George Thomas Tyler III, a former partner in the Baltimore law firm of Ober Kaler who was a student of European and U.S. history, died May 29 of a heart attack at his Guilford home. He was 76.
Mr. Tyler, the son of a physician and a homemaker, was born in Spartanburg, S.C., and spent his early years in Greenville, S.C., before moving to Annapolis.
"My father learned to ride his bike in the halls of his father's hospital in Greenville," said his daughter, Millicent Ann Tyler of Guilford.
After graduating from Annapolis High School in 1951, Mr. Tyler earned a bachelor's degree in history and government from Randolph Macon College in Ashland, Va.
He taught undergraduate history at Duke University for a year before joining the Navy. After graduating from officers' candidate school at Newport, R.I., he was commissioned in 1957.
He served as an engineering officer aboard the destroyer USS Witek for four years until being discharged in 1961.
Mr. Tyler entered Georgetown University Law School, where he earned his law degree in 1963.
After passing the Maryland bar that year, he joined Cross & Shriver, and later became a partner in the firm later known as Ober Kaler Grimes & Shriver, now Ober Kaler.
John C. Murphy, a Baltimore lawyer, worked with Mr. Tyler at the firm during the late 1960s and 1970s.
"The firm represented a number of hospitals, and this was at the beginning of federal and state intervention and regulations and Medicare reimbursement. It was also the beginning and development of health care law, and George was very much a part of the establishment of that practice," said Mr. Murphy.
"In those days, there was no road map, so he had to be innovative. He was a very intellectual type of lawyer who could look at and understand very complicated rules and regulations," Mr. Murphy recalled.
"It was an entirely new field without precedents. It took a certain type of lawyer, and that was George's talent," he said.
"He understood how hospitals had to cope with both the federal and state governments," he said. "I thought what he did was a major accomplishment. He was a pioneer, and this was a new frontier of law."
He recalled Mr. Tyler as a "quiet and reserved man and not outspoken. He was not a table-thumper. He lived modestly and was very proud of his Southern heritage."
David R. Eaton, now retired, was also a lawyer for Ober Kaler and an old friend.
"I can see him now sitting in his office, smoking his pipe, while pondering a legal matter. He was very bright, cultured and loved history. He always exuded great strength," recalled Mr. Eaton.
"He knew and understood the huge national bureaucratic maze backwards and forwards when it came to health care law," he said.
"To me, he was the essence of courtliness and gentility, and he lived his life like someone out of the late 1800s. He would have been very comfortable living in the 19th century," he said.
"He could be somewhat formal at a first meeting and had a somewhat serious demeanor, but was very kind once you got to know him and had a great sense of humor," Mr. Eaton said.
"When discussing current events, he could always refer them back to a historical event. He could always put things in perspective," Mr. Eaton said.
Mr. Tyler's professional associations included the Library Company of the Baltimore Bar, of which he was a board member from 1966 to 1973, and the Maryland State Bar Association.
He was a collector of books on English and U.S. history and biographies, with which he lined the second-floor study of his Guilford home, where he enjoyed spending many hours reading while puffing on his pipe, family members said.
"He also read a great many newspapers. He enjoyed reading about the Civil War, political histories and the lives of statesmen," said a son, John P. Tyler of Allentown, Pa. "He drew strength from reading about the lives and experiences of others."
Mr. Tyler also liked working in his rose and vegetable garden.
"He only traveled because my mother liked traveling. He did enjoy visiting London and Italy, but I think he really enjoyed staying home," Ms. Tyler said.
Mr. Tyler was a longtime active communicant of the Episcopal Church of the Nativity in Cedarcroft, where a memorial service was held Monday.
Also surviving are his wife of 49 years, the former Millicent A. Rosenberg; another son, George T. Tyler of Rome; and six grandchildren.