Margarette Jewell Tynan

Margarette Jewell Tynan--a benevolent, though rugged individualist--of Buchanan, died Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at Springtree Health and Rehab Center where she lived since 2011. She was 90 years old. For nearly 60 years, Mrs. Tynan operated her 300-acre farm in the Springwood community of Botetourt County, doing most of the fence building, cattle feeding, sheep shearing, and hay hauling by hand. Well into her seventies she thrived on manual farm labor. During the 1980s she became the first woman ever to serve on the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS) committed for Botetourt County. A child of the Great Depression, Mrs. Tynan grew up in the Riner region of Montgomery County. She worked at the Radford Arsenal during World War II. In the 1950s, she and her late husband, Francis M. Tynan, a mechanic at Fulton White Trucking Company, purchased their farm in Springwood and raised their family there. Unselfish to a fault, Mrs. Tynan spent time during the 80s and 90s distributing clothes to the needy at the RAM Clothes Closet Church of the Brethren in Roanoke for distribution to people she knew could use them. A prolific letter writer and conversationalist, Mrs. Tynan regularly corresponded with a wide array of friends and relatives. Daily, she walked the quarter mile to her mailbox an hour or more before the mail came so she could converse with whoever was passing by. During her later years, Mrs. Tynan developed skills as a genealogist and spent thousands of hours cataloging and publishing obscure cemetery records throughout several counties in Western Virginia. She travelled extensively around the area, photographing and meticulously recording names and dates from tomb rocks and head stones, often in abandoned and overgrown burial grounds. She was preceded in death by her husbands, Thurman Baxter and Francis M. Tynan, infant daughter, Myrtle A. Tynan, parents, Rosa E. and Ballard Jewell, biological mother, Ollie Gruver, sons-in-law, Jerry Southern and Jim Smith, sister-in-law, Ruth Gruver, and brother-in-law, John T. Tynan. Margarette is survived by her children: Rena J. Baxter Southern Smith Worthern, Mary Tynan Kelly (James Solomon), Therese Ann Tynan Powell (Richard), Clara L. Tynan Boggs (Mark), and William C. Tynan; 12 grandchildren, Melissa Southern Boyer (Ken), Bambi Tynan Landes (Chad), Flora Powell Quevedo (German), T. Helen Powell Jenks (RJ), Sylvia Powell-Tacilla (Antonio), John L. Powell II, Douglas F.R. Powell II, Lillian H. Powell, Rebecca S. Powell, Brandon J. Tynan, Christine M. Tynan and Jonathan Francis Boggs; 13 great-grandchildren; Bryson J. Tynan, Layne Tynan Landes, Kenneth M. Boyer (Brittany), Kristin Marie Boyer, Nyah, Shane, Noah, Owen and Joey Jenks; Ryan, Evan and Gavin Quevedo; and Alexandra R. Tacilla Powell; 2 great-great-grandchildren, Elizabeth and Aiden Boyer; brother, Calvin D. Gruver and family, Sarah M. Fowler, mother of Brandon and Christine Tynan, Johnny D. Catrett, father of Bambi Tynan Landes. The family wishes to express thanks to the staff and patients at Springtree Health and Rehab Center who made her last five years enjoyable. Special thanks to the many friends and clergy who have visited her and to Corey Gibson for being there to help make her last days easier for her and us. Funeral Services will be held at 1pm Saturday, October 10, 2015 at the Buchanan Chapel of Botetourt Funeral Home with the Rev. Jesse Howard officiating. Interment will follow in Fairview Cemetery. The family will receive friends from 12 to 1pm before the service. Flowers are appreciated, but those who wish may make a memorial contribution to the Friends of the Fincastle Library, PO Box 129, Fincastle, VA 24090. Arrangements by Botetourt Funeral Home, Buchanan 540-254-3000.