Elizabeth Findlay Girdler

Elizabeth Findlay Girdler, 94, of Aiken, South Carolina, passed away at Aiken Regional Medical Centers on Saturday, March 13, 2010. No funeral services are planned.

Born in Minas del Tofo, Coquimbo Region, Chile on May 5, 1915, to James Franklin Findlay and Rebecca Craighead Findlay, Betty attended Duke University and graduated in 1937 from Syracuse University with a B.A. in Arts and Sciences. On November 22, 1939, Betty married the late Robert M. Girdler of Muskegon, Michigan. Mr. Girdler was involved in the government's top-secret Manhattan Project. Betty assisted in the Manhattan Project by applying for draft deferments for the nation's top scientists. She later worked as a librarian and then as an executive assistant. Betty and Bob Girdler lived in Aiken since the 1950s.

Betty is survived by her sister-in-law, Nancy Jackson Girdler of Sunrise, Florida; brother-in-law, L. Tracy Girdler, Jr., of Mobile, Alabama; three nephews, Louis T. Girdler of Sierra Vista, Arizona, Robert L. Girdler of Sunrise, Florida, and William H. Eastment of Kennesaw, Georgia; and three nieces, Nancy G. Davis of West Bloomfield, Michigan, Dr. Susan G. Pettee of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Susan E. Lachemacher of Flemington, New Jersey.