Linda Ann Viele was born to Betty Palmer and Robert Viele in Seattle, Washington. At the age of 7 her family moved to San Mateo, California where she attended grade school through high school. In her youth, she cast her friends in backyard drama productions for the neighbors to raise money for the Red Cross which likely began her lifelong passion for charity work. To her “baby sister” Barbara, she was “super woman” who often whooshed around her room behind closed doors so that Barbara couldn’t witness her flights. As a San Mateo High Bear Cat, she was cajoled by a classmate into trying out and became a cheerleader. She later admitted that she cried before games because she felt guilty for having a place on the squad that others wanted more than she. Most of all, she hated the conformity of directing others to cheer in an approved manner which grated at her sense of individuality. After high school, she initially attended Stephens College in Columbia Missouri where the “rules were insane and chauvinistic” prompting her to rebel. In what the school’s dean thought was to be a disciplinary meeting to “improve her attitude” she flipped the dialogue and argued to change the outdated rules.
She married her high school sweetheart Bob Merlo at age 19 and worked for their housing in a local farmhouse by milking cows and as a secretary and bank teller to financially support them both through undergrad, grad school and his veterinary training in Texas, Colorado, and Missouri along the way earning herself a B.A. in English from Colorado State, and Masters of Education in special education at University of Missouri, Columbia. They welcomed their son Scott Merlo (me) in 1968 and were incredibly warm, loving and engaged parents despite the challenges of completing advanced education with limited financial resources while raising a child.
They were divorced in 1974 and she subsequently moved to Laguna Beach, California and married Orange County Deputy District Attorney Richard Farnell. During her time in Laguna, she worked as a special education teacher from K-12 levels with a special focus on learning disabilities. She published “Hooked on Reading” in School and Community Journal, “Where have all the Real Men Gone, The Childcare Crisis” in New Dawn Magazine, and wrote/produced “Orange County’s Childcare Crisis” as well as “Identification and Recovery from Domestic Violence” for Cable Television Orange County. When her husband took on a case of a police officer involved in shooting of a 5y/o who had been left alone at home while his single mother was working, she became engaged in the fight to improve childcare options and founded/became executive director of the non-profit “Child Care Advocates” which lobbied successfully for many local employers to help provide childcare options for their employees. She served as a planning commissioner for Laguna Beach and began a lifelong journey of fundraising and philanthropic support of environmental preservation, woman and children’s causes, educational opportunity development, community health clinic support and animal welfare.
After a tumultuous marriage, she and Richard divorced in 1990, and she moved back home to San Mateo County. She earned a second master’s degree in counseling from Cal State San Jose and spent the rest of her professional career in San Mateo High School District as a special ed teacher/department chair, counselor, mentor teacher and private tutor until her final year of life when ALS robbed us of her many incredibly generous gifts.
She was fortunate to reunite with a childhood neighbor and heartthrob Bob Silva while he was serving as a Dean of Students at Mills and she married the described “love of my life” in 2000. They spent twenty blissful years together traveling through Europe and the Hawaiian Islands, enjoying the company of their extended families and shared love of rescued pets and wildlife until he passed away from Alzheimer’s in 2022.
While caring for each other’s spouses in advanced stages of dementia, she met and became close to her very kind-hearted companion Howie Kimel. She and Howie shared a memorable trip through the Philippines and Bali in 2023, and he became her constant and loving caregiver when she developed symptoms and was eventually diagnosed with ALS in 2024.
Mom’s professional, civic and personal achievements were, however, eclipsed by her charismatic personality. She was ferociously warm and compassionate. She was a true empath who felt both the suffering and the joy of others, whether human/furred/feathered or scaled. She was uniquely non-judgmental and inclusive, making close friends with the ease of a smile.
She is dearly loved by the nearest family she leaves behind; her sister Barbara and brother-in-law Tony Basques, her son Scott and daughter-in-law Agnes Merlo, her grandsons James and Reilly Merlo, her nephew Mark, his wife Kim and daughter Samantha Pagano, her niece Julianne Basques and all the Basques clan, her step-son Greg and his daughter Bella, her step-son Scott Silva, her step-daughter Cindy and Tom Burg along with their children Nick, Caitlin and Anne, her step-brothers Kirk and Damon Wood along with their wives Kim and Debbie, her close friends and partners Olga Salgado, Jim Hamilton and Howard Kimel as well as her latest rescued cats Harley, Lisa, Jerry and all the Belmont neighborhood wildlife.
We pray that she is joyously reunited with the friends and loved ones who preceded her in death and that she can continue to watch over those of us left behind.
In lieu of flowers, please contribute generously in her memory with any donations to the ALS network, Humane Society, and/or Peninsula Open Space Trust.
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