Gloucester Alumni

EAST GLOUCESTER — After an extended illness, Linda Jane Farnham, 63, of East Gloucester, died peacefully at sunrise, Sunday, April 27, 2008 surrounded by family and friends.

Born Sept. 22, 1944, to the late Alice (Homans) and Joseph Newton Farnham II, she grew up in Essex, where she worked every summer at Farnham's, the family restaurant founded by her great-grandfather, an Essex clammer, who was known as the first person to fry up a bushel of clams.

Voted Class Clown by Gloucester High School's Class of 1962, Linda never lost her ability to have a good time, even in the face of her illness. She was captain of Gloucester High School's Girls Rifle Team, a member of the Girls Drill Team, and a life-long pacifist thereafter.

She graduated from UMass Amherst in 1966 with a speech degree and was a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. She received her M.Ed. in Language and Speech Pathology at Northeastern University. She worked for Wakefield Public Schools as a language and speech pathologist for 30 years until she was diagnosed with neuro-endocrine cancer two years ago.

In the early 1990s, she was a volunteer tutor at the Adult Literacy Center of the Sawyer Free Library.

Linda loved the outdoors, camping, cross-country skiing, and kayaking. She was a world traveler and especially loved Ireland. Each summer she took international trips with her college friends until her illness. For many years she participated in a monthly journal group with a few close friends. She was a lover of art, music and people.

Linda is survived by her beloved daughter, Jessica Penelope Flynn, wife of Mark Pelosi and her two precious grandsons, Harrison Flynn Pelosi and Zachary Mark Pelosi of Gloucester.

In addition to her daughter and grandchildren, she is survived by her former husband, Raymond G. Flynn of Gloucester; a sister, Joyce Kippen, and her husband Jack, of Ipswich; a sister-in-law, Kathy Farnham of California; her stepmother, Janice (Murray) Farnham of Essex, and many nieces and nephews.

She was predeceased by the love of her life, Al Czerepak, the well known Cape Ann artist whom she loved until the day she died. She was also predeceased by her brother, Joseph "Newty" Farnham,