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Linda M. Cullen, 94, died Monday in Valencia after a brief illness.

She was bom June 11, 1904, in Santa Paula. Her parents, Guadalupe and Francisco Dominguez, were descendants of the Ruiz and Dominguez families, vaqueros who settled in the Los Angeles area in early California. She was raised on the family ranch in Piru and married Tony R. Packard in 1925. They built a successful cement contracting business in Montebello, moving the business and their family to the Ruiz ranch in San Francisquito Canyon in 1940.

Linda was a charter member of the Business and Professional Women's Club of Newhall and Saugus. She and Tony built a memorial to the victims of the St. Francis Dam disaster of 1928 that included the school bell from the first school in Saugus.

In the early 1970s, she renamed the ranch "Lady Linda Ranch" and married Fred. C. Cullen in 1973. She enjoyed gardening, entertaining and traveling, with the highlight of her travels an 80th birthday trip to Europe.

"Her beauty, energy and love of life was astounding, and her light was always focused on her family," wrote her grandson, Bill Wager [sic: Wagner]. "As her first grandson, I had the good fortune to have grown up on Mamo's ranch. She was my best friend and my best teacher."

She is survived by her husband, Fred C. Cullen of Saugus; her sister, Lupa Dominguez Ramirez of Piru; two daughters, Mae Wagner and Shirley Walk, both of Saugus; two stepdaughters, Elysse Johnston of Valencia and Crystal E. Pecora of Palmdale; her stepson, Charles F. Cullen Jr. of Palmdale; five grandchildren, William Wagner Jr., Julie Wagner, Sabrina Secord, Leslie Reynolds and Jocelyn Juarez; seven great-grandchildren; and one step-grandchild.

Services are scheduled at noon Thursday at Eternal Valley Mortuary, with interment at Eternal Valley Memorial Park to follow services.

As San Francisquito Road winds away from the tracts and shopping centers of Saugus into sparsely populated hills and canyons, travelers are nostalgically transported back in time.

Ranches and small farms dot the hillsides and horses graze lazily in the fields, oblivious to the sounds of progress which fill the neighboring valley. Linda Cullen first saw this idyllic canyon in 1940 when she and her first husband, Tony Packard, began building he Lady Linda Ranch.

The Packards spent their working hours in the contracting business. When their transactions were through, they would rush home to the quiet canyon to build up their ranch. Their two daughters — Mae and Shirley — enjoyed country living and often returned to the ranch with their children after they married.

Linda's grandchildren and her eight-month-old great-grandson played an important role in a family reunion held Sunday evening at the ranch.

Family migrations have separated the group over the years — Shirley and her husband, Dr. William Scown, moved first to Newport Beach and then to Hawaii while Mae and her husband, William Wagner, settled a little closer in the San Fernando Valley.

By the time the Packards' grandchildren became adults, the family reached from one end of the United States to the other — the Scowns in Hawaii, and Mae's son William Jr. in New York.

Until eight months ago, Bill Jr. enjoyed the distinction of being the only male born to the clan. That claim ended when his cousin Sabrina and her husband, Bart White, had Bartholomew Stephen.

To commemorate the first birth of a boy in the family in 30 years, and to mark the birthdays of cousins Bill, Sabrina, and Jocelyn Scown, a rare family reunion occurred last week at the Lady Linda Ranch. The celebration began with horseback riding excursions all day Saturday and a hayride, courtesy of neighbor Denzil Cameron, Saturday night.

Linda and her husband of seven years, Fred Cullen, hosted the large gathering, then planned a festive luau Sunday to mark the family birthdays.

Because the Scowns have made Hawaii their home for so many years, Shirley and her daughters Sabrina, Jocelyn and Leslie led the rest of the family in the island dances — complete with authentic costumes.

The luau also included a ceremonial "braising of the pig" (the dinner's main course), and reminiscing with neighbors and friends like Dick and Dottie Hribar, [?] and Maggie Holloway, Tony Shaw, and Bobbie Trueblood.