Linda Johnson Schwartz

After graduating from Penncrest I went to nursing school in Northeast Philadelphia.  After graduating from Frankford Hospital School of Nursing I worked at Philadelphia General Hospital in surgical intensive care and then at Jefferson Hospital in the operating room.

I met my husband, Hank when he was an intern at Philadelphia General Hospital and we were married in 1967 at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii where he was stationed as the medical officer on a Polaris Submarine.  We had a son in Hawaii.  After three years of Navy service we moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin where my husband took a residency in internal medicine.  Our second child, a daughter, was born in Milwaukee.  From there we relocated to a small town in Northern Wisconsin where Hank went into private practice and I went back to work at the small local hospital.  We lived in that small town for about 9 years.  Our third child, a son, was born there.  Eventually my husband went back on active duty with the Navy to do research in diving and submarine medicine in Panama City, Florida. 

Since Florida is the land of the geriatric patient I found a job in a skilled, long term care facility and ended up running these types of facilities for about 10 years.  The Navy sent us back to Hawaii which meant I had to find another job which I did with an automobile insurance company.  My job was reviewing medical records for first and third party injury claims and educating the adjusters with regard to various injuries.  This particular job allowed me to transfer within the company when the Navy saw fit to send us to Washington DC where my husband worked for the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery and I continued to work for the same insurance company.  Hank retired from the Navy after 25 years and my insurance company offered me a job back in Hawaii which delighted us both.   I worked in various nursing jobs for 40 years.

We are both completely retired now and we travel a lot.  We spend the winter in Hawaii, the spring and fall in Virginia where we have a home close to our daughter and the summer in Northern Wisconsin where we have a cottage.  We have three children who are all grown and educated.  David has his undergraduate degree in Philosophy and a PhD in music composition and is at this time writing a book about his favorite composer Gustav Mahler (we are not sure where we got this kid as neither of us has any musical abilities).  Nancy is married and has three children and works as the copy editor for the Marine Corps magazine “Leatherneck”.   Michael is married and is employed as an Assistant Vice President and Trust Officer for City National Bank in San Diego.     

We have a wonderful life together and enjoy being retired and lots and lots of traveling.  We also enjoy our children and our three grandchildren.  Our children are spread across the country in California, Virginia and Florida which gives us even more reasons to travel.  We love company when we are in Hawaii if anyone chooses to come and visit!

As far as the best and most exciting things which have happened to me over the past 50 years my marriage and our life as well as the birth of our children are the highlights of my life.  As far as funny goes, with our family there is something funny going on every day.   For instance when Michael was small he was quite fascinated at Christmas with the manger scene which I had had since childhood.  He rearranged the figures many times each day.  That year a friend gave him a Fisher Price set of scuba divers since his father was a diver.  Mike named them Mary and Joseph just like the figures in the manger scene.  One day he disappeared in the house and I found him crying like he had been murdered and both arms were wet to the shoulders.  I finally got out of him that Mary and Joseph had gone diving in the “potty” and somehow had gotten flushed down.  He was heartbroken and of course his older brother and sister reminded him at least once a day they could hear “Mary and Joseph” screaming for help from the septic system which started the tears all over again!