KRISTIE MYERS
A young Linda Goswick traveled with her parents from her hometown of Dawsonville to Warm Springs, Georgia seeking relief from the effects of the polio that was reeking havoc on her adolescent legs.
It was there that everything would change.
One of the last cases of the epidemic of polio in the 1950’s, she shared the healing warm springs , made famous by President Franklin D Roosevelt, with two young girls half her age. It would have a profound and lifelong effect on Linda. At night she was tucked in her bed and she watched as those little girls, whose names she never knew, were put into their iron lungs. It was a scene that would change her forever. Trial was replaced with resolve. She made the decision that empathy, not sympathy would be her beacon.
Young Harris College is nestled deep in the North Georgia Mountains.
At 18 Linda would tackle the steep and rambling campus for the next 2 years, her legs ineffective
without the support of the leg braces and crutches that were her constant companion.
It was on to what is now University of North Georgia.were she would graduate with a bachelor in accounting. Next, Linda would conquer the halls of Lockheed Martin and the constant
issues that life with a physical disability threw in her path. Long before the nation realized the need for
equalization of folks with sharp minds but non compliant bodies, Linda blazed her own trail.
While raising 3 children is vocation enough for most folks, Linda also managed to preside as Mayor of Dawsonville for a time, chair the Etowah Water and Sewer Authority, toss in a rich history on the Dawson County School Board and then in “retirement” from at 35+ year stint at Lockheed,
be elected Dawson County Tax Commissioner. It was a post she would hold
for 12 years until her final retirement in 2016.
These days Linda can be found wallowing in the joy of Grandmotherhood. The reward of three children has been tripled with the addition of 6 “grands”. She talked about her pride of her pack when we chatted over lunch at the local Longhorns, it was then her face lit with the rapture than can only be grandchildren.
Linda and I first met in early 2001 when we were classmates in one of the original
Dawson Leadership classes. I was quickly struck by how unaffected she was by life in a wheelchair.
Her life of service to our community is a beacon in so many ways.
It was a few years later when I would be the beneficiary of the compassion
Linda learned so many years ago in Warm Springs, Georgia.
Some things you never forget....
Well done my friend....Dawson County thanks you for your service.
