Linda Chere Hobbs went to meet her Dear Savior Jesus Christ on Monday, October 21, 2024. Linda was born on February 4, 1939, in McCamey, Texas to her parents, Linwood and Lillie Bishop. She had an illustrious life as a daughter, wife, mother, and teacher.
Being the daughter of a minister, Linda was afforded the opportunity to live in Salinas, California, Dimmitt, Texas, Hobbs, New Mexico, and Billings, Montana. She graduated from Sunset High School in Dallas. After two years of college, she returned to Dallas where she went to work for the travel department of Sun Oil and quickly advanced to assistant manager. During this period of time is when she met Jimmie who had just been honorably discharged from the Army and was in graduate school at North Texas State. They were married on a rainy night in Dallas on June 22, 1963.
Three years later, they moved to Austin and Linda returned to college at Southwest Texas State (Texas State) where she majored in Home Economics with a minor in Special Education. She went to work almost immediately with the Round Rock School District and on occasions she would bake a pie for the Superintendent’s office. The next year, Noel Gresham, the Superintendent, asked her to initiate a program entitled Cooperative Vocational and Academic Education. Linda jumped at the challenge. The class was limited to junior and senior girls who had a genuine interest in baking. The class began to take orders from individuals and businesses throughout Round Rock and Linda’s reputation as the pie crust lady began to grow.
The next year Linda’s husband was promoted to Regional Manager and Vice President by his employer to the Dallas office, so she went back to teaching regular Home Economics at South Grand Prairie High School. Five years later, Linda left the Metroplex. She and her husband moved to the publisher’s largest region, Chicago; but their residence was in Dundee on the Fox River about twenty-five miles from downtown. Here she became a cul-de-sac mom while watching her two young sons grow.
When Linda moved to Coleman, she returned as a Special Education teacher working with the mentally challenged students. However, it was not long before her skill at pie making resurfaced. During the November Celebration at the Methodist Church, The Lord’s Acre, Linda made a half dozen pecan pies to sell. They were gone in fifteen minutes. The next year she made a dozen, with pecans donated by the membership, and they were sold within an hour.
Linda also loved to fish and did so with a great deal of success. Whether catching channel cats out of Home Creek or a 60-pound Halibut off Homer Alaska, she was an accomplished fisher woman. She, in fact, caught a 65-pound King Salmon out of the Kenai Rivier in Soldotna, Alaska, and a six-foot sail fish off Acapulco.
Locally, Linda was an active member of the Methodist Church, the Gouldbusk Women’s Club, and the Ginger Test Art Club.
Linda is survived by her husband, Jimmie Hobbs of Coleman; her two sons, Kelly of Austin, and Hunter of Burnet; cousins in Brownwood; and nephews in Southlake and Clute.
Linda is preceded in death by her two brothers, Kenneth Bishop and Linwood Bishop, Jr.
Family and friends are invited to a funeral service celebrating her remarkable life at 11:00 a.m. Friday, October 25, 2024, at Stevens Funeral Home Chapel, 400 W. Pecan Street, in Coleman with Rev. Richard Hetzel and Rev. Greg Oberg, pastor at First Methodist Church, officiating. A private interment will be in the Coleman City Cemetery. Services are entrusted to Stevens Funeral Home in Coleman.
The family requests with gratitude that memorial contributions in memory of Linda be made to the Men’s Downtown Sunday School Class, c/o Jimmie Hobbs, P.O. Box 471, Coleman, Texas 76834.
We invite you to share fond memories and words of comfort and condolence with the Hobbs family by signing the guestbook on Linda’s tribute page at www.stevensfuneralhome.com. Stevens Funeral Home is honored to serve the Hobbs family.