Remembering Linda Walter

I did not expect to start off the new year blogging about another sad loss to the model horse hobby community, but alas, we have lost Linda Walter. I didn't know Linda well, but I had known of her almost as soon as I became aware of the hobby in the late 1980s. Linda was not only a founding member of the hobby---she was a talented artist, a dedicated publisher, an amazing font of knowledge, and a truly kind and good-humored person. I know she'd have had something funny and self-deprecating to say if she knew how many of us looked up to her as an icon of the hobby.

Photo of Linda from an article in her local paper
(Photo by Robbyn Brooks)

Linda became active in the nascent model horse hobby in the mid 1960s, and along with Marney Walerius and others, is considered one of the hobby's founding members. Like most early hobbyists, Linda was an avid photoshower, and in 1969, she started her own newsletter, the Model Horse Showers Journal. It featured ads for photoshows, sales lists, stallion ads for pedigree assignment, hobby news, and so much more. Linda drew all of the illustrations and produced all of the copies herself, first using a type writer and carbon paper and later a mimeograph. (Photocopiers were not yet widely available.) The MHSJ is one of the most important and influential early hobby publications, and by the time Linda stopped publishing it in 1980, she had a circulation of more than 700 subscribers.

One of Linda's hand-illustrated covers

Linda hard at work at her typewriter
(from the Spring 1978 issue of Just
About Horses)

The first 3 decades of the hobby largely revolved around communication through the mail. Many hobbyists met via classifieds ads in real and model horse publications and became pen pals. Others got to know each other through newsletters and photoshows. For a time, Breyer directed many of the questions they received about the hobby to Linda. She was even featured in their own publication, Just About Horses, in Spring 1978.

Linda on the cover of the
Spring 1978 issue of Just
About Horses

So it's no surprise that when I had questions about Hagen-Renakers that my local hobby friends couldn't answer in the early 1990s, I was told to contact Linda. It was not unusual to cold-call other collectors then, and with some encouragement from my parents, I gave Linda a call. She very sweetly chatted with me and explained that even though my HR Morgans looked sort of pinkish-grey, the color really was called "brown" by collectors. I don't remember what all we talked about besides HRs, but she was kind and enthusiastic and put my nervous teenage self at ease. She followed up the call with a letter which my mom happily saved. I'm pretty sure it has some of Linda's equine doodles on it.

I finally met Linda in person some 20 years later at BreyerFest. She brought loads of clinky minis to sell from her room at the CHIN, and I'm so glad I had the chance to buy a few and chat with her. She also graciously gave me permission to scan old copies of the MHSJ and post them on my Model Horse History website for the hobby at large to enjoy.

Linda's famous Beswick Appaloosa, Alconbury Hill
(Photo by Robbyn Brooks)

I am going to miss Linda's indomitable good cheer and clever puns at BreyerFest this July. It was always a treat to talk with her, and I wish I'd had more time to ask her about her involvement in the hobby in the early days. She was a treasure, and she will be much missed.