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Nell Ferrell Linebarger didn’t have an auspicious start in life. Her father abandoned the family, leaving her and her four siblings to endure a hardscrabble life in Staples. She dropped out of high school after the 11th grade to become a chicken farmer’s wife.
But nothing could stop Linebarger, a woman full of zest and grace who would go on to become a beloved public school teacher in the San Marcos area for almost 30 years. After that, she became a devoted Methodist minister who pastored at small rural churches in Texas for more than a decade.
Linebarger died Feb. 3, a week shy of her 92nd birthday.
“She just never quit,” said her son, attorney, Dale Linebarger. “She was always an optimist, looking on the bright side of things.”
Once, when his mother and father, Roger Derham Linebarger, were still raising chickens and turkeys on their dirt farm, the whole lot of chickens died a week before they were due for the market, succumbing to disease over two days.
“Most people would have just given up, but not my mother,” Dale said. More chickens were procured.
Linebarger was born in Kingsbury, between Luling and Seguin. She married Roger in 1942 and would go on to enjoy 62 years of marriage with him. In 1953, with their three kids in tow, they moved to San Marcos, where he’d found a job at a Chevrolet dealer.
Even though she’d dropped out of high school, Linebarger was able to attend the then-named Southwest Texas State Teachers College. She taught in rural elementary schools for several years and then for 29 years in the San Marcos School District, earning a master’s degree on the side. When she retired, she attended Perkins Theological Seminary of Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
Over 11 years, Linebarger served as pastor at small churches in rural Texas, finishing her career as a minister at the churches of her childhood in Staples and Kingsbury.
But Linebarger still wasn’t done. At 75, she worked for another decade as an assistant chaplain at Guadalupe Regional Hospital in Seguin, where her soothing presence and strong work ethic prompted the hospital to dedicate its chapel in her honor.
“My mother was fortunate in that her health was good until the last six months of her life,” said Dale. “She was working at the hospital until she was 85, and she was still (officiating) at funerals last year. My sister and I would go with her to steady her, but even when her knees were playing out, she’d still keep walking.”
Nell Ferrell Linebarger
Born:Feb. 11, 1925, Kingsbury
Died: Feb. 3, 2017, Staples
Survived by: Sister Glenda Reeder; sons Roger Dale Linebarger and Glen York Linebarger; daughter Karen Nell Linebarger; nine grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren.
Services: 1 p.m. Saturday at San Marcos United Methodist Church, 129 W. Hutchison St., San Marcos.
Of his mother’s many accomplishments, the most valued were the times when former students or parishioners would tell her what a positive impact she’d had on their lives, Dale wrote in her obituary.
“She was a hell of a woman,” it stated.
mstoeltje@express-news.net
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