omicron Pi Sorority and was a member of the Nurses Cadet Corps. Before graduation, with the help of the Red Cross, she established a center for children of war veterans.
During World War II, she moved to Oak Ridge, TN with her husband who was with the Special Engineering Division, where she continued her nursing career at the Methodist Medical Center. While raising her children, she used her nursing skills assisting the area doctors for vaccinations in schools.
Mary Jane and Gordon moved to the new town of Norris, TN in 1949 where she was active in the Norris Religious Fellowship and various activities in the community. A Girl Scout since the age of seven, she was a leader for both Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, camp director, delegate to the Highland Rim Council and the Tanasi Council. In 2006, she received her 75 year tenure pin from the Tanasi Council. She was involved with the Norris Little Theater in costume and set design, worked with Gordon in the Lions Club, and a charter member of the Good Neighbors.
They moved back to Oak Ridge in 1980. There Mary Jane was active in the Chapel on the Hill Church, the Oak Ridge Community Band, The Museum of Atomic Energy, the holiday Bureau, and volunteered at Methodist Medical Center, the MADD organization, reading at schools and hospice. Her hobbies included reading, traveling, sewing, crocheting, and playing Bridge. In 2009, Mary Jane was nationally recognized by the Nature Conservancy for her donation of the family homestead to the organization. In 2010, she received the Church Women United Humanitarian Award.
She is survived by her three children, Gary and wife Martha of Duncan, SC, Rosemary and husband Raymond of Bainbridge Island, Washington, and Natalie and husband Larry Green of Smithville; six grandchildren, Amy Faulkner and husband Todd of Duncan, SC, Wesley Lindner and wife Jennifer of Jacksonville, FL, RaeAnne Nye of Denver, CO, Leland Nye and wife Aleena of Honolulu, Hawaii, Elizabeth Young and husband Barry of Smithville and Tony Green of Orlando, FL; 11 grandchildren. She is also survived by the Lindsay Hunt family of Australia. Lindsay was a foreign exchange student with the Lindners and has remained part of the family.
There will be a celebration of Mary Jane’s life on April 7, 2018 at the Chapel on The Hill in Oak Ridge. Rev. Randy Hammer will officiate.
Smithville Review
(Smithville, Tenn.)
Feb. 21, 2018
