Linda Runyon

Born in 1938, Linda Runyon was the daughter of Ruth & Paul Runyon, an antique dealer and a cabinetmaker, respectively. Her family, including her brother, Paul Jr., would take vacations in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate NY. It was there that Linda’s love of nature and the outdoors was established.

Linda grew up to be a registered nurse and have a family of her own. Later, her children Eric, Kim & Todd would develop their own relationship with these same mountains where Linda and her then-husband, Ken Heitz, would begin their homesteading experience in 1972.

Linda emerged from the woods full of the experience and ready to teach others what she had learned there. She continues to this day to author new works and teach the lost techniques that she re-discovered out of necessity in the wild.

Eric Conover, Linda’s son, started helping her in 1985 when he finished with college and came North. He was married the next year and had his wedding reception at The Runyon Institute in Warrensburg, NY. It was then that Eric first started developing his skills on the first Wild Food mailing list computer, which ultimately led to publishing and, later, the World Wide Web. Since the first “4Mom Ventures” edition of A Survival Acre, Eric has played a key role in bringing Linda’s work to light.

Eric is also an actor & magician and enjoys being the radio voice of the Wild Food Company as well as it’s marketing chair, webmaster & publisher.

Rosary Shepherd comes to Of the Field through her relationship with Eric. She is in charge of the day-to-day operations of the business and does everything from order fulfillment, correspondence, record keeping to maintaining our feet on the ground, a difficult job. Rosary enjoys the copy editing and layout end of the publishing business, to which she is well suited; she worked at developing the course curriculum for a major school for 25 years and originated a derivations dictionary that is still used in English speaking academies the world over.

Rosary is a violinist and music educator who has written several child-level introductory music books.

Rosary & Eric have been known to kick around movie sets together. If you watch Hachi: A Dog’s Tale, a movie about a dog with Richard Gere, they can be seen walking hand-in-hand just before the CGI leaves blow off of the tree! Rosary even got to sit next to Mr. Gere on the train, but alas, she can’t be seen in that scene.

There's Eric & Rosary dwarfed by a Giant Dog!