Bernice K. Link

is honored with a Brick from Tim Link, Patty Cole, and David Link.

Our mother, the brick. On reflection, this is not an inappropriate image, for she is strong, enduring, and always, supporting. She is the rock on which we have built our lives and our own families.

After graduating from the University of Illinois, she was vacationing in Colorado when a United Airlines executive noticed her and recruited her on the spot to become a stewardess. In a young airline industry that was still defining itself, Bunny Kurt was chosen the first secretary of the Airline Stewardess Association in 1945.

In the cockpit of a DC-3 (on Valentine's Day, naturally), she caught the eye and, ultimately, the heart of a dashing young pilot from Chicago, George Link. After the war, they came back to Wichita where George finished his degree at Wichita University and, together, they started a family.

As a parent, Bunny Link quietly and directly met and overcame life challenges that, as children, we had no ability to fully appreciate. Today, as adults and parents ourselves, it is with nothing but awe and loving admiration that we contemplate her unassuming bearing in giving us a nurturing childhood while at the same time grappling with and surviving cancer.

She embarked on a new and successful real estate career in 1978 that sustained her through retirement ten years later. Her love for Wichita State and her altruistic nature became evident when in 1992 she gave a gift to the University noteworthy enough to earn her life membership in The President's Club and The Society of 1895. She is also a sustaining member of The Junior League of Wichita.

In the days before a woman's struggle with breast cancer was an everyday topic in the advice columns, our mother squarely (well, yes, like a brick) faced her own mortality and that of her unborn child. The remarkable thing is the unremarkable way in which she views those years. "It wasn't like I had a choice," she has often told us, "I just did it." That, of course, is the mark of a true heroine.

With similar resoluteness, she sustained each of us through the vagaries and particular challenges of our young adulthood. She has never failed to grace us with her judgments on our life choices, while at the same time blessing us with a tolerance for our diversity. Since Dad's death in 1981, she has continued to thrive, a survivor, our heroine.

Thanks, Mom, for being our brick.

Submitted by Patty, David and Tom Link

April 22, 1999