Luisa Alice Coll was born in Brooklyn, New York, in the dead of winter to Venezuelan parents, Luis Coll Pardo and Carmen Seijas de Coll Pardo. It was so cold that there was ice on the walls of the apartment and the doctor brought a bag of coal to warm them up while he delivered Luisa. This was wartime and there was a scarcity of amenities. But things looked up after the war. Luisa’s father worked hard and they were able to weather the Great Depression and keep food on the table. 

Luisa lived a wonderful and full life. With her parents, she traveled throughout South America and in the U.S. After his job at the Venezuelan Consulate in New York, her father took the family to live in Cuba, Venezuela, New Orleans, California, Miami and finally Washington, D.C. where he became Commercial Attache at the Venezuelan Embassy. While there, Luisa finished high school and got her bachelor’s degree at George Washington University, majoring in Romance languages and education. She was multilingual in English, Spanish and French. Due to her father’s job at the Embassy she was often invited, with her parents and the rest of the Diplomatic Corps, to the White House, where she met Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife and many other interesting people. 

One of the people she met, but not at the Embassy, was a young lawyer named Herbert Linneman. In 1943 they were married. Luisa’s new husband was an Ensign in the Coast Guard and they lived in Miami, where Tina was born, moved to Cleveland and then Virginia, where Douglas was born. The war was over and Herb started working at the Department of State in D.C., and in 1954 was posted to the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India. Quite a change from Falls Church, Virginia! Luisa, though, was used to the diplomatic scene and quickly became the perfect foreign service wife. After India came postings in Iran, Pakistan, Brazzaville Congo and finally the non-hardship post of Tokyo, Japan. While living in all these countries Luisa and Herb enjoyed traveling, taking photos and home movies of everywhere they went. 

The greatest sadness in Luisa’s life was when Herb died in 1971 after just two years of retirement. Still, she got on with life, took the Docent (guiding) course at Vizcaya Museum in Miami, and became a volunteer guide there. She loved the house as if it were her own and delighted in sharing her knowledge with visitors to the house. She continued guiding every Friday for 35 years and only stopped when she had trouble navigating the coral steps. 

Luisa loved living in her pretty little house in Pembroke Pines and was always happy when family came to visit. She was very artistic and painted in oils and pastel. She was interested in history and the arts, birdwatching and flower arranging. She didn’t keep up with most of the advances in technology, but LOVED her 55 inch screen TV. And when she was 90 she started writing her Memoir which was published in 2011. Her mantra for life has always been, “God’s Been Good to Me”. 

A mass of christian burial will be held on Wednesday, January 30th, 12:00 p.m. at St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church. Mausoleum Entombment will follow at Southern Memorial Park Cemetery. 

Arrangements by Boyd-Panciera Family Funeral Care, University Drive Chapel.