With great sadness, we announce that Meredith Potter Lindley, 69, died in her Bloomington home in the care of her large family on July 30, 2020. She had been ill with glioblastoma, a cancer of the brain, for more than eighteen months. Meredith was proud of her birth in San Francisco, Calif. (April 24, 1951), and she always considered herself a West Coast native.
Her parents were James G. Willis and Marjorie Eugenia Peacock Willis, both deceased. Due to her father's employment and later the divorce of her parents, Meredith subsequently lived in Chicago, Florida, and Pasadena, Calif. The one constant throughout her high-school years was attending St. Mary's Hall, now Shattuck-St. Mary's, in Faribault, where she captained the Wooden Soldiers, a precision drill team, in her senior year. St. Mary's Hall was also where she continued her life-long membership in the Episcopal Church. Although participation in organized sports was not readily available to girls at the time, Meredith was an athlete who enjoyed figure skating, water skiing, hiking, and snow skiing throughout her life.
Following graduation in 1969, she attended the University of Denver; St. Olaf College; the University of California, Irvine; and the University of Minnesota, from which she graduated in 1976. Her extended college years resulted from the need to pay her own way through college. Offered a job in a travel agency in Nashville, Tenn., Meredith moved to that city where she quickly learned how to manage the extensive itineraries of local music talents, such as Johnny Cash and the Oak Ridge Boys. The R.R. Donnelley Company in Chicago, took note of Meredith's abilities, and then hired her as one of the firm's few female sales representatives at the time and sent her to the West Coast, where she was very successful and over time advanced into the company's executive ranks while living in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and later Seattle.
In 1984 she married Gregory M. Potter, with whom she had two children, Thomas K. (1988) and Hana E. Potter (1992). In 1996, the family moved to the Lake Chelan area of eastern Washington, where she managed Banjo Creek Farms until 2002, while also working for Donnelley. When Thomas was badly injured in 1998 in an accident, Meredith resigned from Donnelley to care for him during his long recovery. She subsequently returned to commercial printing sales and when her latest employer offered her a job transfer to Minneapolis, she and Hana relocated in 2006 and Thomas enrolled in college in Washington state. Meredith and Greg Potter divorced in 2008.
As a sales professional, Meredith travelled extensively, which combined her love of seeing new places with her knack for meeting clients and helping them manage their projects. A connection of six generations of close family friends in Northfield led to her meeting John Mason Lindley in 2008. Before John and Meredith married in Minneapolis in 2010, Meredith completed the three-day, 60-mile Susan G. Komen walk for breast cancer in honor of his first wife, Susan, who had died from that disease in 2005.
Meredith was an only child who was born to parents who were only children, but when she married again she gained a large family of adult children, their spouses, and grandchildren. That suited her perfectly as she became known as "Nona" to the youngest generation. In turn, the Lindley family members embraced Meredith and admired her business talents, warmth and sense of humor, generous support for their lives, and her unshakable optimism.
In retirement, Meredith volunteered as part of the Disaster Assistance team at the Minneapolis branch of the American Red Cross, which led to her deploying in September 2017 to manage a shelter in the Florida Keys for people left homeless after Hurricane Irma. There she adroitly exercised her managerial skills at a time when people in need were all around her and governmental support was minimal. Meredith's willingness to help others was only one of the many gifts she had and it serves as an example of her openness to seeing others as part of her community, even if that came at a cost to herself.
Meredith is survived by John, her husband; her son and daughter; her former husband; five stepchildren and their spouses; twelve step-grandchildren; and three step-great-grandchildren. Private burial services will be held in accordance with COVID-19 requirements at Lakewood Cemetery and at Oaklawn Cemetery in Northfield. A memorial celebration of Meredith's life will be held at a later time. The family thanks those who cared for Meredith during her illness, especially the doctors and nurses at Methodist Hospital and the Mayo Clinic; the home health aides from ComForCare; and the Park Nicollet Hospice team. We request that in lieu of flowers, memorial gifts be made in Meredith's name to Shattuck-St. Mary's School, Office of Institutional Advancement, 1000 Shumway Avenue, P.O. Box 218, Faribault, MN 55021 or donor's choice. We love you, Meredith!