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Obituary for Linda Carlston
LINDA MOWRER CARLSTON March 27, 1940 to July 28, 2018 Linda Mowrer Carlston was born in New Haven, CT on March 27, 1940. Her parents were Orval Hobart Mowrer, PhD, born in Unionville, Missouri and Willie Mae Cook Mowrer, PhD, born in Monroe, GA. Her father's academic career as a professor of psychology took her from New Haven to Cambridge, MA to Washington, D.C. during WWII, then back to Cambridge and finally to Urbana, IL where her father worked at and retired from The University of Illinois. In 1954 Dr. Mowrer was president of the American Psychological Association. Her mother was on the staff of the Children's Development Center of the University of Illinois for a number of years. Linda died from an unexpected heart attack. She was 78 years old. Her parents predeceased her. She had two sons, Randall and Elias. Randall predeceased her at his age of 49 from endocarditis, contracted as a collateral infection during a chemo therapy cycle for leukemia. Linda is survived by her younger son, Elias James Carlston and his wife Amy of Westbrook, ME; her husband of over 56 years, Peter Kenneth Carlston of Milford, NH; her sister, Katie Philips and her husband David of Topanga Canyon, CA; and her brother Todd Mowrer and his wife, Linda, of Ft. Collins, CO. She is also survived by Katie's two children Amber and Paul; by Elias' daughter, Chloe; and by Randall's and wife Della's three children, Alex, Keegan, Brooks and granddaughter, Aubrey. Linda graduated from the University High School in Urbana, IL. She received her BA degree in the teaching of French from the University of Illinois. A few years later, she received the first “double masters” degree for the University of Illinois, majoring in both the teaching of French and French literature. Linda lived in a number of places due to Peter's changing job assignments as an electrical communications engineer: Northern Virginia; Pasadena, CA; San Diego, CA; Frankfurt, Germany; Seattle, WA; ending in Brookline and Milford, NH. Her parents bought an uninsulated summer house in Camp Hedding in Epping, NH during Linda's time in Cambridge. Those summers provided Linda, as an innocent child, with memories fonder than any good memories of places she later lived in. In the late 1960s Randall was diagnosed with a “minimal learning disability.” The climate of teaching in that period was that children were not learning dysfunctional, rather they were just lazy. There were no learning therapists, so the educational psychologist told Linda what to do and she went home to be the daily therapist for Randall. As a result she never actually did any French teaching from her degrees. Also as a result, her therapy efforts were rewarded by Randall eventually receiving a BA degree from the University of Washington with a 3+ GPA. In the late 1970s Linda was gradually becoming less stable in her emotions and thinking. By a series of “coincidences,” that she ascribed to the grace of God, she learned she had serious sensitivities/allergies to all petrochemicals and many foods. She recovered by not exposing herself to chemicals and avoiding the offending foods. A life lesson she has for married couples who are in trouble is to consider allergies as a possible source of some of their difficulties. In the 1990s Linda discovered, again by a series of “God coincidences,” that she and her husband had two completely different ways of thinking: she a picture thinker and he a symbolic, linear sequential thinker. This is another life lesson she has for troubled marriages, that these differences in thinking methods can be a possible source of disconnects. In the 2010s Linda learned another life lesson for marriages in trouble: strongholds. A stronghold is a collection of thought and behavior habits we begin constructing in childhood to protect us from emotional pain. The stronghold in each spouse can be a serious barrier to marital intimacy. Because a stronghold is rooted so deeply in our brains, it is very resistant to traditional “talk therapy” such as marriage counseling. However, thankfully, Linda experienced her stronghold deconstructed and displaced by the Love of God. Linda became a Christian in 1976 and participated in and helped in programs and projects in every one of the 13 churches she has been in. The most recent was an assistant in the “snack shack” for the Vacation Bible School in the River of Life church in Amherst, NH. This program ended barely two weeks before she died. She expressed great joy in working for the benefit of the children and in building strong relationships with the other adult volunteers. Linda was increasingly very happy, joyous even, with her life and marriage over the recent months as her stronghold dissolved, her marriage increased in caring, loving, and intimacy, and as she leaned into the freedom of being a daughter of the Most High. She must certainly still be continuing her growth in joy with God. Linda finished well. May the Lord bring her eternal rest and shine His light on her forever
