Lynn Erdman de Almeida

March 23, 1935 - July 4, 2026 

Lynn Erdman de Almeida, known to many in the Bighorn Mountains above Sheridan simply as Lynn of Folly Ranch, died July 4, 2026, Independence Day, a date that suited her, in a memory care facility in Sintra, Portugal, following a night in the hospital. She was 91. 

Lynn was born March 23, 1935, in Pasadena, California, to Calvin Pardee Erdman and Eleanor Donnelley. Her childhood moved between different worlds: she'd spend most of the year in Pasadena while her summers were spent at Folly Ranch. This echoed into her young adulthood when Lynn would spend months at a time in Paris, and months at a time in Wyoming, a pattern that seemed to set the terms for the rest of her life. 

In 1953 Lynn married Antonio de Almeida, a conductor who would go on to lead, among others, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, the Houston Symphony, the Nice Philharmonic, and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. The marriage carried the family through Europe for more than three decades, roughly 1955 to 1988, following his posts from one concert hall to the next. The couple had three children, Antonio, Lawrence, and Cecilia, before divorcing in 1988. Antonio de Almeida died in 1997. 

Later in life Lynn married Diego Saez Falcon, who survives her. In recent years the two were cared for together at the memory care facility in Sintra, where Diego remains. 

But it was Wyoming, and specifically her Folly Ranch sat high in the Bighorns, where Lynn became a legend rather than simply a resident. She had no electricity at Folly, and she didn't seem to miss it. Guests arrived for dinner to a round of champagne, and when the meal was announced they filed into a dining room lit only by candles, finding their places by hunting for their names on wooden clothespins clipped to the napkins. Five or six courses followed, always with good French wine, and were often prepared by Lynn herself, a superb cook. 

She drove an old Ford Bronco, originally blue, which she had at some point repainted white herself, by most accounts with a broom or a large brush. She would arrive at friends' cabins sliding to a stop and parking squarely out front, announcing herself without needing to say a word, always exactly in time for dinner, and always ready to instruct whoever was cooking that night on how it ought to be done. She was welcome anyway. 

Lynn knew flowers the way other people know faces, the common names and the Latin ones both, and spent many hours with Bob and Joan Wallick in their gardens in the valley. Every year in Wyoming she kept a dog or two at her side, perhaps borrowed from the Wallicks, or possibly bought by her and simply left in the Wallicks care the rest of the year. No one ever quite settled which it was, but everyone could expect them to be by her side. As she walked with them along the mountainsides, Lynn held on to one particular grudge: the invasive pinks that had crept across the mountain pastures, which she regarded as an enemy to be fought rather than tolerated. Her circle of friends in the valley largely shared her interests, and among them, her longtime friend Gwynne Fordyce featured often in the stories Lynn told about the old days. 

Lynn is survived by her husband, Diego Saez Falcon, of Sintra, Portugal; her children, Antonio (Tony) d'Almeida of Miami, Florida, Lawrence (Larry) d'Almeida of Florence, Italy, and Cecilia (Cici) d'Almeida of Miami, Florida, and Paris; her grandchildren, Nicola, Rafael, and Julian; and her brother, Pard Erdman, of Maui, Hawail. 

For those who knew her at Folly Ranch, Lynn will be remembered less for any one thing than for the particular, unrepeatable combination of all of them: the candlelight, the clothespins, the white Bronco sliding to a stop, the flowers she could name in two languages, and the stories, told and retold, of a life lived largely on her own terms.