Linda Lee Smith was born in Muscatine, Iowa on October 12, 1948. Her mother Ruth Hartwig Smith was a teacher and her father Lee Smith was a carpenter. She had three adopted siblings: Steven Smith, Marcia Smith, and Tammy Smith.

Linda Smith attended the University of Iowa, where she received her Bachelor of Music in 1970. She continued to move around the country, earning an MA in Music from the Manhattan School of Music, taking faculty positions at the University of Massachusetts and Ohio State University and spending time on tour and in Aspen, Colorado for brief stints. In 1980 Smith moved to San Francisco, California, where she earned her MS in Electronics Engineering and began working as a technician for AT and T. She later earned a PhD in Psychology.

In San Francisco she fought her dependencies on drugs and alcohol, became sober, and eventually ran multiple marathons. In San Francisco Smith also met her partner in life and in work, Carol Wambaugh. In 1988, after three months of internship, she became the Program Director for the Women's Recovery Association in Burlingame, California where she maintained her position until her death from mylogeneous leukemia in 1992.