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LAND OWNERS
About The Sigafus Family
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Roy Sigafus grew up on a farm in extreme northwestern Illinois during the depression years. Helena Black grew up in western Massachusetts during the same period, a child of parents who knew each other in Leith Scotland, but immigrated separately to the US in the 1910’s.
After high school, and corn harvest, Roy left for Teacher’s College in Jo Daviess County Illinois. Roy went back to his home county and taught in a one-room school.
Helena went to business school and moved to Washington DC to work in the Navy Department. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, Helena was moved to enlist in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and subsequently proceeded to undergo training.
Roy had to leave his teaching position as he was expected to be drafted. Consequently, he enlisted in the Army and proceeded with his training.
Roy and Helena met in Kansas City, Missouri in 1942 where the WAACs were teaching Morse Code to the Army recruits. Then, Roy began Army Radio Signal School.
Roy proposed, and they were married in DC on October 2, 1943. After the war, the GI Bill enabled Roy to earn a master’s degree at UMass and then a doctoral degree in agronomy at Cornell University. By 1950, Roy, Helena and their two children moved from Ithaca, NY to Lexington, KY for an associate professorship in Agronomy at the University of Kentucky. They put down roots in a new subdivision being built on the outskirts of the city at that time, on Bob-O-Link Drive. Behind their house and yard was a large tobacco field and a tobacco barn.
1964 to Bogor, Indonesia, with University of KY Contract Team, all of us but Alan, who stayed at Bob-O-Link while matriculating at UK. Roberta hated Indonesia (she was 17) and peeled off within a few months to go live with Mother’s 1st cousin Bob Black and his wife Nan and daughter Carole in Newtongrange, Scotland, 10 miles southeast of Edinburgh. Linda went later to an International boarding school in Baguio, Philippines.
September 30, 1965, military coup in Jakarta, Indonesia, an hour's drive from Bogor, the killing of 7 Army Generals. All dependents of the contract team had 30 days to leave Indonesia. Daddy stayed to finish his work with the team.
Helena and Mary went to Baguio to pick up Linda from Brent school then headed home, with stops in London and to visit cousins in Scotland. Roberta was home by then, staying with a friend's family in Lexington.Roy finished the contract in Indonesia then started to prepare to bring the younger family to a similar project in Northeastern Thailand, in Tha Phra. He came home to take us there in 1967. We were there for a year and returned to Bob-O-Link in 1968.
Roy retired from the University in 1986 and bought parts of the tobacco field behind the house with a neighbor from across the creek. He would mow and plant flowers and commune with neighbors in his own little "back 4-ty". That started the tradition of great neighborhood collaboration and enjoyment of the Bob O Link Greenspace.
Roy died in 1993 at the age of 75, Helena died in 1999 at the age of 72. Their daughter, Linda, took over the property. Linda was a generous, kind-hearted, and always cheerful neighbor. She supported stream restoration projects on her land and allowed neighbors to seek joy and recreation on her land.
The neighborhood grieved the loss of Linda Rae Sigafus Branford, in November 2023, just weeks after her birthday. Many lost their dear friend that day. We hold a sacred space for her in the Greenspace, memorialized with her favorite tree – the tulip poplar. The tree stands tall and graceful, its blossoms a gentle reminder of her vibrant spirit.
Linda’s older brother, Roy Alan Sigafus, passed away in October 2023. Her sisters, Roberta Jean Skinner and Mary Todd Sigafus, maintain the family's traditions. Linda’s son, Bill Holland, now manages the property with the same generosity as his mother and grandfather.