Linda was born and raised in Keyser, West Virginia, and has been imagining heaven since the loss of her mother when she was seven. The death of her beloved husband Jack in 2006 created a more urgent need to imagine the heaven where they would one day be reunited. Linda is a founding member and retired General Partner of a Southeastern investment management firm, and achieved a lifelong goal by earning her bachelor’s degree from Montreat College before her 50th birthday. As best stated by a pioneering friend, Linda “earned the degree for her obituary, not her resume!”

Jack’s death also led Linda to Romans 8:28 which says that “… all things work for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose” and to a desire to “work” something very good from the loss of Jack’s physical presence in her life. That “good” took the form of the Jack Matney Memorial Labyrinth, built in the center of Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina, in collaboration with Presbyterian Hospice and Palliative Care, Presbyterian Hospital Foundation, and the generosity of loving friends.