Linda Haddeman Obituary, Death – On August 18, just a few days after she would have turned 90 years old, Linda Peelle Haddeman (1932-2022) passed away. Late in the year 2021, she suffered a stroke from which she never fully recovered. Linda was a lover of bright colors, a published author, a Distinguished Toastmaster, and a survivor of the Camp Fire that occurred in Paradise, California in 2018. Linda, who was the daughter of a schoolteacher and a truck driver, devoted her life to instilling a love of reading and learning in people of all ages, including children. Because of their mother, both of her sons have maintained a lifelong enthusiasm for reading and learning.
Linda’s mother and father struggled financially during the Great Depression, and the family home in Whittier, California, where Linda was born, did not always have enough food for the day. It was necessary for her father to have something to eat in the afternoon, so he left the house early in the morning. Even in the midst of all of this chaos, her parents never lost their sense of humor. As a result, Linda was able to acquire the skill of maintaining a positive attitude in the face of hardship at an early age.
After moving to California with her family when she was nine years old, Linda attended and graduated from Covina High School in 1949. After attending four different institutions over the course of four years, she finally received her degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley. After that, she continued her education and earned a master’s degree in English from Chico State thirty years later. Linda, who had been up all night typing her master’s thesis on a manual typewriter, said that “My gosh, this is hard.”
She was alluding to the difficulty of the task. Alex, the woman’s son, stated that the activity wouldn’t be worthwhile if it wasn’t challenging. The choice of Linda to work as a librarian was an excellent one for her. She was best notable for her work as the Bookmobile librarian during her 19 years in Butte County. After working for Butte County for 21 years, she eventually retired and went to work at the Bayliss Library, which is a unique remote Carnegie Endowment library that is not tied to a town.
She started off working half a day a week, and then she expanded to working a full day a week. She got the job of Bayliss librarian because she loved the work and not because of the pay. The Peelle Christmas, which later evolved into the Peelle Gathering, was a tradition that had been observed by the Peelle family for at least sixty years when Linda, the seventh and final cousin, passed away. The most recent Peelle Gathering took place in the year 2007. In 1957, Linda tied the knot with Homer Ratcliff, and the couple went on to have two boys, Alex and Everett, both of whom are still alive today. In addition, she is survived by eight of her grandkids as well as two of her great-grandchildren. She enjoyed a happy marriage to Ted Haddeman for a total of twenty years.