Linda Perry Kustin, longtime university editor and administrator, dies at 60

Linda Perry Kustin, longtime university editor and administrator, dies at 60

Linda Perry Kustin, a Stanford graduate who worked as an editor and administrator at the university for more than 25 years, died of cancer July 22 at her home in Palo Alto. She was 60.

Kustin began working part-time at the university’s Center for Radar Astronomy while attending Foothill College. She later transferred to Stanford, where she earned a bachelor’s degree (with distinction) in journalism in 1975.

That year, she joined the Food Research Institute (which closed in 1996) as an assistant editor. She later served there as a student services officer, assistant to the director and department administrator. Beginning in 1975, she also began a long career as a freelance editor for members of the university community and the Hoover Press. She also was involved with the Jane Austen Society of Stanford for 10 years. In her final three years at the university, Kustin worked as program administrator for the Program in Human Biology. She left the job during the 2000-01 academic year.

Kustin brought talent, dedication and wonderful spirit to her work, according to her longtime friend Susan Schofield, academic secretary to the university, emerita.

“Linda and I met as teenagers in high school in Geneva, Switzerland, and have been friends ever since,” Schofield said. “She was an extraordinary woman, whose eyes sparkled with warmth. She had a sort of magic, caring about everyone and making each person feel special. Her absence will create a hole in many lives.”

Born Linda Lou Woolman on Feb. 19, 1945, in Peru, Kustin was the youngest of three sisters. Her American parents, Vern and Ruth Woolman, were from Wyoming.

In 1949, the family returned to the United States, where they bought a house in Manhattan Beach, Calif. In 1956, they moved to Europe, and Kustin eventually was enrolled at the International School in Geneva, where she earned a high school diploma in 1962. She remained in Geneva to complete a bi-lingual secretarial course at Ecole Schulz.

She moved to Dallas, Texas, for a year before moving to London to study languages. She married a British man named Patrick Gribbin and moved first to Marin and then to Palo Alto. They divorced after two years. With her second husband, Douglas Hazlett Perry of Atherton, she spent two years in Padang, Indonesia, after he had completed his Ph.D. from the Food Research Institute. In Indonesia, she worked as a freelance editor and taught English, and also established a weekly mother-and-children’s group and monthly women’s club.

Returning to Palo Alto, Perry took a job with Pacific Gas & Electric Co., and Kustin went back to her previous job as an editor and administrator at the Food Research Institute. During their 20 years of marriage, the couple traveled abroad and took summer road trips to the Sierras, Wyoming and Idaho. They shared a love for the outdoors, antiquing, books, movies and Masterpiece Theater. Perry died of a heart attack in 1997.

She married Richard Kustin, a college professor, in 2001. In addition to him, she is survived by a daughter from her first marriage, Tristan Gribbin, and a son from her second marriage, Benjamin Perry.

She also is survived by her parents, who live in Vacaville, and sisters Verna Sacchi of Novato and Jackie Stebler of Geneva, Switzerland. In lieu of flowers, contributions, in memory of Linda Perry Kustin, may be made to the Hospice Department, Kaiser Permanente, 1150 Veterans Blvd., Redwood City, CA 94363.

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