Beloved Cousin Linda Bergold Whittaker, 1952 - 2006
 

 

Obituary from washingtonpost.com

Linda F. Bergold School Psychologist

Linda Frances Bergold, 54, a psychologist for Prince William County public schools and a mental health consultant for the county's Head Start program, died Aug. 23 at her home in Oakton. She had stomach cancer.

Ms. Bergold was a special education teacher with Fairfax County public schools from the mid-1970s until the early 1980s, when she started working in Prince William.

She helped start a suicide prevention training program for Prince William schools. She was also a founding member of the Prince William County Youth Suicide Prevention Coalition, which includes representatives from many community groups.

Since 1988, she had divided her time between the school system and the Head Start program.

Ms. Bergold was a native of Teaneck, N.J., and a 1973 psychology graduate of Boston University. She received a master's degree in education from Boston College in 1974 and a master's degree in school psychology from George Mason University in 1982.

For the past 17 years, she had been a docent at the National Museum of American History in Washington, where she specialized in tours of the First Ladies exhibit.

She volunteered as an adviser to middle-school students involved in a Fairfax Odyssey of the Mind problem-solving competition.

As a cellist, she played with the Georgetown Chamber Orchestra, Reston Chamber Orchestra and several string quartets, and she also performed at weddings and memorial services. She had an unstuffy attitude toward classical music and jokingly claimed that one of her own ensembles was named the Pathetique Quartet.

Survivors include her husband of 28 years, Noel F. Whittaker, and a son, Alexander Whittaker, both of Oakton; two sisters, Dorothy Bergold of Stoneham, Mass., and Laurel Bergold of Washington; and a brother, Peter Bergold of Brooklyn, N.Y.