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ATHALINDA “LYNNE” MAY FITZPATRICK, 105, of Lapeer (formerly of Plymouth, IN) died Thursday, March 21, 2013.

Lynne was born July 20, 1907 in Meldrum Bay, Manitoulin Island in Georgian Bay of Ontario, Canada, to parents Watson H. and Mary M. (Irwin) Fitzpatrick.

Where's the story? Ms. Fitzpatrick was a woman ahead of her time - the first female system analyst in the United States during World War II. In 1969, the position she retired from was the head of Forms Control Division of the Automobile Club of Southern California. She was side by side with five men who founded the Business Forms Management Association, now a national and international group. Lynne loved to travel, after retiring, she and her sister traveled the U.S., Canada and part of Mexico for 12 years in a Winnebago motor home. She was a woman of faith, having membership and involvement at Presbyterian churches wherever she resided. Ms. Fitzpatrick also enjoyed crafting of all kinds, especially crocheting. She continually crocheted lap blankets, her work has been sent all over the world.

Ms. Fitzpatrick is survived by nieces and nephews, John (Joanne) Rutzen of Lapeer, Lynne (Doug) Furness of Ontario, J. Martin (Jeannette) Fitzpatrick of Ontario, Ross Fitzpatrick of Alberta, Ronald (Fay) Rutzen of Highlands, TX, Nancy (Scott) Watson of Ontario and Gail Allison of Port Orchard, WA.

She was preceded in death by her siblings, Ross and Hugo Fitzpatrick, Flora Rutzen and her parents.

Memorial contributions may be made to Kirkridge Presbyterian Church, Grand Blanc or the Seven Ponds Nature Center.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 6, 2013 at the Kirkridge Presbyterian Church, 8070 S. Saginaw, Grand Blanc, officiated by Rev. Glenn Grant. Her cremated remains will be entombed at Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery, Los Angeles, CA. The family would like to thank the Pines of Lapeer and AOne Hospice for their tender loving care.

Muir Brothers Funeral Home - Lapeer Our family serving yours for Generations www.muirbrotherslapeer.com 810-664-8111

Celebrating 105 years of living Analyst, adventurer marks birthday at Pines of Lapeer LAPEER — The world was a bigger place when Mary Athalinda May Fitzpatrick was first introduced to it. There were only 8,000 cars and 144 miles of paved road in the United States. Sugar cost four cents per pound, coffee was 15 cents per pound, 14 percent of U.S. homes had a bathtub, eight percent had a telephone and the average life expectancy was 47 years, an age Fitzpatrick has more than doubled.

On Friday she celebrated her 105th birthday at Pines of Lapeer where she is a resident.

Where's the story? Fitzpatrick, who goes by Lynne, was born on Manitoulin Island in Georgian Bay, Ontario, Canada in 1907 and has witnessed the unfolding of more than a century’s worth of events and change including seven wars, the sinking of the Titanic and the electronic technology boom.

Her family moved to Detroit when she was a young adult, but soon grew to miss Canada and returned, leaving only Lynne to begin paving her way through the booming business world where she became known as “Fitz.”

But Fitz was made for travel, and with the combined collateral of her secretarial training and talent for organization, she was soon chosen as one of the first women analysts for the Standard Register Company of Dayton, Ohio. She accompanied the educational director to Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, New York and places in the East to hire female would-be analysts.

Once her feet were moving, they never settled again.

In 1947, Fitz transferred to Sunset Make, the West Coast distributor for Standard Register Products, and eventually to the Los Angeles office as manager. From there her analyst work carried her across the West Coast from Seattle to San Diego. She spent more than a decade with the company before becoming supervisor of the Forms Control Section in the Methods and Systems Department of the Automobile Club of Southern California.

By 1969, however, Fitz was eager to hit the road again, and a visit from her sister, Flora Rutzen, supplied the remedy for her incurable need to travel. Rutzen was in her 60s and a widow, while Fitz, also in her 60s, had never married. The duo bought a Winnebago and spent the next 12 years exercising their adventurous spirits by spending all but the summer months on the road. They stationed themselves in Plymouth, Ind. for the summers. It was there that they stayed in 1981 when Rutzen fell ill, but Fitz still had an energy unhindered by age and she began exploring Plymouth.

Her career and skill-set in helping businesses thrive through systems organization and management re-emerged as she began work with the local First Presbyterian Church and the hospital auxiliary.

In 1989, she was asked to assist the hospital chaplain, where she helped implement many hospital volunteer programs and also partnered in the establishment a more efficiently run volunteer system. In 1998 at the age of 90, Fitz decided, after ample training of new volunteers for the Chaplain’s office, to expand her horizons once again by writing a book about her travels.

Her independence carried her through 94 years of life before she decided to move to an assisted living center in Grand Blanc to be near her sister’s son, John Rutzen, and his wife Joanne.

She drove herself in an 80s Buick Skylark and made great time because, she told her nephew, “if you don’t drive 75 they run right over you!”

It was after moving into the assisted living center that signs of dementia began to infiltrate her mind and circumstances led to her moving in with the Rutzens, where she stayed for five years.

“She was always very active, articulate and into everything,” said John. Even now, though she can no longer form coherent sentences, Lynne Fitzpatrick can still be found completing word searches and crocheting at the Pines of Lapeer Assisted Living Facilities where she has lived for two years. Her walls are adorned with pictures representing people she no longer remembers, and the life of adventure that she once knew.

“The one thing she doesn’t forget,” said Joanne, “is her birthday.”

On Friday at the Pines of Lapeer she received a few guests from the Kirkridge Presbyterian Church in Grand Blanc as well as the Rutzens.

Before the effects of dementia, Joanne said Fitzpatrick would sometimes question why she was able to live such a long life. Perhaps it is her vibrant spirit and yearning for discovery.

But odds are, it isn’t really the number of years she would wish to celebrate, but rather all the living. (The County Press, 7/22/2012)