Lucy E. Birtle

• By YS News Staff
• Published: February 21, 2019

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Lucy E. Birtle

Lucy Birtle died Feb. 7, 2019. She was 91 years old.

Lucy was born Lucy Eugenia LaRocca in Stamford, Conn., on Sept. 28, 1927. The youngest child of immigrants from Minturno, Italy, she became the first of her family to attend college. 

After graduating from Skidmore College in 1949, she traveled to Yellow Springs to take a job as a chemist with the Charles F. Kettering Research Laboratory. Soon after her arrival she met James P. Birtle, a Yellow Springs native. They married in 1951 and remained in Yellow Springs until 1956, when they moved first to Pittsburgh, Penn., and later to Long Island, N.Y. After James retired, the couple lived in Ohio, Florida and finally Alexandria, Va. 

Lucy was a caring person for whom family was of greatest importance. Like James, she loved Yellow Springs. She was buried next to James in St. Paul Cemetery in Yellow Springs on Feb. 20. She is survived by her son, Andrew, of Birdsville, Md.