La Faye S. Lynch: A Soldier's Wife
Leonard P. and La Faye Lynch
La Faye S. Lynch is probably one of Montgomery’s most reclusive, yet distinguished and remarkable great-great grandmother’s, at least to her children. Mrs. Lynch is the daughter of Rev. and Mrs. Columbus Lafayette Sumner, her father being a United Methodist minister who served in the northern district of Alabama until his death in 1949.
Faye with her son, Stephen, Montgomery, Alabama 22 August, 1954. Photo by Sue Lynch, Stephen's Grandmother. Stephen enjoyed role playing games from an early age. Here he is seen holding and posing with a toy metal gun. As as child Stephen would play cowboys and indians with his brothers and friends. Stephen also played war with rubber model Army men, tanks, jeeps and other war weapon toys. Stephen would also draw whole battle scenes. At the time this picture was taken, Stephen's father, an officer in the US Army, was stationed in Korea. The photo seen was actually sent to his father with the inscription, "Had to swipe this one from Stephen to be able to send it to you. He's been setting an hour admiring his pose. Sue's a pretty good photographer, isn't she? The stumps are from the big tree which we miss so much." There had been a heavy thunder storm and a bolt of lightening hit a very large tree and literally split it in half such that it had to be cut up into stumps (croped from this restored photograph) which made nice yard stools.
Faye in France 1959. Photo Copyright 2007 by T.A. Lynch. Faye spent three-and-a-half years in France where her husband was station between 1957-1960.
Mrs. Lynch was married to Lt. Col. Leonard P. Lynch, US Army, who was the National Guard adviser assigned to protect the Civil Rights marchers during the Selma-to-Montgomery march in 1965. Because of Lynch who was on the telephone and in constant communication with Attorney General Robert Kennedy, it was possible to insure the safety of marchers and prevent blood shed. Lynch was probably given this duty as it was widely known he had no prejudice toward black people and had a long history of service which included W.W.II, the Korean conflict and cold war duties which involved working as a Transportation Officer in control of moving people and munitions safely.
It was the love, devotion and support provided by La Faye Lynch, which gave her husband the strength and character to do his duty for God and country and protect the Civil Rights marchers. But that’s only part of the story. Mrs. Lynch also raised four children, Greg, Larry, Stephen and Terry, the latter who is an artist, writer, photographer and naturalist with an expertise in the study of fireflies. Terry Lynch’s opinions are frequently published in the Montgomery Advertiser and other regional newspapers. He says:
“My Mom is a great Mom! As a child she always tried to answer my questions and encouraged my studies. Once when I asked her what God was she replied, “God is Love!” That reply was probably the best one she could have given a child. Later when I became interested in science and natural history she could not answer many of my questions. But she was always encouraging me to study hard and do well!”
Mrs. Lynch has had the responsibility for caring for her son, Larry, who is mentally challenged. Because Larry was not institutionalized and affectionately cared for in the home by his parents and siblings, he was able to learn to read and developed to his full potential. Larry is a great joy and love to his Mother. Mrs. Lynch has sacrificed much of her life to see that Larry enjoys a quality life with family members.
Five years after her husband died of service related disabilities, in December, 1973, Mrs. Lynch moved to Montgomery from Jacksonville, Alabama where she has lived until the present time. She enjoys staying at home with Larry and her son, Terry, who helps care for Larry. She also enjoys watching soaps, sports, the news and traveling around the world on the Discovery or National Geographic channels and keeping up with current events on CNN and Fox networks.
Until her stroke and admission to Jackson Hospital on Aug. 28, 2003, she remained alert and with a sharp mind. She maintained her home, did all her own accounting, record keeping and managed her bills in an organized fashion. She even did her own taxes! She also enjoyed working crossword puzzles, reading a wide variety of novels and keeping track of golf, tennis, baseball, football, basketball and other sports.
Mrs. Lynch has two grand children, Bradley Wayne Lynch and Sharon Crenson. Brad is a rock climber and chef while Sharon is a reporter with the Associate Press working out of the New York office near Rockefeller Plaza. Sharon has written stories on everything from mercury contamination in fish to John Walker Linn, the notorious traitor who fought in Afghanistan for the Taliban.
Recently Mrs. Lynch became a great-great-grandmother with the birth of Own Merced Lynch, son of Brad Lynch and Lynn Hill. Lynn is perhaps the world’s foremost female rock climber. Her book, Climbing Free, My Life in the Vertical World, was on Mrs. Lynch’s bedside table when she became ill, and was probably one of the last books she was reading.
Currently Mrs. Lynch is at Crowne nursing home. She had a stroke and was admitted to Jackson Hospital on August 28, 2003. She was diagnosed with dementia on Nov. 19, 2003. The fact my mother had a stroke and went from being her normal, sharp minded, alert self, to suffering memory loss over night, suggest that the type of dementia my mother has is vascular dementia. Efforts to have my mother's dementia further diagnosed through by a neurologist who has order an MRI brain scan have been foiled by the nursing home and/or Court appointed guardian who cancelled appointments made by my mother's neurologist.
One of the consequences of this negligent action may be that those wishing to defy my mother's wishes may try to claim her dementia occurred over a period of time such that legal documents she signed prior to Aug. 28th are not valid. This might allow relatives to essentially ransack her estate, as they have her home, while falsely claiming to be acting in my mother's best interest. It is quite unfortunate that relatives would respond to my mother's disease by causing conflict and disharmony, rather that supporting and respecting my mother's wishes.
One of my mother's greatest joys is holding Larry’s hand when he comes to visit with her at Crowne nursing home. Spending precious moments with Larry fills her face with a smile, her eyes lighting up brightly with joy. But that light went out when relatives abducted and kidnapped Larry and took him out-of-state.
Larry was abducted and kidnapped from his home on Nov. 20, 2003. His eldest brother, Greg, and Greg's daughter, Sharon, stole Larry away, not only away from his home, but away from his mother's side. This was a horrible experience for Larry and he will probably suffer from the memory of this terrible ordeal for the rest of his life. Larry was dragged away by force, hustled into a car while his brother, Terry, tried to stop the abduction/kidnapping by disabling the vehicle, flattening its tires. Yet Greg and Sharon sped away, recklessly endangering Larry's life by accelerating the disabled vehicle to an alarming speed. They were able to escape police, and Larry has not been seen by Terry since his abduction/kidnapping on Nov. 20, 2003.
On December 9, 2003, the Montgomery County Probate Court made Mrs. Lynch a ward of the State of Alabama, establishing as guardian/conservator two lawyers who no doubt will dip their fingers in Mrs. Lynch's cookie jar of benefits which she receives from the VA, Social Security and the US Army. Judge Reese McKinney, Jr. (See also Montgomery County Probate Court) was the presiding judge at Mrs. Lynch's hearing which was the result of a petition filed by Carl Gregory Lynch. Her youngest son, Terrence A. Lynch, endeavored to make the Court see reason and appoint him guardian/conservator which has been his mother's wish and would certainly be quite reasonable given the testament to Terry's good character in affidavit signed by his mother. (Note: This affidavit is based exactly upon a letter authored by Ms. Lynch in 2002, so it was written before, not after, the stroke Ms. Lynch suffered on or about Aug. 28, 2003!) Yet as often happens those we elect or appoint to pass judgment over us, fail to see the wisdom or the light, and are blinded by the lies others are compelled to tell for their own selfish gratification.
Now Mrs. Lynch is alone, spending most of her time in a small concrete block room. The room is lighted constantly, day and night. The poor acoustics provide a noisy environment making it difficult, if not impossible, to get a decent nights sleep. Alarms go off frequently waking those elderly who manage to find a moments respite in slumber. The door to Mrs. Lynch's room remains constantly open, that there is never any privacy. This is in sharp contrast to her home where she was use to having her own bedroom where she could watch television, read books or work crossword puzzles. It is a wonder anyone could live in such a place without going mad, were they not already demented.
None of the social workers or nurses attending to Mrs. Lynch ever knew her as she was before being admitted to the nursing home. They had no intimate knowledge of her history, did not make a complete review of her medical records and consequently failed to reach enlightened conclusions or make appropriate responsed. This also holds true for the court appointed lawyers who are my mother's guardian/conservator; they have never spoken to me, but rather chose to file a claim against me with respect to my home -- such that by initiating a hostil relationship and putting me in a defensive posture, they never received the truth! The ones who should be sued are the tobacco companies responsible for my mother's body falling apart and ill health! The fact that my dear mother's poor health was the result of smoking cigarettes and being addicted to tobacco for the greater protion of her life was apparently overlooked and ignored by everyone!
What everyone sees and what they know is only the shell of a woman who has slipped away and each day goes a bit deeper into the darkness of her own mind. Yet having known and loved my mother for my entire life, I know the truth, that her ill health and demise was the ultimate result of being addicted to tobacco and smoking cigarettes for fifty years! All my dear mother wants now is to be at home with her son, Larry, close at hand, with the family dog and the freedom to do whatever she might wish. Yet now, having been made the ward of the State of Alabama, she is no longer free to decide for herself what she wants; strangers who have never known the real Mrs. Lynch will be making decisions for her -- and they don't even have the good sense to sue the tobacco companies and get the compensation that my mother should have; rather they file a claim against me because my Mom gave me her house! It is utter non-sense, foolishness, negligence and stupidity!
This does not represent what is in the best interest of my mother, not when she has a loving son competent and able to make informed decisions. Rather this represents an injustice done by those who seek to destroy what little of life and love my mother has left, to gain power and control over her life and get their grubby fingers in the cookie jar of my mother's estate. It matters not to them that my mother gave all her real and personal property to me. It matters not that she would rather die than live forever apart from those she loves confined to a concrete block room that is so noisy and uncomfortable antidepressant drugs are prescribed to silence the last bits of rational thought one might have, replacing reason with a numbed, complacent mind.
Having set through the guardianship hearing for my mother, I am aware of the flood of lies which were told about me to persuade the Court to appoint strangers to be my mother's care takers. As one who knows the truth and sees the lies, it is difficult to understand how any Court could rule in favor of lies over love? I am not talking of reason over love, but of a flood of lies which I see as the babbling of darkened souls, wondering what made these who are my relatives to loose their sight, their souls to darken? For how could anyone who genuinely loves their mother or grandmother not want a loving and caring son to be the one watching over her day by day?
Certainly as our mothers and fathers get older they become sick and ill. I watched my father die of congestive heart failure. I was with him when he died, trying to breath my own life into his failing body. And now I see my own mother dying in a nursing home. Her son and my brother, Larry, has been taken away by force, abducted and flown out-of-state. I imagine if my mother dies in Crowne, she will never see Larry again. And surely she will die more quickly separated from those she most dearly loves. So why on earth would a son and a granddaughter possibly believe they doing what is best for either my mother or Larry by separating them? The only conclusion I can reach is that hardened hearts seek power and control, and will go to any length, even if it means destroying my mother's will to live, to get their fingers in the cookie jar.
The cookie jar; that is my mother's estate, her income. But it is more than this. The cookie jar is also Larry, his income, control of his life. My mother was adamant that she never wanted Larry to be taken off to my eldest brother's home. Yet so easily her wishes have been ignored by the Court. The woman that the Court has made the ward of the State of Alabama is not the woman I've known my entire life. The Court sees only that shell which remains; they fail to see the woman who I have loved my entire life and who I have come to admire and respect, appreciating the fact that she made wise decisions with regard to her welfare and Larry's welfare, as well as my own welfare. I know this is why she wanted me to be the one to take charge of her estate and Larry's life ... for certainly where there is deepest love, understanding and respect for the wishes and desires of one's own mother, that is were guardianship is best assigned.
So now my mother will in all likelihood spend the rest of her days as the ward of the State of Alabama. This is ironic as she has always been a soldier's wife, her income derived from the federal government, not the State of Alabama. So by making my mother a ward of the State of Alabama, court appointed guardians will be profiting from my mother's benefits as will private nursing homes. Thus these who make my mother a ward of the state are indirectly feeding the system which provides for their own welfare. This is hardly an unbiased system of justice. It is most certainly one which seems to have cast out the heart and left itself to deal only with an empty life ... that of my mother now trapped as the ward of the state in a nursing home that is a far, far cry from the comfort she so enjoyed in her own home.
Let us all hope and pray for Mrs. Lynch’s recovery and improved health that she may live a quality life and one day meet her great-great grandson, Owen, to gaze upon the stars and sunsets, so many of which she has seen these 84 years she has graced this Earth with her love and devotion to family!
Buy these great Aged To Perfection gifts and apparel! Aged To Perfection Inspirations are a special collection of gifts and apparel dedicated to all parents and grandparents. Proceeds from Aged To Perfection Inspirations will be used to advocate health care and rights of elderly Americans and sponsor and the Elderly Rights Assoication (ERA). Millions of elderly Americans and their families are being exploited by a broken elder care system which rapes and robs them of their income, property and estates. Elderly Americans are being treated like property by for profit nursing homes and those who own and operate them at the expense of the elderly and their families. The result is destroyed families and lives. You can help by purchase of Aged To Perfection Inspirations. Thank you for your patronage!
Buy adorable "I Love Terry" gifts and apparel for that special Terry in your life.
Buy adorable "I Love Stephen" gifts and apparel for that special Stephen in your life.
Buy adorable "I Love Larry" gifts and apparel for that special Larry in your life.
Buy adorable "I Love Greg" gifts and apparel for that special Greg in your life.
La Faye S. Lynch's Homepage This site, which resulted in the establishment of ERA has additional information which may be of interest to everyone who is concerned about elderly Americans and the corruption of the elderly care system.
ERA: Elderly Rights Association A grass roots effort to help restore the rights of elderly Americans to specify, designate and appoint their own guardian/conservator
Dementia is a disease. It is NOT a condition caused by the actions or inactions of family members or care providers. Even highly qualified nurses and doctors have trouble dealing with patients who have dementia. This learning center is provided to help everyone who has a parent, grandparent or other family member with dementia understand the disease and cope better, that families may come together through knowledge and love, rather than be torn apart by the heart wrenching disease of dementia.