News

By Emily J. Minor

    GULF STREAM — Linda Ann Grantham Bryan, a Memphis-born adventurer who moved to the Philadelphia area with her parents as a child and kept a home there all her life, died unexpectedly Dec. 23. She was 78.
    Mrs. Bryan’s daughter Sally L. Willis said her mother fell while visiting a daughter and grandchildren in London. She never regained consciousness.
    “She fell down the stairs and hit her head,” Willis said.
    Mrs. Bryan’s death was particularly jarring because of the good health and active lifestyle she enjoyed, Willis said. An avid traveler, Mrs. Bryan had taken a trip around the world last year and was scheduled for a trip to Colombia this month.
    In the last 10 years, she had traveled with the National Geographic Society, focusing largely on environmental and cultural locations, her daughter said.
    With homes in Philadelphia, Minturn, Colo., and Gulf Stream, Mrs. Bryan also enjoyed golf and hiking. And she loved a party, said her daughter.
    “She was social,” Willis said. “She absolutely loved to have parties and go to parties.”
    Mrs. Bryan was an accomplished pianist who often played when she entertained. And she loved dogs. Her Gulf Stream home was long “a haven for many of man’s best friends,” said her family.
    While she enjoyed traveling and had three homes, it was the Florida home that she really loved, Willis said. At the time of her death, Mrs. Bryan was a member of The Little Club, Gulf Stream Bath and Tennis Club, and the Gulf Stream Golf Club.
    Married several times, Mrs. Bryan leaves two children from her second marriage, to David P. Willis: Sally, of Frisco, Colo., and Anne S. Willis, the daughter she was visiting in London.
    She leaves two sons from her first marriage, to Stanley Malin (who died in 1960): Geoffrey Malin Willis, of Downingtown, Pa., and Brian Malin Willis, of Coatesville, Pa.
    Most recently, Mrs. Bryan was married to Anthony J.A. Bryan, who died in 2010.
    Seven grandchildren, a sister, Kate Grantham Taylor, of Boulder, Colo., and a brother, Jesse Grantham III, of Ojai, Calif., also survive Mrs. Bryan.
    Memorials for Mrs. Bryan can be made to McCarthy’s Wildlife Sanctuary in West Palm Beach; the St. Augustine Historical Society, or the Waukeenah United Methodist Church Cemetery in Monticello, Fla., where she is buried in the family plot next to her father, who died in 2007.
    The family is planning a celebration of life 5-7 p.m. March 5 at the Gulf Stream Golf Club, 2401 N. Ocean Blvd., Delray Beach.