Linda Faith Donahue

Linda Faith Donahue was a longtime resident of Cridersville, Ohio, who was known in the Lima area for her decades of quiet community service rather than for any public career. She was born on September 7, 1952, in Oneida, Tennessee, to Michael Edward Donahue and Ruth Jean Donahue (nee Stephens), and she spent most of her adult life in the same house in the Lima area, where she lived for more than 55 years.

For much of her working life Donahue was a laborer at Trim Trends in Spencerville, Ohio, and a proud member of the United Auto Workers union. After retiring from that job, she began a second career as a house manager at Lima's Samaritan House, a nonprofit shelter serving homeless families. In that role she became a familiar presence to the people the shelter served, and she personally wrote thank you cards to the organization's donors, a small gesture that was remembered fondly by those who received them.

Donahue was not a celebrity or a public office holder, and there is no indication she sought wider recognition. Her significance, as reflected in the tributes that followed her death, lay in her steady presence in her family and her community: she helped raise a great niece from the age of three, stayed close to a large network of siblings, nieces and nephews across Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee and New York, and kept a home life centered on gardening, sitting by a backyard fire, and spending time on her front porch. She was also known among friends for her fondness for outlaw country music, particularly the songs of Tompall Glaser.

Linda Faith Donahue died on October 22, 2026, at her home in the Lima, Ohio area, following a short illness that involved renal failure and cancer. She was 74 years old. Her death was announced through an obituary published by Bayliff and Son Funeral Home of Cridersville, which described her passing as peaceful and surrounded by the familiarity of the home she had lived in for over five decades.

She was preceded in death by her parents and by two sisters and two brothers. She is survived by two sisters, a niece, two nephews, and a wide circle of great nieces and great nephews, along with a close friend. Her family and the Samaritan House community have remembered her as a devoted caretaker and a steady, generous presence whose impact was felt in small, personal acts rather than public ones.