Dr. Russell Dean Tyler

April 11, 1926 - November 27, 2016

Born April 11, 1926. A loving husband, devoted father, with a keen intellect and a droll sense of humor, Russell passed away at his home in Santa Barbara on November 27, 2016. Born in Minneapolis, he moved to Wilmer, MN at age 11, then to Los Angeles in 1942. After high school during WW II, he was drafted into the Army for three years of military service which included training infantry units, four months at Yale University to learn Mandarin Chinese, and then one year posted to China to train the Chinese military fight against Japanese aggression and as a counter-intelligence agent. After the war, he returned to Los Angeles, entered the University of Southern California on the GI Bill and graduated in just three years. At USC, he met his future wife, Charlotte Speer. Together they entered the USC School of Medicine in 1950. Amidst the rigors of medical training, they were married in 1952. After an Internal Medicine Residency at LA County Hospital, he built a successful private practice in Whittier, CA. where his three children, Jeff, Kit and Terry, were born. His medical interests included renal dialysis and chronic heart disease. Russell was a pioneering physician and a gifted leader. His outstanding achievements have been recognized with numerous awards of merit: Alpha Omega Alpha and the American College of Physician Executives. Russ was an avid sailboat owner and racer, a frequent downhill and cross-country skier and an accomplished woodworker, fashioning clever wooden toys, kitchen items, and also large furniture: a roll-top walnut desk, harvest tables, chairs, clock cabinets, and hobby horses. In 1975, Russ brought his family to Santa Barbara where he became the Medical Director of Clinical Services at the County Hospital. In 1981, he became the first Medical Director of the Tri-Counties Veterans Administration Outpatient Clinic. With Federal Government support, he traveled the US and the Philippines working on improving quality and accountability of medical care. Passionately devoted to better education, he and his wife, Dr. Charlotte Tyler, started the Internal Medicine Residency Program at Cottage Hospital which became affiliated with the USC (Keck) School of Medicine. Also a president of S.B. Co. Medical Society and originator of the Retired Physicians Group. His great passion was sailing. With his Cal 40, "Cipango", he cruised and raced as a longtime member of the Santa Barbara Yacht Club. His reading included naval history, and he liked photography, gardening, water-color painting and cooking. Russ loved adventure, especially journeys by car and boat. Family members have fond recollections of many excursions sailing to Catalina and Santa Cruz Islands and San Francisco, yearly skiing trips to Mammoth Mountain, Big Bear, and Aspen, meanderings through Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, and back-pack treks through the Sierras. He was the ship's navigator on a transpac race to Hawaii, sailed through the Virgin Islands, a van trip through Alaska. Always creative and curious, Russ continued to travel in his retirement years, keeping journals of Morocco, Italy, France, Antarctica, Mexico, South America, Egypt, Norway, Japan and China. Although predominantly a logical thinker, Russ had a poetic and humorous side that manifested itself through journals and poems he wrote using droll improvisations that could fill a room with laughter. A dry wit and acute sense of the ironies of life, Russ and his oft-missed mother, Gertrude, could find fun even in the most perilous situations. He is survived by the love of his life, Charlotte, their two children, Kit (Libby), Terry (Chuck Chartraw) and two grandchildren, Nick and Henry. A memorial service will occur January 6, 11 am at All Saints by the Sea Episcopal Church. Donations may be made to Cottage Hospital or Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.