Dr. Neil B Tytler, Jr

 The family will receive friends on Saturday from 2:00-4:00PM at the T.M. Ralph Plantation Funeral Home.  

  In his memory family suggests donations to St. Jude Children's' Research Hospital

Dr. Neil Bates Tytler, Jr. of Plantation, Florida, passed away on October 6^th, 2021. He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Leslie; his four children, Scott, Sean, Adam, and Megan Ahearn; his 8 grandchildren; his sister Jill; his brother, Jeff; and his cousin, Sandy Sanders. His family was with him in his final days.

Neil (was born on April 16^th, 1947, to his mother, Margaret, and father, Neil, in Pottstown, PA. The first of three children, Neil grew up participating in Cub Scouts and playing sports, winning his first championship in Marbles in 1959 at Collegeville Trappe Elementary School. He went on to play baseball in the Lower Perkiomen Little League in Collegeville, PA, suiting up first for the Red Sox and, later, for the Athletics. He continued his athletic success at the Hill School, which he attended from 1961 to 1965. In one appearance for the Hill football team, Neil ran a kickoff back 65 yards for the Heavies’ only score of the day; in another, he accounted for four of Hill’s seven touchdowns as the starting halfback, including several runs over 50 yards. Unfortunately, not all of these performances came in winning efforts for the Heavies, though it must be said that their weakest link appears to have been their place kicker; the most common sentence in the beat reports is, “the extra point attempt failed.”

In the midst of his athletic career, Neil somehow found time for academics as well, graduating in 1965. He attended Ursinus College, right down the street from his parents’ home. A member of Delta Pi Sigma – and its President his senior year – he majored in Biology, though according to his yearbook entries, spent most of his time with Leslie Hemmer. Neil and Leslie met on February 15^th, 1968, going on their first date two days later. In a sign of the times, he also recorded the date he and Leslie first were “going steady,” April 19^th, 1968, and the date they were “pinned,” October 10^th, 1968. To say that his children find this level of detail exceptionally adorable would be an understatement.

He graduated on June 9^th, 1969, and on August 23^rd of that year, married Leslie at St. Philomena’s Church in Lansdowne, PA. After a honeymoon at Caneel Bay in St. John’s, U.S. Virgin Islands – a place Neil held dear the rest of his life – the couple returned to Pennsylvania, where Neil attended the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. One year after starting at P.C.O.M., his first son, Scott Andrew, was born. Neil graduated in 1974, and went on to internships at Allentown Osteopathic Hospital, Suburban General Hospital in Norristown, PA, and a Cardiology Fellowship at Jefferson University Hospital, which he completed in 1979. Prior to this, his second son, Sean Christopher, was born at Allentown Memorial Hospital. Neil’s insistence that a pediatrician be present at the birth saved Sean’s life; he would subtly, and sometimes not-so-subtly, remind Sean of this foresight in the years to come.

While the life of a medical resident is notoriously taxing, Neil found plenty of time for his growing family. He took Scott on several outings to Wood’s Golf Center, where the five-year-old Scott competed valiantly, but ultimately lost, in miniature golf to “Daddy,” who made sure to circle each hole-in-one he made. In between these high-stakes matches and trips to the Philadelphia Zoo and the Ringling Bros., Barnum and Bailey Circus, Neil found time to excel as both an intern and resident. He authored several peer-reviewed papers, including “Prinzmetal’s Variant Angina” and “An Assessment of the Applications of Echocardiography to the Clinical Spectrum of Ischemic Heart Disease.” His family has copies of these, if you’re looking for some light bedside reading. In his first year as an resident at Suburban General, Neil was ranked #1 out of 170 osteopathic residents. After his second, he retained his top mark. Upon completion of his residency, he was commended for his “decorum…always most professional and dignified, yet, you combine this with a warm, gentle and compassionate manner.” He would exemplify this standard of care throughout his 40-year career.

During his internships and residency, the family spent several vacations in Plantation, Florida, where Leslie’s parents lived, and where Neil would ultimately settle with his family in 1979. There he joined a medical group in Plantation, FL, where he practiced cardiology and general medicine for four decades across several hospitals, including Doctor’s General, Florida Medical Center, and Westside Regional. Neil served thousands of patients and their families during these decades, often working late nights on-call and in the emergency room.

Neil and Leslie welcomed their son, Adam Patrick, in July 1981, and their daughter, Megan Marie, in 1984. During the years at their Jacaranda Lakes home, Neil made pinewood derby racers for Cub Scouts; coached little league soccer; took his boys to free throw shooting tournaments at the Elks Lodge; suffered through decades – four, to be exact – of Miami Dolphins futility, most of those with Adam, the only other Dolphins fan in the family; witnessed dozens of Megan’s gymnastics meets and piano recitals; built multiple science fair boards (don’t tell his children’s teachers), including ones on cardiovascular disease (shocking) and the 1969 lunar module; visited Disney World too many times to count (including one time when he valet parked a golf cart at the Empress Lilly restaurant at the Disney Village); took his family to Erpfendorf, Austria and Banff, Canada for family Christmases; spent many weekends in Marco Island drinking mudslides at the Snook Inn; fed his love of great food at places like Fra Diavolo’s, Le Dome, and La Vieille Maison (sadly, all closed); managed to plan and keep secret Leslie’s 50^th birthday celebration onboard a yacht in the Intracoastal of Florida; and attended every pre-school ceremony, religious milestone, Christmas pageant, and high school and college graduation. Most importantly, Neil documented and photographed every…single…event of his family’s life, which until recently was a charming quirk, but is now an irreplaceable source of memories.

Many of those memories involved Neil and Leslie’s circle of friends. From college classmates at Ursinus, colleagues from medical school and his residency, the “Dirty Dozen,” neighbors in Jacaranda Lakes, fellow parents navigating little league sports and elementary schools, and many others, Neil valued all the cocktail hours, dinners, birthday celebrations, and trips to places near (Philadelphia, Maine) and far (Alaska, Italy). He might have lived for his family, but he found tremendous joy in his friends.

Across the years, Neil never failed to provide his family the opportunities that made them what they are today. He was immensely proud of each of his children’s education, from St. Gregory’s and St. Thomas Aquinas high school to each of their colleges: Eckerd College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Central Florida, and American University; it’s not much of an exaggeration to say that half of his wardrobe consisted of college tee-shirts. While none of his children majored in English, it wasn’t through lack of trying on his part; Dad was affectionately known as “the grammar police,” constantly reminding his family to use “whom,” not “who,” when talking about the object of a verb.

Neil took tremendous pride in his children’s accomplishments, but mostly in their families and his eight grandchildren. Above all, he loved his wife of 52 years, and cherished every memory of their time together. Perhaps that’s why he never found a location that meant as much to him as Caneel Bay, where they honeymooned all those years ago, and where his family will take him to say their final goodbye.