Barbara M. Tilden

Barbara M. Tilden (Giles), 96, died peacefully at home at the Avery Heights retirement community in Hartford, CT on Tuesday, April 7, 2020, surrounded by her loving family. Barbara was born on March 22, 1924 in Malden, Massachusetts to Miriam (Day) and Elmer Giles. 

Barbara was married to Fred F. Tilden, who passed away on February 16, 2020 at the age of 95. She is survived by their daughter Cynthia Tilden-Machleidt and her husband Cornelius Machleidt of Berlin, Germany, sons Fred Tilden and his wife Lisa Namerow of West Hartford, CT and Peter and Linda Tilden of Belmont, MA.  She was a loving and attentive grandmother to her six grandchildren, Simon of Zurich, Switzerland, Caroline of Belmont, MA, Alexandra of Providence, RI, Jacqueline of San Francisco, CA, Elizabeth of St Louis, MO, and Anna of West Hartford, CT. She is also survived by her sister Marjorie (Warren) Perkins of Centerville, MA.

Barbara graduated from Melrose High School in the class of 1942 and went on to Simmons College in Boston, where she majored in home economics, qualifying as a dietician and graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree.

After their wedding in 1947, Barbara and Fred Tilden moved to Hanover, N.H. where Fred finished his undergraduate degree at Dartmouth College in 1948, and where their daughter Cynthia was born.

Barbara and Fred returned to Massachusetts in 1948 and lived in Melrose for a number of years as their family grew. Their two sons Fred (1952) and Peter (1955) were both born in Melrose. As a young family of five they built two homes in Lynnfield where they lived until 1966. During this time Barbara was wife, mother, homemaker, and active member of the Lynnfield community. She was a regular participant in the lecture evenings offered by the League of Women Voters and worked as a volunteer in a number of town projects, notably the funding and building of a new town library in the early 1960s.

From 1967 the Tildens lived and worked in a number of places: London, England, Rye, N.Y., Winchester and Lexington, MA. Back in Massachusetts in the early 1970s, Barbara returned to school, earning a Master’s degree in special education from Lesley College in Cambridge, MA in 1974. She then worked as a special needs specialist for close to 20 years in the Winchester school system.

Wherever she lived, Barbara enjoyed home decoration and upkeep. She adored the family summer home overlooking Menemsha Pond in Chilmark, on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, packing her car with children, supplies and pets to leave for the island as soon as school went on summer vacation each year. After retirement and until they had reached their 90s, Barbara and Fred spent several months a year in Menemsha.

There will be a private family memorial for both parents. 

We would like to thank our parents’ wonderfully empathic, competent and soulful caregiver –

Mercy Anane

who cared for both of them for months without respite. We are all so grateful to her.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to either The Trustees of Reservations, the Martha's Vineyard Fund at: https://secure3.convio.net/ttor/site/SPageServer?pagename=give, or to Church Homes Inc./Avery Heights, Hartford, CT. 06106.