Obituary Norton Raymond 'Ray'
Tighe
Norton
Raymond 'Ray' Tighe, 97, died with his family by his side on January
8, 2013, at Hospice of Medina.
Born
August 31, 1915 in Cleveland Ohio to Mathias George and Freda (nee
Borchert) Tighe, Ray was the eldest of four children, including
brothers, George and Gerald and a sister, Marguerite.
Ray was
a classic example of the "greatest generation" self-reliant, creative,
tough, but still loving, kind and generous. He saw the good in everyone
and always made people smile.
Ray loved
aircraft since he was a boy. He often went to Cleveland airport
to watch the planes and to fly scale model planes he built. Later
he got his pilot's license and flew across the country with a friend,
landing in fields and small airstrips then walking to the nearest
town. He attended Ohio State University and became an aerospace
design engineer working for Curtiss Wright, Goodyear Aerospace and
Boeing. During WWII, Ray worked on the design of the Curtiss Wright
Hell Diver airplane.
Ray used
his design and engineering training in many ways throughout his
life. He could design, build, or repair seemingly anything. He built
his own home, designed camping gear, repaired violins, and more.
He did beautiful woodworking and made decorative shelves, vases
and other gifts for family and friends. He loved repairing bikes
and gave numerous ones away to children and adults all around town
who needed one. Ray loved music and learned to play violin at an
early age and played with Akron Symphony among other groups. He
shared his love of the outdoors and travel with his family whom
he took to Canada and on tours of the entire continental US. He
played and coached baseball and went hunting, fishing, hiking and
camping throughout his life. Always active Ray learned to ski in
his 50's and continued through his 80's. He rode his bike well into
his 90's.
On July
7, 1946 he married Laura (nee Frank) whom he had met while attending
Ohio State University. Ray and Laura lived most of their married
life in Wadsworth Oh. Active members of the First Christian Church
of Christ, Ray was always ready to lend a hand at church whether
it was putting together the newsletter or painting buildings or
making urns of coffee, he joined in plays and skits, and made people
smile wherever he went. His love of pie was legendary and he was
often designated the "official pie tester" at events.
Ray and
Laura wanted a large family and were blessed with eight children,
nine grandchildren and two great grandchildren. Ray and Laura and
their then family of 5 boys were named 'Goodyear Family of the Year'.
Ray is
survived by his loving wife of 66 years, Laura (nee Frank) and their
children: son Michael and wife Billie Tighe; son Joseph Tighe; son
Patrick and wife Diane Tighe; son James and wife Nancy Tighe; son
Larry Tighe; daughter Barbara and husband Derek Moore; daughter
Catherine Tighe; and son George Tighe. Ray had nine grandchildren:
Kathryn and husband John; Sydney; Patrick; Jenny; Jill and husband
Saul; David; Antonio; Alex; and Nicholas and two great-grandchildren:
Jake and Preston. Ray's brothers George and Gerald Tighe both survive
him. Ray was predeceased by his parents and sister Marguerite (Tighe)
Oros
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A Man in Touch with His Time
Ray was born when horses commonly shared the road with the new-fangled
automobile. Throughout his career he stayed current with technology
changes and in his later years, he designed state-of-the-art aircraft;
rockets; communication gear; and frontline, collapsible reconnaissance
photo developing labs among many, many other items.
During the heady early years of the space program, a call went
out to the engineering community to come up with ideas for keeping
the Apollo capsules cool during reentry. At the time mom had a kiln
for her ceramics and dad noticed the high temperature properties
of ceramics. He suggested the use of ceramic tiles for heat protection
to his boss who dismissed the idea out of hand and refused to forward
the idea. Of course, now we know that this was a pretty good idea.
At both Goodyear and at Boeing Ray was often tasked as the 'go
to' guy for troubleshooting and correcting problems on other projects.
At Boeing, if a plane failed its final engineering inspection -
it couldn't be sold - Ray was asked to design engineering corrections
to fix the defect and enable the multi-million dollar plane to pass
inspection.
At the end of his career, Ray switched over to Goodyear Tire where
he learned to use a computer for his job. However, after retirement,
Laura learned to use a personal computer and a digital camera and
pop was content to leave it to her.
Ray's life spanned horse & buggy era to space travel, computers
and the Internet. His interest in life and learning keep him current
throughout these vast changes.
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