Obituary: Thayer, Buryl Stewart

THAYER, Buryl Stewart

Buryl Stewart Thayer, who lived in Spokane forty years, passed away April 7, 2012.

Constance Buryl Lavinia Stewart was born in 1922 in Nanaimo, British Columbia, and moved to Everett, Washington with her parents when she was three years old.

She graduated from Everett High School, and then from Washington State University in 1945, where she was a member of Chi Omega sorority.

She received a master’s degree in fine arts from WSU in 1953.

She met J. Lewis Thayer—who had returned to college after service in the Navy during World War II—at Washington State, and they were married in 1948.

Over the next nine years they had five children.

Early in the marriage, Lewis’s employer, Union Oil Company, transferred him (and so his family) from Eugene, Oregon to Wenatchee and then to Ephrata, Washington.

The family moved to Spokane in 1957, and Lewis began operating the family wheat farm near Almira, Washington, commuting between Almira and Spokane.

Lewis passed away in 1982.

Buryl taught interior design at the Spokane Community College extension school for sixteen years, and worked as a freelance interior designer.

In 1997 she moved to Seattle to be closer to her children.

Buryl is survived by her sons James S. Thayer and his wife Patricia of Seattle, John L. Thayer M.D.

and his wife Kathleen of Medina, WA, Joseph T. Thayer of Shoreline, WA, her daughter Constance Jill Thayer of Shoreline, and seven grandchildren.

Her fourth son, Jay M. Thayer, died in 2010.

She was a wonderful mother, grandmother, and friend, and will be sorely missed.

The family is planning a private memorial gathering.