Linda C. Kmiecik
Linda C. Kmiecik, 81 of Girard passed away Tuesday, July 5, 2022 at Memorial Medical Center in Springfield with her loving cousin by her side.
Linda Kmiecik was born in Chicago, on Oct. 29, 1940 to Harold F. Lightholder formerly of Pontiac, and Verna J. (Moomaw) Lightholder formerly of Virden.
She graduated from St. Margaret of Scotland Grade School and Academy of Our Lady High School (now closed) on Chicago’s south side and the College (now University) of St. Francis in Joliet with a B.A. After a brief period of teaching English, she worked for ten years for patent attorneys in downtown Chicago and in 1973 moved to employment as administrative assistant when her boss Willis Jensen accepted the position of Vice President of Engineering of the now defunct Duo-Fast Corporation of Franklin Park, near O’Hare Airport.
Following a brief early marriage, she married Anthony “Tony” Kmiecik, another Duo-Faster in Nov. 1982 in Franklin Park. They lived in Bensenville until early retirement in July 1997 brought them to Girard, settling finally in Hillcrest Estates across the road from Oak Leaf Country Club allowing Tony to play golf anywhere, any time and Linda to research her family history, especially her maternal grandfather Fred Sterling, born 1879 and adopted as Fred Moomaw of Virden.
She was an avid genealogist since 1979, a member of the Macoupin County Genealogical Society, Macoupin County Historical Society, Montgomery County Genealogical Society and others in Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Virginia and Connecticut. She was a founding volunteer at the Macoupin County Archives in Carlinville, a member of the 2005 Girard Sesquicentennial Book Committee and of the Virden Woman’s Club.
She self-published three genealogies in the 1990s: The Early Drury Line of New England and Descendants of Samuel and Hannah Drury on her mother’s ancestry and the three-volume Lightholder of Ireland and America on her father’s ancestry.
She is survived by maternal cousin Verna Scharfenberg of Virden and others in the Macoupin Co, area and Clinton; paternal Lightholder cousins in the Chicago area and Mukwonago, Wisconsin and Dolton cousins in Peoria and Washington, IL, San Diego and Austin, TX and other cousins on both sides across America and in County Meath, Ireland.
In keeping with Linda’s wishes, private family services will be held with burial at Virden Cemetery.
Memorials in her memory may be made to Benld Adopt-A-Pet, PO Box 53, Benld, IL 62009 or Macoupin County Historical Society, 920 West Breckenridge, Carlinville, IL 62626 and may be received by Airsman and Calvert Funeral Homes, Girard.
Online expressions of sympathy may be made at airsmancalvert.com
