Linda Bremner could not stand to see the sorrow on the face of her terminally ill son when the mail came without a note or card from family or friends. So she secretly started to write him love letters and sent them through the mail.

Shortly before her son Andy died in 1984, the 11-year-old figured out it was his mother that sent the cards and he thanked her.

Within a month of her son's death, Ms. Bremner became severely depressed, said her daughter, Laura Trump. But she took up writing letters to 20 children her son met at a summer camp for children with cancer. After the initial responses, Mrs. Bremner found her life's work, family said.

"One boy wrote back and said, `Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I didn't know anyone knew I existed,'" her daughter said. "She thought that if the kids were writing back there was a reason for it, and now 21 years later she was writing to more than 1,200 children. That gave her a feeling of peace; that they weren't suffering as badly as Andy had suffered."

Ms. Bremner sprang into action and formed Love Letters, a not-for-profit organization based in Lombard that wrote weekly to children across the United States with the help of more than 100 volunteers. The group sent newsletters, cards, birthday gifts, Christmas in July gifts as well as Christmas presents.

Her work has been recognized by Oprah Winfrey's Angel Network, the Smithsonian Institute, and Better Homes and Gardens, and Woman's Day magazines.

"She was able to communicate to people what it was like for children who were alone and how amazing it was for them to get mail," said David Castellanos, vice president of the board of directors of Love Letters.

"Many of the kids said it helped pull them through. ... She never talked down to the kids. She was excellent with the children."

Ms. Bremner, 58, of Forest Park, died Thursday, March 2, of a heart attack. She had been struggling with diabetes and congestive heart failure, family said.

Born and raised in Chicago, Mrs. Bremner graduated from Siena High School and got married. She had two children but later divorced. She married again in 1971 and she had another child. The couple divorced and she raised her children on her own, her daughter said.

When Andy was 8, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and leukemia.

After his death, Love Letters became a full-time job and while the organization operated on a shoestring budget, they always seemed to manage with Ms. Bremner's motivation of all the volunteers.

"She never had a corporate sponsor. She never had a big backer," said Judy Siegmund, a friend and volunteer. "But she would go and talk to schools who would do a jump-a-thon or a track-a-thon, or trim-a-tree. Or she would talk to a Rotary Club. The first time you met her you love her."

Without Ms. Bremner, the organization will likely close, her daughter said.

"It was my mother's wish that it would not continue after she was gone. There was a way she ran it that was working. She was very particular about how each child was treated and was very protective of that," she said.

Other survivors include a son, Robert; her father, Harry Muzzey; and five grandchildren.

Services have been held.

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