Linda Louise Reichert, our gypsy girl, age 75, passed away Monday, May 12, 2025, after a protracted battle with cancer, fought with an integrative naturopathies discipline, until her final four days at the Tidewell Hospice house in Bradenton, Florida.
She was born in University Hospital’s Maternity Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, April 15, 1950, to Gilbert Albert and Irene Eleanora (Sopko) Reichert. She had some national attention as the first female born to a father with gigantism, he being about 7’-6” tall (billed as 8’-4” in circus sideshows).

Linda attended Catholic schools; St. Margaret of Hungary elementary school in the Buckeye Road Hungarian neighborhood of East Cleveland and graduated from Hoban Dominican High School in 1968.
She worked in banking for two years before her mother’s encouragement spurred her to enter the medical field. She enrolled in the nursing program of Cuyahoga Community College in downtown Cleveland, graduating in 1973. She first worked at St. Lukes hospital in Cleveland –where she met her lifelong friend Kathy (Gray) Kaplan Benjamin,– followed by years in the University and Kaiser hospital systems as ICU nurse, with stints as union representative, and head nurse. She was appreciated for her balance of kindness and justice when in arbitration. She certified and worked as a case manager and retired as an insurance liaison in 2017. She felt honored to serve as a nurse and used every bit of skill & knowledge she had acquired to enhance her understanding of her cancer and discover innovative natural ways to impede its progress.

She was a peacemaker at home and work, loving poetry, live music concerts, gardening, and reading (which morphed into voracious computer research as her medical needs grew). She wrote poetry and prepared to write a novel, which sadly did not come to fruition. She was a skilled cook, honoring her family Hungarian roots and neighborhood experiences. She toured throughout the western states twice, British Columbia, Toronto and New England states, and often to Florida visiting her childhood lifelong friend, Welma (Tanos) Bohon (1950-2016), and her godparents. She was a lifelong lover of her cats, struggling to not become ‘the cat lady’, but tending to as many as her household would support, Linda loved Cleveland and Ohio in general, but Cleveland winters prompted dreams of a tropical home. She and Randy began splitting time between homes in Bedford, Ohio, and Lehigh Acres (later Bradenton for 5 months), Florida from 2010 until her death.

Linda married twice: first to Steve M Linkenauger (1956-2024), marrying after a 17-year relationship in 1990 and divorcing in 2006, and second to Randy L Daino in 2009, having reunited after an earlier relationship in college, falling back in love via pages of email like a cinematic love story. She loved fiercely and loyally with both men. Her spiritual journey of faith, research, study, and prayer was as intense as her medical research to save her own life. Her heart was pure.

Linda asked for no memorial services on her behalf. She was cremated at AM Cremation & Funeral Care of Palmetto, Florida and will be interred in Bedford Ohio Cemetery at a later date with a graveside remembrance.