Bridget “Bridie” Tyler passed away Oct. 19, 2022, at Grays Harbor Health and Rehab. She was 105 years old.
Bridie Elizabeth McManamy was born April 10, 1917 at home in Broher, Ireland by a midwife.
Her father Dominick was a manager at a creamery and mother Sara, a housewife.
Bridie was raised on a dairy farm with her sisters Kathleen and Matilda and brother Dominick John. She played accordian and sang at school and church.
Bridie came from a devout Catholic family and remained devoted her whole life. She graduated from Carrowcory Public School and set her sights on a nursing career. She moved to England and earned her nursing degree.
During this time, WWII started and air raids, blackouts, bombings, moving patients to the basement became the norm.
She met Corporal Wilbert “Tippy” Tyler, a U.S. Army cryptographic technician, while attending a cousin’s wedding. They married in January 1945 in Leicester, England. Daughter Patricia was born in England in December shortly after the war ended and Tippy was shipped back to the United States.
In 1947, Bridie received her number for she and Pat to sail on the USS Ericsson to New York. Bridie, Tippy and Patsy started their new life as cranberry growers in Grayland. They lived too far from the city, so Bridie could not continue her nursing career. She worked at local canneries until going to work at Ocean Spray Cranberry Cannery for 31 years.
Bridie became a U.S. citizen in 1952. By this time they had two more daughters, Vicki and Lillian. They bought more bogs over the years and sold them in 1972 and moved to a house in Bay City that Tippy designed.
They both retired and bought a motorhome and started traveling south for the winters, eventually buying a home in Desert Hot Springs where they spent their winters. Bridie learned to golf, swim and made many great friends there.
She enjoyed each time her family grew with sons-in-law Bruce Hooper, Phil Pavlovsky and the late Bud Fender; grandkids Brad (Nancy) Hooper, Brent (Jennifer) Hooper, Dan Horton, Tricia Fender, and five great-grandchildren.
Bridie lost her loving husband Tippy in March 1987. She then sold both homes and moved to Montesano. Bridie lost her daughter, Pat, in 2008.
She made herself keep busy by maintaining her own home and yard until the age the 103, all that time checking in on the family and baking her well-known homemade pies that everyone loved receiving. She never complained about her health, even though she dealt with macular degeneration and dementia.
She was the matriarch of our family and we loved her dearly.
There will be a private family gathering later.
We want to give special thanks the Dennis, Carie and Nachelle at GH Rehab third floor for their endless caring toward our lovely mom.
