Bertha Margaret Van Ryn

Bertha Margaret (Gault) Van Ryn, 94, passed away on Feb. 15, 2015 at Life Care of Sandpoint. Bertha was born April 13, 1920 in Cambridge, MA to the Rev. John K. Gault and Mary Steele Gault. When she was five years old, the family moved to Indiana County, Pennsylvania. She attended a one-room country school for four years, then graduated from Punxsutawney, PA high school and Geneva College in Beaver Falls, PA in 1940. All during World War II she was employed in Pittsburg, first as a production clerk at Westinghouse and then as an order clerk at Johns Manville-Industrial Products. She married Henry Byron Van Ryn in 1943 and at the end of the war they moved to Los Angeles County, CA where they lived, except for two years spent in Connecticut and in Brussels, Belgium in the 1960s. They both retired in 1976. In the Los Angeles area Bertha worked in a variety of jobs, including production control, high school teaching, accounting adjustments, and with Kelly Girl Temporary Office Services when convenient, a job she always remembered with pleasure. After they retired from full-time employment, the Van Ryns trailered extensively through the US and Canada and then settled on “snowbirding” between Lake Havasu City, AZ and Jeb and Margaret’s Trailer Haven at Trestle Creek. In 1998, after about 20 wonderful years they settled in the Sandpoint area. Bertha loved reading, writing, road trips, and games, especially pinochle with dear friends. During the years when she was caring for her ailing husband she was able to write two short books, one about her youth through the depression and the war, and the other about trailering as retirees with some reflections on life from the perspective of old age. After sixty years of marriage, Henry died in 2003. Bertha then became a volunteer Senior Companion, furnishing transportation and companionship to seniors in need of such services. She also joined the Sandpoint chapter of Idaho Writers League. Bertha is survived by a son, Henry Robert Van Ryn (Susan) of Rio Dell, CA, a daughter Margaret Ruth McDonald (Jake) of Aurora, CO, 4 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren. She is also survived by a brother Tom Gault of Whittier, CA and many wonderful helpful friends, notably Sandra Furlini and her mother Gene Butts and the LaVoys, Bert and Ray. At Bertha’s request there will be no public service.