Judy Wilkinson
This is one of the most difficult pieces I've had to write for the BC. To present my best friend of 57 years and to share with you why she has plaque #30
in the CCB's Hall of Fame: the personal and public.
On the personal side, she wore the same dress as my matron of honor that I had worn as her bridesmaid. (Given Lynda's taller, willowy, elegant slender
frame as contrasted with my, well, somewhat dumpier shorter form, you'll appreciate the miracle of seamstresses!) Nothing was going to keep her from my
wedding: not losing the car's transmission on the way to the ceremony, not forgetting her suitcase and having to borrow my sister's shoes!
Here are the essentials highlighted from her formal obituary which I helped her husband, Bob Ely, prepare for the Sacramento Bee.
"The daughter of Connie and Ray Bardis (both deceased), Lynda lost the last of her sight during her sophomore year in high school. She graduated from Tustin
High School; received her BA in French from UC Santa Barbara, and her MA from Berkeley in Romance Languages.
"Her career took her to Sacramento where she was a lobbyist for the California Council of the Blind and the Association of Social Workers. Her work for
the State of California included Chief of the Division for the Blind in the Department of Social Services, and she ended her 35-year career as Deputy Director
of the Specialized Services Division in the Department of Rehabilitation.
"She worked tirelessly to advance causes for people with disabilities: she was a founding organizer of Audio Vision, a radio reading service for the blind
in Sacramento, and Sierra Regional Ski for Light. She served as president of the Disabled in California State Services 2003-2005.
"Awards from the disability community include induction to the Hall of Fame of the California Council of the Blind in 2005 and The Ralph Black Public Service
Award from the Association of California State Employees with Disabilities for 2013.
"Lynda's civic activities went far beyond her work for the disability community. She was president of the Sacramento Chapter of ACLU in 1978; a founding
member of the Sacramento Chapter of the National Organization of Women in 1979; appointed in 1980 to the California Commission for the Reorganization of
Social Services for the State of California, and recently active in Healthcare for All.
"She is survived by her husband Robert Ely, her two step-children, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Lynda has legions of friends and armies of admirers who will miss her wit and wisdom, her charm and elegance and always her kindness."
First there was the voice! Anyone who heard Lynda speak during her young womanhood nearly laughed out loud. How could you take anyone seriously with that
little girl's voice? But as we all came to discover, if you judged her solely on the basis of that voice, you'd be so, so wrong!
She joined the Council in the late 1960's and became its legislative advocate in 1968.
Often her advocacy work came from behind the scenes: a phone call, a nudge here and there so that the Council would take actions that she felt she couldn't
be seen to support.
That was how she helped get the all-important SB 105 passed: the bill which instituted the Specialized Services Division: established to provide improved,
specialized, and comprehensive services to individuals who are blind, visually impaired, deaf and hard of hearing. Upon the recommendation of then DOR
Director Catherine Campisi (and with the support of the entire blindness community) she was the first deputy director of that Specialized Services Division,
which has oversight and leadership of Blind Field Services, the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Unit, Business Enterprises Program, Orientation Center for the
Blind, and the Older Individuals who are Blind.
She retired from that position in 2005, the year in which she was inducted into the CCB Hall of Fame.
She was not active in the Council the final 10 years of her life. She and Bob moved to Tennessee to be nearer family, and there she was diagnosed with
the sarcoma cancer which she successfully battled for six years when the average is only one. The two returned to Sacramento in 2012, where they had a
support community and a huge circle of friends.
Let me conclude with an excerpt which I presented at the celebration of Lynda's life held on October 5, 2014.
"Our friendship warms and renews us. You are with us until the last person who knows you joins your spirit. Then your name will still be spoken by those
who read the plaques and awards. When those have all been thrown away or destroyed, the universe will remember you as it does us all.
"Surely the poet Robert Frost was thinking of you when he wrote:
"The Rose Family
The rose is a rose,
And was always a rose.
But the theory now goes that the apple's a rose,
And the pear is,
and so's the plum,
I suppose.
The dear only knows
what will next prove a rose.
You [Lynda] of course are a rose,
But were always a rose."
