Nadine Tatyrek's Obituary
Nadine Tatyrek departed this life February 17, 2024. She was 92 years old, being born November 1,1931 at the Barnsdell Plant in Beggs, Oklahoma where her dad, Franklin Marion “Frank” Chambers worked as a manager and caretaker. She was the third of ten children from her mother Lorena Mae Massey. She went to public school in Beggs, graduating valedictorian in 1949. She worked in her teenage years as a soda jerk at the local soda fountain and that was where her love of hamburgers was born.
Nadine left Beggs for college at Oklahoma A&M (now OSU), where in May 1952 she met George Tatyrek. According to Nadine, with her date she sat across from George and his date at an agronomy banquet. Almost ignoring their dates, a friendship began. George called for a date the next day, but Nadine stayed with her rule of "no dates" during finals. The friendship was "on hold" for the summer. In September, Nadine, who majored in Agricultural Economics frequented the Ag library. At that time, the Ag library was separate from the main library. Inevitably George, majoring in Field Crops and Livestock saw Nadine and asked her out to a movie. George says he had to ask her out, she wouldn't let him out of the library!
They married on December 24, 1952, in Beggs, Oklahoma and had a reception at her parents’ home. Her dress was pale mint green with rhinestones. One of the stories she would tell of their first married year was when George bought 300 chickens and told her to take care of them. Well, later that year they moved off the farm and killed most of those chickens, between giving them to neighbors and such, they still had enough leftover and froze them. They lasted them for 2 years. They had four daughters, Gwen, Tresa, Gina, and Glee (all survive) from 1953 to 1962. When Glee was four Nadine returned to school and earned a Bachelor of Science in Education from Midwestern University in Wichita Falls, Texas where they had moved after the farm and then to Muskogee, Oklahoma. During this time she got all her girls through Camp Fire Girls and all the candy sales. She was involved with summer camps and camping trips. Lots of tent camping, laughter, crafting, hiking, and fun.
1970 brought a lot of changes for the family. That was when Nadine completed her degree and after the commencement date they moved to Dallas, Texas and Nadine started her teaching career, first as a substitute and then permanent positions in several different schools, ending up a 20+ year career at Marsh Middle School teaching special education. She had returned to college and earned her Master of Education at Texas Women’s University in 1979. She continued to make trips with her children after the camp fire years.
She retired in 1993, but continued to be involved with helping children by substituting, until her grandchildren came along. They became her priority along with helping George in life activities and their beagle Chipper. Nadine was involved in her grandchildren’s lives on a daily basis. She let them play mud monsters, climb in their backyard fort, climb their trees, jump on the trampoline, swing and help with the gardening. They built fires in their firepit and learned so much from their Nana! Nadine and George did a lot of traveling with each of their children and loved to visit family, both his and hers. She visited 49 of the 50 states (Alaska was the one they didn’t get to) and not just eating there, either by visiting museums or some activity. She still liked camp fires but at some point we did learn she had become claustrophobic.
On her last tent camping trip she barely got the tent unzipped and Glee had to push her out of the way, finish unzipping the tent and pushed her out. She slept in the car and got a shelter the next day. Shortly thereafter, a pop-up camper was bought and she was good with that. She even did some international travel. She went to Mexico City, Yucatan Peninsula, London, and Paris. The last was to Victoria British Columbia (Canada) where she went on a platoon boat which was air born going out to see the killer whales right after having high tea at the Empress Hotel. Changed clothes at the Empress and walked to the pier to go on the outing. What a spunk! She became active in the Daughters of the American Revolution with her daughters Glee and Tresa in 2009.
2012 was a turning point when health issues occurred. She recovered and was still walking around the block until she tripped over a rock in the backyard while getting some flowers and broke her upper leg. She and George loved gardening and had an extensive flower garden. She loved fresh cut flower arrangements in the house. Nadine slowed down and focused on immediate family, her health, and taking care of George. They started doing a lot of interlocking puzzles. She did that until 2023 when she, just couldn’t keep up with everything. The daughters came together and made plans to make her and their dad’s life simpler and moved them to a group home where she spent the last month and a half of her life. She was happy there with no responsibilities of cooking, cleaning house, laundry, she just had to love and take care of George, which she did, until the end. She knew he would be loved and cared for by the daughters and the staff of the group home.
Nadine was an always present, helpful and proud daughter, wife, mother, grandparent, and great grandparent, ready to help with whatever was needed.
She is survived by two sisters Naoma Smeltzer and Leona (Dave) Harrison and a brother Max (Joy) Chambers, her four daughters, three sons in laws, five grandchildren, and one great grandchild.
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