The Fay Family: Maud Fay Symington: Family Obituaries
   
THE FAY FAMILY HOMEPAGE

GENEALOGIES
   
Maud Fay: ancestry and overview
Maud Fay: Living in Awe
Maud Fay: Showcase of Roles
Irish Guest directory
   
MAUD FAY SYMINGTON
   
Family Obituaries
   
Molly Fay Pedley | Marshall Dill Jr. | Marten Barry | Sarah Fay Tobin | Patricia F. Woods
   
   
Molly Fay Pedley
   
A memorial service will be held next week for Molly Fay Pedley, who died Saturday in her Belvedere home.
Mrs. Pedley, 82, was born in San Francisco and educated at the Convents of the Sacred Heart in San Francisco and Menlo Park. She attended the University of California at Berkeley, where she was affiliated with Alpha Phi.
In 1942, she married Charles Carroll McGettigan. She ran a nursery school in her San Francisco home for 13 years and was in the real estate business in Pacific Heights for 16 years. After her husband's death in 1968, she married Eric Pedley in 1973 and moved to Marin County.
Mrs. Pedley was one of the founders of the Gaieties committee in San Francisco, president of the Spinsters and a member of the Junior League. She served as president of the Marin Garden Club, president of the Bothin Foundation Board and for many years was a member of the Committee for the San Francisco Cotillion. She was also an officer and member of the Executive Board of the Girl Scouts of America.
Mrs. Pedley also was involved with Little Children's Aid, Alumni of the Sacred Heart, the auxiliary of Mount St. Joseph-St. Elizabeth (which was originally endowed by her maternal grandfather, Bartley Oliver) and other Catholic charities. She was a member of St. Hilary's Church in Tiburon.
She is survived by her brother, Paul Burgess Fay Jr. of San Francisco; three sisters, Mrs. Patricia Fay Woods of San Francisco, Mrs. Marten Barry of Hillsborough, and Mrs. Michael Henry de Young Tobin of Hillsborough; three children, Patricia Oliver Vallejo McGettigan and Charles C. McGettigan Jr. of San Francisco and Molly Fay Vallejo McGettigan Arthur of Tiburon; three grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews.
A memorial Mass for Mrs. Pedley will be celebrated at 11 a.m. January 9 at St. Hilary's Catholic Church in Tiburon. Memorial donations may be sent to Mount St. Joseph's-St. Elizabeth at 100 Masonic Avenue, San Francisco, or to the Girl Scouts of America.
from the San Francisco Chronicle, January 1, 1996
   
Marshall Dill Jr.
   
Marshall Dill Jr., a history professor who taught at Stanford University and Dominican College of San Rafael, died Tuesday at his San Francisco home after suffering a stroke in June. He was 84.
Professor Dill was born and raised in San Francisco, graduating from Galileo High School. He earned a bachelor's degree from Stanford University in 1937 and a master's degree in history in 1939. Professor Dill then went off to Harvard University to pursue a doctorate in history but interrupted his studies to join the Navy during World War II. He returned to Harvard after the war and received his Ph.D in 1949.
During his career, Professor Dill taught at Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, Dominican College and Bard College in Annandale-on- Hudson, N.Y. He retired in 1983.
Professor Dill was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the American Historical Society, the Marin County Historical Society and the League of the Palace of Fine Arts.
He also was an author whose historical texts included "Germany: A Modern History," in 1961 and "Paris in Time" in 1975. He also wrote "The Fays and Dills in California, 1850-1969" in 1969 and "Living in Awe," a memoir of his aunt, Maude Fay Symington, in 1975.
Professor Dill was preceded in death by his wife, Pamela Frankau, and a son, Anthony Marshall Dill.
The Rosary will be recited at 7 p.m. Monday at St. Dominic's Church, 2390 Bush St., San Francisco. A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday at St. Dominic's.
Memorials may be made in lieu of flowers to Dominican Convent, 1540 Grand Ave., San Rafael, CA 94901.
from the San Francisco Chronicle, September 7, 2000
   
MARTEN BARRY, 77, WHOSE ROOTS IN SAN JOSE RAN DEEP
   
Marten Barry started school in a classroom at home on San Jose's grand boulevard, The Alameda, back in the 1920s.
His mother, Vivian Marten Barry, had a fear of harmful bacteria, so the little schoolroom was built on the estate at Martin Avenue and a tutor taught three pupils there: Marten, his sister, Betty, and Maryalice Pat King, later the wife of Prentis Cobb Hale Jr., board chairman of Broadway-Hale Co.
It provided just some of the stuff for stories in the 77 years of Marten Barry, who died of complications of pneumonia Wednesday in a San Mateo nursing facility.
The early-century clean room wasn't the Marten family's only connection with the Hale Brothers, whose O.A. Hale & Co. wasn't even the most famous early dry goods store in San Jose. In 1879, Marten Barry's maternal grandfather, August H. Marten, started The Arcade, a dry goods store that operated at 83-91 S. First St. for more than 50 years across the street from Hale's.
Marten Barry's father, Herbert M. Barry, was a founder of the Pratt-Low Preserving Co., one of the major canneries in the Valley of Heart's Delight.
Contest winner at 10
Young Marten progressed to Bellarmine College Preparatory. When he was 10, he was the youngest winner in an international photo contest that sponsoring Kodak said drew millions of entries. His picture showed Bridal Veil Falls at Yosemite.
He attended Santa Clara University for two years, continued at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service and then graduated from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, Long Island, N.Y.
Navy Lt. Marten Barry saw combat aboard the USS James Ford Rhodes in the Pacific during World War II, and he bunked with pianist Eddie Duchin while the destroyer had duty in the Indian Ocean.
When home on leave in May of 1944, he had married Nancy Fay, the daughter of one of San Francisco's major paving contractors, Paul B. Fay. Back at sea, the bridegroom was so confident that his first child would be a girl he had his ship's carpenter inlay the name Ann Barry in a box fashioned for her.
The carpenter was later killed in action, and Lt. Barry didn't meet his daughter to present her with her box until she was 10 months old.
After the war, Marten Barry rode the train from the Barry home in Menlo Park to work his way up from laborer for the Fay Improvement Co. in San Francisco, and eventually to manage the company.
After Fay Improvement was liquidated, Mr. Barry served as vice president of Ritchie & Ritchie, managing its commercial real estate business and his own real estate investments.
He served as president of the Hillsborough Racquet Club and played in all its badminton tournaments, but for him sport was secondary to the club's extensive playbill. ''The thing he loved the most was acting,'' said his daughter Ann. That included one-act plays, musical comedy, even Shakespeare, in which Marten Barry played King Lear.
Her father was a homebody, content to make furniture in his workshop -- the neatest and most well-organized his son Marten Jr. said he has ever seen -- or espalier fruit trees in his garden.
Still, Ann Barry said, ''he was the most reluctant participant in a party till he got there.'' Then his gregarious side took over.
Golden anniversary tour
''One of the best things we ever did was take our family on a cruise for our anniversary,'' said Mr. Barry's wife, Nancy.
All of their six children and 16 grandchildren made the ''golden'' trip through the Hawaiian Islands in 1994. ''It seemed to be one of the highlights of his life,'' said Marten Barry Jr., ''a crowning glory for him.''
from the San Jose Mercury News, April 10, 1998
   
Sarah Fay Tobin -- Civic Leader, Member Of de Young Family
   
Sarah Fay Tobin, a leader in numerous civic and social organizations, died of respiratory cardiac complications Sunday night at her Hillsborough home. Mrs. Tobin was 71.
Known to friends and family as Sally, Mrs. Tobin was active in the alumnae organization of the Sacred Heart Schools in Menlo Park, St. Elizabeth's Home, the Achievement Rewards for College Students Foundation and the Hillsborough Garden Club. She had also been a trustee of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.
Born Sarah Fay in the city, she grew up in Woodside and graduated from the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Menlo Park and from Stanford University. Her marriage in May 1952 to Michael Henry de Young Tobin, a grandson of Chronicle founder Michael H. de Young, was a social highlight of that year in San Francisco.
Before her marriage, she was president of The Spinsters and was active in the Junior League.
Mr. Tobin's mother was Constance de Young, one of the four daughters of Michael de Young, who with his brother Charles co- founded The Chronicle in February 1865. Her husband was Joseph Oliver Tobin, whose family founded San Francisco's Hibernia Bank in 1859.
Their son, Michael Tobin, was chief executive officer of the bank from 1975 to 1983. He retired in 1986. In 1983, he oversaw the bank's merger into First Pacific Group of Hong Kong.
In addition to her husband, Mrs. Tobin is survived by four children: Joseph Oliver Tobin II, Katharine Oliver Tobin and Michael H. de Young Tobin II, all of San Francisco; and Patricia Tobin Kubal of Atherton. Other survivors include a brother, Paul B. Fay Jr., who was undersecretary of the Navy; two sisters, Patricia Woods of San Francisco and Nancy Barry of Hillsborough, and six grandchildren.
A rosary will be offered at 6 p.m. tomorrow at Crosby-N. Gray & Co., 2 Park Road, Burlingame. Mass will be celebrated at 11 a.m. Thursday at St. Catherine of Siena Church, 1310 Bayswater Ave., Burlingame.
The family requests that friends send no flowers, but instead send contributions to the Sacred Heart Schools, 150 Valparaiso, Atherton, 94027 or to St. Anthony's Dining Room, 121 Golden Gate Ave., San Francisco 94102.
from the San Francisco Chronicle, July 23, 1996
   
Patricia F. Woods, 84 former Coronado, La Jolla businesswoman
   
In the 1940s, with the fathers of many Coronado children deployed on World War II naval assignments, Patricia Fay Woods addressed a widespread need.
While her physician husband served in the Pacific, Mrs. Woods started a nursery school on Fourth Street.
It was one of many business ventures in which she was involved, ranging from interior decorating to residential real estate.
Mrs. Woods, who retired as a real estate broker in the late 1970s, died of pancreatic cancer Sept. 6 at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. She was 84.
In 1953, Mrs. Woods moved from Coronado to La Jolla. For the next decade, she lived in a nine-bedroom beachfront estate on Dunemere Drive that was built in the 1920s as a showpiece of the Barber Tract.
The home, designed by San Diego architect Edgar Ullrich and developed by Philip Barber, was sold in the 1960s to actor Cliff Robertson.
While married to her first husband, neurologist Ward Woods, Mrs. Woods worked in La Jolla as an interior decorator and founded La Jolla Junior Assembly, a dance and social club for youths.
The Woodses were divorced in the 1960s, and Mrs. Woods returned to her native San Francisco. After opening an antique shop on Jackson Street, she decided to pursue something more challenging.
"She had too much energy for antiques," said daughter Cynthia Woods.
After earning her real estate license, Mrs. Woods became a broker/partner in 1965 at Genevieve Casey Associates in San Francisco. She sold residential real estate for more than a decade and continued to own property in El Cajon, Poway and San Ysidro.
In 1977, Mrs. Woods married La Jollan Gordon Guiberson, a former Texas businessman who also had homes in Bel Air and Hillsborough.
After his death in 1982, "Patsy," as she was known to friends, assumed her former last name of Woods.
While growing up in San Francisco, Mrs. Woods attended Convent of Sacred Heart and Stanford University. In 1936, she accompanied her parents on a European tour that included a visit to the Olympic Games in Berlin.
"She always said she was close enough to Hitler to shoot him," Cynthia Woods said. While Hitler was a dominating presence at the Games, American sprinter and long jumper Jesse Owens was the hero, winning four gold medals.
In 1938, Mrs. Woods married her first husband, a San Diego native who had graduated the previous year from medical school at Stanford.
The couple lived in London, where Dr. Woods studied neurology, when the war broke out in Europe. "They were on the last American ship to New York," Cynthia Woods said.
Mrs. Woods was active for years at La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club. During retirement, she traveled extensively.
Dr. Woods died in 1988.
Mrs. Woods is survived by daughters Wendy Luers of New York City, Cynthia Woods of San Francisco and Susan Woods of The Hague, Netherlands; a son, Ward Woods Jr. of New York City; a sister, Nancy Barry of Hillsborough; a brother, Paul "Red" Fay Jr. of San Francisco; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
A memorial service is scheduled for 3 p.m. Oct. 20 at St. Dominic's Catholic Church, 2390 Bush St., San Francisco. Donations are suggested to St. Anthony Foundation, 121 Golden Gate Ave., San Francisco, CA 94102, or to Mount St. Joseph-St. Elizabeth, 100 Masonic Ave., San Francisco, CA 94118.
from the San Diego Union-Tribune, September 21, 2000