Frank A. Tinker

Frank A. Tinker 10/19/1920 - 7/5/2011 With sadness we his children record the death of our father, Frank A. Tinker. Born in Lapeer, Michigan, he led a full and varied life, including service in the Air Force during World War II and the Korean War. His experiences as a P.O.W. in Japan are partially chronicled in the recent book, "Unbroken," by Laura Hillenbrand. Following the war he met and married Nancy Lee Coe, remaining together until her death in 2008. Our dad was an accomplished pianist and vocalist, a freelance author and photographer of many hundreds of articles, a pilot for cargo airlines and the Forest Service, a foreign service officer to Canada, an enthusiastic outdoorsman, and a most unique husband and father. He and our mother lived in Arizona off and on. He helped build cages and did other work for Arthur Pack and Bill Carr, as they were setting up the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, and he worked as their PR man for awhile. Our parents finally retired to Sunsites in the mid 1980s. They loved to picnic and camp in the nearby Dragoon and Chiricahua Mts. Survivors include: children, Libby Jones, Margaret Francis and Frank Tinker III; grandchildren, Guy Jones, Rebecca Lynn Briesacher and Stephanie Plumb; brother, Charles C. Tinker; sisters, Marian Kozachik and Janet Fell. We would like to thank the VA, the Charles Wm. Leighton, Jr. Hospice nurses and staff, the Sunsites EMS team, the entire staff of the Northern Cochise County Hospital, and the Angel Team for the extraordinary care they gave to our father in his final battle with lymphoma. We would also like to thank his friends and neighbors in Sunsites, who looked in on him, brought him home cooked food, and made him part of their lives. As he wished, there will be no formal services. Arrangements by WESTLAWN CHAPEL AND MORTUARY. We would like to share the poem he wrote after our mother's death. They will be together again in the mountains they loved. When life turns old And beauty dies, When friends have flown To other skies, Then look for me Where Nancy lies. When bright turns dull And time hangs bare, Hit the trail For canyons fair. It's Nancy's place— You'll find us there.