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Flying Tiger Line
Pilots Association

Marsha Hay Merz

In Memoriam

February 21, 1948 - October 26, 2022

The following was sent from Marsha's sister.

A memorial Service for Marsha will be at Beautiful Saviour Lutheran Church in Seatac, Wa.
Saturday November 12 @ 1:00PM.
There will be a reception at the church following the memorial.
Marsha's life was a melody of joy, fulfillment, work, fun, happiness and some sorrow too. Faith, family, friends, learning, teaching, music, skiing, and travel were her focus in life. Marsha was blessed with a Christian family. Having wonderful parents, Paul and Thelma Hay, and great siblings, Nola, Thomas, Kevin, and Wallace. Marsha was happily married to her handsome sweetheart Karl Merz, an electrical engineer and Boeing Development and Design Manager, for more than 30 years. They had many good and loyal friends. Marsha was a faithful member of Beautiful Saviour Lutheran Church for more than 60 years.
After graduating from Tyee High School Marsha earned an AA with honors from Highline College and a BA cum laude from the University of Washington. She earned her Washington State Teaching Credentials and endorsements at the University of Washington as well.
Marsha was an International Flight Attendant for Flying Tigers (now part of FedEx) from 1969 to 1992. She flew U.S. military personnel throughout Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Flying Tigers also flew religious pilgrims to Israel and Saudi Arabia. In her later years Marsha worked as a K-12 school teacher for the Issaquah public school district, and enjoyed doing volunteer work for the Issaquah Theatre and Issaquah Nursing and Rehabilitation.
Marsha and Karl enjoyed traveling the world extensively until Karl had a devastating stroke in 2009, leaving him a quadriplegic. Marsha cared for Karl for many years until he passed away in 2018.
After battling lung cancer for years while caring for Karl and beyond, Marsha passed peacefully in October 2022. Marsha loved and was loved.
A memorial Service for Marsha will be at Beautiful Saviour Lutheran Church in Seatac, Wa. Saturday November 12 @ 1:00PM. There will be a reception at the church following the memorial.

Flight Attendant Robin Pestarino and Captain Larry LeFever flew many times with Marsha and submit the following:

Marsha Hay Metz was always a pleasant, funny, kind person to be with.  She was scary intelligent with a quick grasp of any subject being discussed and had wonderful contributions to the conversations.  She could be silly but had a serious side to her that gave one pause.  I enjoyed flying with Marsha and when I was Senior, I could relax knowing she would do a professional job and do it well.
I spoke with her sporadically over the years and looked forward to her sunny disposition at the reunions.  Even as she fought cancer for years, she was never a victim, she was a warrior woman who didn't give up.  She was a wonderful combination of old school common sense with her feet on the ground and a free thinker with no bounds who could look "outside the box" and imagine new approaches to any issue.  She was a terrific person and I'm so thankful to have known her.  God speed, Marsha.
Robin H. Pestarino
  Marsha Hay was one of the nicest people I've known.  I never heard her complain or speak ill of anyone.  She always had a pleasing personality and a smile and did her job well.  She was a trooper.  The only time I ever heard a negative comment from her was after FedEx ended our passenger operations.  She resented just arbitrarily losing a career that she loved and who could blame her?  
    At the last Seattle reunion, Marsha told Bill Smith and I a funny story that neither one of us had heard before.  It seems that years ago she was a flight attendant on a Hodge flight in the Middle East when an incident in the cabin sparked an argument between a very senior captain and the senior flight attendant after the airplane had landed on the inbound leg and the passengers were off the airplane.  The situation quickly escalated until the flight attendant punched the captain and he responded in kind. This broke out into a full on a boxing match between the two of them. The captain lost. The way Marsha told the story while standing like a boxer in the ring and shadow punching had Bill and I in stiches laughing: (" She gave him one of these and he gave her one of those and then she gave him one of these" etc.)  If you knew who the two combatants were, you would laugh too.  Since they're both long gone, my lips and keyboard are zipped.  This never did get back to the company.  
Marsha will be sorely missed.
Larry LeFever

Anyone else wishing to contribute to this page with archived pictures or testimonials is encouraged to contact us at email@flyingtigerline.org

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