Cooper, Linda Kay

Soldotna area resident Linda Kay Cooper, 54, died 
April 17, 2010, peacefully in her sleep at home after a 
long illness.

A funeral will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at The Church of 
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Soldotna. Burial will 
be in Cooper Landing and a dinner at Northstar Dance 
Studio next to Alaska Horn and Antler. 

Linda was born July 23, 1955, to Naomi Alma and 
Walter Lee Peace. She was one of four children and 
spent her childhood in Banks, Ore.

She moved to Alaska in 1982 with her three daughters 
looking for adventure and a fresh start.

She loved camping and fishing on the Russian River 
and spending summers mining for gold in Chicken.

She moved to Dutch Harbor in 1991 to work for Pen 
Air and enjoyed exploring the island and beach 
combing. She loved flying into remote bays and 
spending the afternoon fishing wide open streams 
teaming with salmon. She spent summers enjoying 
Fort Glenn on Umnak and Chernofski Sheep Ranch on 
Unalaska, where she taught her daughter to hunt 
sheep.

In 1995, she moved to Soldotna and gained a love of 
gathering medicinal plant for teas and tinctures. She 
spent summers traveling to Fairbanks to watch the 
World Eskimo-Indian Olympics and to spend time 
camping in Denali and soaking at Chena Hot Springs. 

Linda worked for Frontier Community Services and 
went to Kenai Peninsula College full time, earning her 
associate's degree in 1999. She loved archeology and 
was pursuing her degree in anthropology when in 
2000 she met the love of her life, Tom Cooper. They 
were married Dec. 29, 2000. Both having a love of 
exploration and adventure, they spent the next 10 
years searching for antlers to carve, hunting in Kiana, 
collecting rocks in Arizona, gold detecting at Ganes 
Creek, doing float trips on various rivers and loving 
each other. 

She was preceded in death by her parents, Naomi 
Ledford and Walter Peace; and brother-in-law, Jim 
Seavey.

She is survived by her husband, Tom Cooper, of 
Soldotna; daughters, Sheron Jackson, of Soldotna, 
Diana Long, of Anchorage, and Christina Cramer, of 
Soldotna; sons-in-law, Russell Cramer, of Soldotna, 
and Brian Bellamy, of Anchorage; step-children, Jenny 
and Lynn Martin, of Greenland, N.H., Travis and 
Jennifer Cooper, of Lynnwood, Wash., Byron Cooper, 
of Lynnwood, Luke Cooper, of Anchorage, Tom and 
Tammera Cooper, of Bow, Wash., Clint and Sonja 
Cooper, of Lynnwood; brother, Bill Peace, of 
Soldotna; sisters, Nancy Coon, of Banks, Ore., Judy 
Seavey, of Banks; 21 grandchildren; one great-
grandchild; and many nieces and nephews and great-
nieces and great-nephews of Oregon.

Arrangements were by Peninsula Memorial Chapel.

Published in adn.com from April 20 to April 21, 2010