Richard Floyd Hyatt's Obituary
Richard Floyd Hyatt peacefully passed away on October 9, 2010 at Pioneer Place of Tacoma. He was born on July 27, 1918 in Tacoma, Washington to Elmer and Thelma Hyatt.
He attended schools in the Tacoma area and graduated from Lincoln High School in 1937.
Richard was also very active at First Baptist Church in Tacoma. It was there that he met his wife Dorothy McKinney and was married on October 21, 1939.
As a teenager, Richard worked in a grocery store carrying out bagged groceries. He also delivered papers for a time. In 1942, he went to work at Todd Shipyards where he was employed until his entrance into the Navy and consequently, World War II. While in the Navy, he was stationed aboard the USS South Dakota where he served as a metal smith and as an engineer on the Captain's gig. After being honorably discharged in 1945 and coming back home to Tacoma, Richard went to work as an assistant manager of a bowling alley at 9th and Pacific. Richard spent the remainder of his career with Coca- Cola. He worked at the Tacoma Coca-Cola bottling plant on 38th and Pine in various capacities until a stroke forced him to retire in May of 1978.
Richard enjoyed the outdoors. In his healthier years, he loved being around saltwater and enjoyed boating, salmon fishing and staying at their beach place near Gig Harbor. Later, they sold the beach place and bought a cabin at Nisqually Park just outside the entrance to Mt. Rainier. Staying at the cabin allowed Richard and his family to be close to Paradise Ski Area where they spent several winters skiing. After suffering a knee injury, which left him unable to ski, he devoted more of his leisure time to fishing and boating. Richard owned several boats over the years. For many of those years, he kept and launched his boat out of Tacoma's Day Island Marina. Later on however, he stored his boat at Point Defiance Marina where Richard and Dorothy spent much of their time. While Richard would be out fishing, Dorothy could be found walking the grounds of Point Defiance Park.
Later in life, one of Richard's passions became kite flying. For many years after his stroke, Richard spent countless hours along the beaches of Ocean Shores flying his stunt kites.
Richard was a very grateful person and demonstrated that by taking care of what he owned. He always kept himself busy with projects around the house. He loved to build things, including windmills, birdhouses, and flower pots. Richard could often be found on the roof cleaning out needles that fell from the many trees that surrounded their Puyallup home.
Richard was a loving husband, father, brother, grandfather and great-grandfather. He was preceded in death by his wife of 70 years, Dorothy in December, 2009. He is survived by his daughter Judy (Mike) LeMoine of Yelm; brother William Hyatt of Puyallup; grandchildren Suzy (Dana) Guttormson of Renton and Jason (Tiffany) LeMoine of Olympia; and great-grandchildren Matthew and Kayla Guttormson of Renton.
The family would like to thank Pioneer Place of Tacoma and Multicare-Good Samaritan Home Health & Hospice for the wonderful care of Richard and Dorothy over the last two years. Their help and support will never be forgotten.
Memorial services will be held at the Celebration of Life Center at Mountain View Funeral Home; 4100 Steilacoom Blvd SW in Lakewood on Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 1:00 PM.
The family requests donations be made to The Alzheimer's Association of Western and Central Washington.
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