Linda Aune Saville

During her last three weeks in hospice, after a stroke that affected her swallow, her family and friends shared precious memories, held her hand, and played music and hymns of encouragement. She expressed no pain or fear, knowing she was headed to heaven and that Jesus Christ was her Lord and Savior.

We constantly reminded our mother, “I love you, mother,” to let her know she’s loved very much by each of us. The Saville and Cannon families cared for her over the years, especially Rachel Saville, Linda’s youngest daughter, who devoted years to her estate and daily care. God provided a comfortable place for her to live with the family she loved. Rachel’s Sunnybrook apartment was remodeled especially for her. We’ll cherish the memories of family gatherings and milestones at all our homes and Sunnybrook. The Saville family thanks Linda’s hospice caregivers for their knowledge and care. We especially thank Maria Zenon and Victoria Baker for their dedication and devotion to our mother’s needs. We’ll deeply miss her in the days, weeks, months, and years to come. We’ll always have the fragrance of sweet memories with our “lil nugget,” mother.

Linda Aune (nicknamed “Dintu”) Niemela Saville was born on June 20, 1941, in Peterborough, New Hampshire, to John Richard and Lempi Niemela. She attended grammar school in Dublin, NH, and graduated from Peterborough High School. Linda worked briefly at the New Hampshire Ball Bearing. She met her sweetheart, Bert Saville, through family ties in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. They married in the Community Church of Dublin, NH, on September 10, 1960. Linda, a beautiful bride in a classic white lace dress, stood beside her handsome husband, Bert, in his white tuxedo, under a giant family tree at Frost Farm, her family home in Dublin, NH. The elegant attendees, including men in suits and ties, and the gorgeous day made for a picture-perfect wedding. This marked

the beginning of a new phase in Linda’s life.

Mother always strived to present herself well in her many endeavors. A wonderful wife, she supported her husband’s diverse self-employment ventures, including carpentry, remodeling, janitorial work, and plowing. She managed their business and delivered his lunch. Linda even earned her real estate license to help their business. She also nurtured and fed their four children, cooking from scratch and sewing their clothes. She knew how to

handle the chores of New Hampshire life, having grown up doing so. As a Finnish woman, she inherited a sturdy, healthy stock from her mother, which was further enhanced by the Finnish lifestyle, especially the sauna. She had her husband build her a sauna in their basement. The Finnish concept of defining a unique mixture of courage, resilience, grit, and tenacity in the face of extreme adversity, known as “sisu,” was introduced to us through the

sauna. It represents a “second wind” of determination to overcome impossible odds when all physical or mental strength seems exhausted, acting as a stoic, long-term perseverance rather than a momentary bravery. Cultural significance, rooted in her family history, action-oriented resilience, the ability to learn from failures, and staying composed during challenges are all aspects of “sisu.” It suggests a deeper, almost spiritual, stoic strength. Linda Aune Niemela, a true Finn, embodied this definition. Her heritage was Finnish, but her greater legacy was in the Lord. As a child, she attended church with her father, dressed in her Sunday best, and helped keep her brothers from wrestling in the car on the way to church. Despite financial struggles, sisu prevailed at Frost Farm. She assisted her busy parents with farm work, including haying, milking, raising animals, gardening, and canning. All ten siblings contributed to the farm’s daily grind. Her mother, a personal cook, taught her valuable recipes for wealthy residents of the Dublin community. Detail orientation and smart communication skills were essential for their clients, skills she learned through close involvement and observation.

Mother had an elephantine memory and a taste for good food, sophistication, style, grace, protocol, good behavior, and duck-like grace above water and perseverance below. She earned enough to buy her first used car, in 1957, the year she was sixteen. The ride to Frost Farm in mothers station wagon was a joy ride for us kids. When she married Bert, she joined the Saville family, bringing Scottish passion to counter her simple Finnish upbringing. They had clam bakes, lobster cook-offs, BBQ beer chicken, with a slathered on secret sauce recipe from Uncle Phil Coll. Wonderful get-togethers, reunions, and holidays filled with hellos, hugs, and card games. To this day I remember playing Mother’s favorite board game, Parcheesi! Race and chase, the winner was the first one to move all four pawns into the home center of the board! Such a fun remembrance of playing it with her. Loads of potluck food. Mother’s recipes and skills were always a hit with the Savilles. Aunt Cathie would say, “What a grand time was had by all.” As you can now grasp, life was full for Linda Saville, with all of her family on both sides. True to her love of being around her family, right to the end of her hospice, she was in a deck chair bundled up, outside with us, enjoying watching our family play our bean bag toss game.

Mother married at twenty years old, one year after her high school graduation in 1959. Her life after marriage, moved on away from Frost Farm where she spent her youth. Life is happening, their first custom home, is built by Bert for them, in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. Their firstborn son, Robert Martin, arrived the summer of 1961, another son, Jeffrey Scott, born in the fall of 1962, then daughter, Alicia Maria, in the summer of 1964. They sold that home after a few years there, purchased a new home in Peterborough, New Hampshire, where in the spring of 1968, daughter Rachel Lynn was born. Life has a funny way of showing you later on in hindsight, how Gods plan operates, unfolds even, working all things out together for good for those that love God.

A very special note to tell pertains to the plan God working on behalf of our mother in simultaneous ways, even before Linda grew up on Frost Farm. Less than a mile, right around the corner from Frost Farm, was Staghead Farm, there in mothers youth and even to the time she graduated high school at age nineteen in 1959. She married one year later at twenty years old. Ever heard the expression, “meanwhile, back at the farm”? Well, yes, a new

phase of Mother’s early married life journey was being put together by Gods hands, and occurring unbeknownst to her, simultaneously. To explain, in the early 1960s, a wealthy industrialist by the name of Nelson Blount came to know Christ and sought a peaceful refuge away from the social whirl of Rhode Island. He purchased Staghead Farm in Dublin, NH! As God would see fit, a new believer, he too, desired a good Christian education for his children. As a result of this longing, he donated Staghead Farm to a group of committed educators who had a mutual desire to start a Christian school. The Nelson Blount, Melvin Moody, and Leon Moody families all worked together to begin what is still today, the Dublin Christian Academy; the school doors opened in 1964. As we understand it, Mother

came to know about Dublin Christian Academy either through the Blount family connections with Bert, also perhaps, her cousin Ken Johansson. Whomever exactly it was, we know she made some lifelong friendships there. She attended Sunday church services there with her two toddler sons, Robert and Jeffrey. As a new Christian herself, she taught her sons about Christ, and they believed as well, and Mother remarked that they were so happy

about it that they told her, “Mother, we’ve got to get Alicia saved”! She was not born until 1964, so it was a few years more before that happened, as well for daughter Rachel, whom God already knew about as a twinkling in his eye! Dad was not attending church with mother at this time. Mother attending church, over time, had an influence on him, eventually, Dad came to know Christ as his savior! Dad also had an opportunity come about to do some carpentry work on the school founders’ property, and he became inquisitive to the point of asking Mr. Blount about the large display of white boxes on his bookshelves. Mr. Blount said, “Oh, those are tape recordings of my pastorteacher down in Houston, Texas. He lent Dad some of the tapes and a reel-to-reel player, and that began for Dad and Mother a long Christian way of life and our family journey together. There were many different life maneuvers to come. They were living in Peterborough and then moved back to Jaffrey. From thereafter, all the while keeping their newfound desire and interest in the teaching from the word of God going. Technology became available that made it possible to hear a live message through a speaker box and a landline phone receiver set into it after you

dialed into the church number in Houston. Our parents opened their home, making it possible for those who had the same desire to hear the “live teaching of the truth, the word of God messages”, from their pastor in Houston, TX. Many people traveled from the surrounding NH towns, and across a state line from Massachusetts, to our home in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, to listen with us. Over years growing spiritually as a family, Mother and Dad had thoughts going on about circumstances in their lives and what moves to make going forward. Prayers and applying the word of God to their lives, they made yet another move, one town over, to Rindge, New Hampshire, where Bert built a small custom home on speculation to sell it. Dad prayed about it, and Gods grace answer came; it sold, despite a downturn in the New England economy of 1979. We know the Lord truly works in mysterious ways! For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Another note: Other parts of the country in 1979 were having a building boom, and guess where that was? Houston, Texas, right where their church pastor was! That brings us to right where we are today and partially why our parents had a very driven desire to learn and grow spiritually not just from tapes we listened to, or by live phone hookup calls, but rather a new desire for face-to-face teaching from their chosen pastor at the time. The downturn in the economy also was a catalyst in 1979 to end his 10-year decision-making process to finally up and move his family with the blessings of his wife, 3000 miles away from New Hampshire, all our relatives, friends, the beauty of New Hampshire and New England, and life as we’d known it for so long, to Houston, Texas.

Houston, Texas, was the next phase in this long journey for mother and her Christian walk and way of life. She walked that path with her husband and her family faithfully, and as dutifully as she had done in New Hampshire. She knew the scripture: “ For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21). It doesn’t matter

where you live; as a believer, you can have Christ in your soul, and you either take Him with you or go it alone on the “ my way” highway. She chose Christ. She definitely had her tests in life. We all do. We might want to know why things happen sometimes the way they do. One way to understand it is from a favorite framed in mothers home that says,“Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7). Part of a passage encouraging humility and trusting God’s timing and care. Trusting in Him that He is intimately involved in our lives. Mother and Dad, faith rested a whole lot. Always tossing the ball into the Lord’s lap, plenty of times! It is in hindsight a wonderful view of the plan of God, rolling out for our mother and her family. The unfolding of a legacy to God. The grace plan of God is still going on for all of us left here on earth. We truly had the best mother, we are biased for sure. I do think the greatest gift she gave to us all was the desire she had to witness to her husband, her four children, and many others whom she led to Christ as their savior. “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord. (Matthew 25:21)

Right now, mother is in Heaven, in the joy of her Lord. She is seeing dad once again, they are both happy, whole again, young again, touring their mansions, (oh boy!) seeing new colors, hearing new sounds, so many incredible new paths to walk, and so many dear loved ones to see again!

As you read this, Linda would hope that if you have not trusted in Jesus Christ as your savior, that you would make today, “the most” important decision of your life, right where you are, right now, and tell God the Father, that you accept His son Jesus Christ as your savior, and you will be saved. You will go to Heaven one day, all by the grace of God, through the work of His son on the cross for you. You cannot earn it or deserve it. It’s a free gift for you to unwrap. Scripture says: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

Linda is survived by her four children, Robert Saville and wife Edie of Houston, TX; Jeffrey Saville of Houston, TX; Alicia Cannon and husband Larry Cannon of Houston, TX; Rachel Saville of Brookshire, TX; Her legacy continues in her 6 grandchildren, Zachary, Hannah (Husband Austin), Lela, Carli, Jade, Mia and one great-grandchild Hattie who belongs to Hannah and Austin; one sister Lorna Letourneau of Dublin, NH. Linda was preceded in death by her

husband Bertie Saville of (57 years) parents, John Richard and Lempi Niemela, and nine siblings