Linda Christine Bird

Linda Christine Bird of McKinney, Texas, nee Linda Strack, passed away at the age of 62 in the early morning of Monday, Oct. 27, 2014, at Baylor Medical Center McKinney, surrounded by her family. Linda was possessed of a sweet, quirky, eccentric, sensitive spirit that charmed everyone around her until her last days.

She is survived by her husband, Wendell Jackson "Jack" Bird, Jr.; sons Simon Peter Groebner, 41, of Minneapolis and Adrian Jamaal Green, 32, of Dallas; younger brother Robert Strack of Houston and younger sister Ellen Strack of Weekstown, N.J.; and her cats Peanut and Smokey.

She was born July 25, 1952 on Long Beach Island, N.J., to Robert Carey and Marie (Batory) Strack, and spent her earliest years in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio before her family relocated permanently to Somers Point, N.J., in 1960. She attended Holy Spirit High School in Absecon, N.J., and the College of St. Catherine in Minnesota, graduating from Minnesota State University-Mankato in 1980. Always fashionable, Linda evolved with the times and her generation: from a Beatlemaniac in the '60s to a "hippie" of sorts in the '70s to a young professional in the '80s.

After two previous marriages and raising two sons in Minnesota, Virginia and Texas, Linda wed Jack Bird in 1999 in The Colony, Texas., and the couple moved to Allen. She had a great love for animals and, after ending a long career with the federal government due to disability, she worked as a self-employed pet-sitter.

Although her later years were marked by an assortment of health challenges -- including beating lung cancer in 2010 -- Linda always had the will to survive. After the Birds moved to the Chateau in McKinney, she honed her crafting skills and her diehard love of the Minnesota Vikings. Amid her struggles what she wanted most was to be in the comfort of her always-meticulously organized and decorated home, with her husband and her cats. We believe that now, Linda is finally home.