Linda Lou Pingel was born on April 27, 1947, to James and Wilma Adney at St. Anthony’s Hospital in Rock Island, Illinois. She was baptized on May 9, 1962, and confirmed at First Lutheran Church in Rock Island. She graduated from Rock Island High School on June 7, 1965. She immediately went to work after graduation at Bituminous Insurance Company, where she learned to be a keypunch operator and was quickly promoted. She later continued her education at Black Hawk Community College. Linda met her husband, Dean, in Davenport, Iowa while he was attending the Palmer College of Chiropractic. They were married on October 21, 1967, at First Lutheran Church in Rock Island. After they married, they honeymooned and moved to Tacoma, Washington in 1967 to pursue her husband’s internship and residency program.
During this time, Linda was employed by Boeing at the Renton plant. In 1970 they moved to Bloomington, Minnesota so her husband could attend Northwestern Chiropractic College for his orthopedic degree. Linda worked for Honeywell while residing in Minneapolis. In 1974, Linda and Dean moved to Spencer, Iowa to be closer to family and set up Dean’s practice. They worked as a team throughout their entire careers, devoting their life’s work to serving the public with the mission of achieving healthy outcomes for their patients. Linda was the head of operations and co-owner of Spencer Chiropractic Clinic for 36 years. Linda and Dean retired from their practice in July 2010.
Linda was a member of First English Lutheran Church in Spencer for 50 years, serving on the Altar Guild and the Building Committee. She logged many flight hours with her husband in their single-engine Piper Cherokee airplane attending numerous chiropractic orthopedic seminars and conferences with colleagues, visiting family, and personal friends, and going on family vacations with their daughter. She enjoyed driving in the countryside regularly checking on their agricultural interests. Linda played competitive canasta with other couples and loved laughing with the neighbors in their many mischievous pursuits. Linda was preceded in death by her parents James and Wilma Adney of Rock Island, Illinois, and her in-laws Harry and Rosena Pingel of Aurelia, Iowa.
Left to cherish her memory is her beloved husband of 56 years Dr. Dean H. Pingel of Spencer, Iowa; her daughter, Tracy Pingel of Boise, Idaho; her two granddaughters: Julia Lange (Oliver) and Paige Pingel both of Fort Collins, Colorado; her sisters: Nancy Cueno of Taylor Ridge, Illinois, and Carol Delander of Williams, Arizona; as well as many extended family members and close friends.