Dreams of singing again become real

There’s something about the human spirit. It never stops dreaming. For Ledgestone resident Linda Stone, that dream is singing.

“I wanted to do, what I used to do,” Stone said. And what did she use to do? In a word, sing. As a teacher who taught military families, her career took her all around the world- beginning in Okinawa in the 1960s and ending in England—and where she traveled, she sang.

“It all started in elementary school when they needed a loud voice. One instructor in junior high went to the Julliard School of Music,” Stone said.  

She also had a good music instructor in high school, and then attended Baylor and graduated. Then she got the travel bug. “The only way to leave the U.S. was to go, apply… I put my application in to go to Europe and teach military kids,” and then she was chosen by the university to go to Okinawa.

While in Okinawa, she found music was a universal language. “Nine of us built a church, this was the late sixties. They knew no English, and I knew no Japanese, but I would sing and they knew the songs,” Stone said. “We rented a beer hall and painted it … young airmen would teach Sunday school. There where 150 [attendees] by the end of the year.” 

After Okinawa it was off to Sicily, Italy, where her pursuit of serious music led her perform at the Opera House’s Choral Society. She performed a variety of music that also performing duets. She spent five years there.

Then she relocated to England to reach at a Royal Air Force Base. She was up for more serious study of music, and attended the Trinity School of Music. She would end up spending thirty years in England. The land of Gilbert and Sullivan agreed with her. 

In addition to singing, she pursued the theatre and  appeared in local play productions. Her roles included “Bloody Mary,” the housekeeper in “My Fair Lady,” the Mother Abbot in the Sound of Music,” and a variety of other roles. But her main love remained in singing and in singing she ran the full gauntlet- from serious to the lighthearted.  “Singing in pubs for fun, I loved that!” Stone said.

But the high cost of living in England, forced her adventures as an expatriate to come to an end. “I was going broke, and a friend found a house in Austin,” Stone said. But that move didn’t change her basic love and she continued performing. “Music has been my life. I was in the church choir at the First Baptist (in Austin) at Trinity and 9th.”

She fell in love with the area and decided to stay. When she moved to Ledgestone, she joined the choirs of local churches. 

Seeing her love of music, Ledgestone decided to help with its signature program called “Miracle Moment.” The program fulfills dreams of the residents, which has ranged from throwing out the first pitch at a baseball game, to a day of sailing on Canyon Lake for a long retired sailor. For Linda Stone, you can guess her “Miracle Moment.”

Linda Stone’s dream of once again performing in front of an audience came true at Ledgestone. She performed “Climb Every Mountain” from Sound of Music and George Gershwin’s “Summertime” from “Porgy and Bess.” “It was a fun evening…local musicians did show tunes on Broadway,” Stone said, while still overwhelmed by her night of performing.

“She was a soloist and seeing her sing two songs, you saw her sparkle--- right before you she became her younger self,” Debra Maddox, Ledgestone Director of Marketing & Admissions, said.

The human spirit within us all lives, and is hard to extinguish. It is perhaps what makes us all alike and human. “Music has been my life,” said Linda Stone, believing her golden years can have golden dreams in them.

For more information on Ledgestone Senior Living, see their website at  ledgestonesl.com