The Bronx, New York · August 30, 1951
Linda Maria Black Free Spirit. Registered Nurse.
August 30, 1951 · January 2, 2024 · Manhattan, New York
A daughter of the Bronx who found her soul on the West Coast — nurse, mother of three, woman who would happily spend four days on a train rather than two hours on a plane.
Left the Bronx in the late 1960s. Arrived in San Francisco just in time for everything that made San Francisco in the late '60s unforgettable.
1951 – 2024The Woman Herself
Born in the Bronx.
Shaped by the West.
Linda Maria Black was born on August 30, 1951 in New York City — daughter of Melvin Myers Black and Lydia Esther Figueroa, and sister to Robert "Bobby" Edward Black. She grew up in the Bronx, attended its public schools, and in a move that defined the rest of her life, headed to San Francisco in the late 1960s — right into the heart of one of the most transformative decades in American history.
She was, in every sense, a product of the sixties. The idealism, the independence, the willingness to go wherever life pointed — Linda carried all of it through decades of marriages, moves, and new beginnings, never losing the essential restlessness that brought her west in the first place.
Her son Sean Mannion was born in 1969. She married Harold Crean in San Francisco on December 29, 1970 — at just 19 years old. Their son Jesse followed in 1973. Life moved fast and Linda moved with it.
A graduate of the Bronx High School of Science — one of New York City's most selective public schools — Linda was no stranger to intellectual rigor. She then earned her nursing degree from the City College of San Francisco, Class of 1975, and spent most of her working life as a Registered Nurse. She showed up for people in their most vulnerable moments. That was simply who she was.
Three marriages. Three children. Oregon, California, Washington state — Linda lived across the American West with the ease of someone who had decided long ago that home was wherever she planted herself next.
She would rather spend four days on a train crossing the country than two hours in the air. The journey was the point — not just the destination.
Family Archive
Linda — In Photographs
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The Chapters of a Full Life
Six Things That Defined Linda
Bronx High School of Science
Linda attended one of the most prestigious and selective public high schools in New York City — a school that demanded intellectual seriousness. She brought that same rigor to nursing, and to everything else she took on.
Registered Nurse
City College of San Francisco, Class of 1975. Linda spent most of her life as a nurse — working with patients when they were most vulnerable, most scared, most in need. She showed up. Every time.
Child of the Sixties
She arrived in San Francisco in the late 1960s — right in the middle of everything. The music, the movement, the sense that the world was changing and you could be part of changing it. Linda was.
Mother of Three
Sean Mannion (1969), Jesse Crean (1973), and Robin Davis (1983) — three children across three decades, each one a chapter of Linda's evolving life and ever-expanding heart.
The Train, Not the Plane
Linda hated flying. When she needed to travel coast to coast, she took the train — days of passing landscape, small-town platforms, the country unrolling outside the window. She was never in a hurry to skip the middle.
Oregon, Forever
From San Francisco to Klamath Falls, Portland, Monroe, Rainier — Linda put down roots across Oregon's landscapes. The Pacific Northwest suited her: unhurried, green, independent, and quietly spectacular.
Coast to Coast, the Right Way
She Took The Train
Linda hated flying. It was a fact about her as reliable as her nursing license. When the coasts needed connecting — when family called, when life required a cross-country journey — Linda got on a train.
Four days. The Rockies scrolling past. The Great Plains opening up. The Mississippi somewhere in the middle of the night. Small stations in towns she'd never heard of. The dining car. The observation deck. All of it.
For Linda, the train wasn't the inconvenient alternative. It was the right way to travel — with time to think, time to watch, time to arrive somewhere as yourself rather than as a compressed, anxious version of yourself decanted from a pressurized tube.
She moved through the American West the same way: on her own terms, at her own pace, taking in the view.
Family & A Life in Order
The People She Loved.
The Places She Lived.
Linda Maria Black — Her People
Father — Melvin Myers Black
Mother — Lydia Esther Figueroa
Brother — Robert "Bobby" Edward Black (1952–2017)
First husband — Harold W. Crean (m. December 29, 1970, San Francisco)
Second husband — Don P. Davis (early 1980s)
Third husband — Michael Lee Leckington (m. August 30, 2003, Benton, Oregon)
Son — Sean Mannion (b. 1969, Petaluma, CA)
Son — Jesse R. Crean (b. 1973, Turlock, CA)
Daughter — Robin L. Davis (b. 1983, Albany, OR)