Linda Gail Bragg

Silver Spring, Maryland—Linda Gail (nee Steeves) Bragg December 24, 1942 - June 10, 2018. Gail succumbed after a seven-month battle with Cholangiocarcinoma. She was born in Jacksonville, Florida to Richard Steeves and Marjorie (Hull) Steeves and is survived by her husband Gerry, their two children, David M. Bragg (and his partner John Hartford), of Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada, and Karen E. Craig (husband Doug, and children Dylan, Mitchell, and Addie) of Thousand Oaks, California, and two brothers, Kenneth and Malcolm Steeves. Gail attended Terry Parker High School in Jacksonville, Florida, and received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Florida State University. On November 12, 1964 she met Gerry Bragg on a blind date in Brunswick, Georgia, where he was a Naval Aviation Cadet completing advanced training, and four weeks later, on December 12, they were married in Jacksonville, Florida (she always hated for him to tell that story because she was afraid it would make her seem frivolous). After Gerry’s first tour in Vietnam, she even agreed to ride with him on a much too small motorcycle from San Diego to the Grand Canyon...and she drove at least a third of the way; although she never got on a motorcycle again. During the next 53 years Gail lived all over the world, as she followed Gerry to his various professional opportunities. One relocation involved raising their young children in Taiwan while he finished his graduate research. The family spent the last 30 years living in West Virginia and Maryland. Gail held various staff and supervisory nursing positions in pediatrics, medical-surgery and orthopedics in hospitals from Key West to Alameda California, and charge nurse in the original Baltimore City Hospital’s Burn Center which later became the Johns Hopkins Bayview Burn Center, culminating in her position as Vice-President of Education and Quality Assurance with a nationwide home health care company. She set a high standard for a loving wife, mother, and eventually a grandmother. Gail loved being by the water, whether walking at the ocean, particularly on the California beaches, or kayaking on the lakes and rivers of the East Coast and on the pristine lakes in Canada near her son’s home. She was remarkable for her sense of humor and her open and caring friendships with everyone she met and everyone with whom she worked or mentored. During the last eight years of her life she discovered a new love for ceramic art and eventually served four terms as President of the Leisure World Ceramics Club, where she made many great friends, several of whom helped her cope with her debilitating disease. Gail took great pride in creating unique pieces that are prized by her family, friends, and fellow club members. Her last gift to us all was of herself to the Johns Hopkins Legacy Gift Rapid Autopsy program—a research program that arranges and performs autopsies on an urgent basis to collect tumor and other tissues for researchers in many different areas. Specimens collected at autopsy have been used to grow living cell lines which can be used to evaluate for genetic mutations and test new chemotherapies. Samples can also undergo genetic sequencing and RNA expression analysis, as well as immunohistochemical and proteomic studies. Memorial contributions may be made to the American Cancer Society.