Mathea Annabelle Doyle

Oct 11, 1929 -

Dec 11, 2024

Longtime Anchorage, Alaska, resident, Piper super cub pilot and instrument flight instructor Mathea Annabelle Doyle, 95, took her last flight on Dec. 11, 2024, from Pahala, Hawaii. She left to join her husband of 52 years, Jack Robert Doyle, who passed away in fall 2000.

Mathea met the love of her life, Jack Doyle, while attending Pasadena City College in the late 1940s. Marriage and raising her family of four interrupted her college education. She finished her college degree and graduated from American River College many years later alongside her daughter, Mathea Lynne.

Mathea moved to Alaska in 1968, after driving her four children up the Alcan Highway to join her husband who was the founder and first director of the local YMCA. She taught YMCA swim lessons at the old Spa, and accompanied Jack on numerous YMCA camping and canoe trips. She loved fishing and hunting with her family. In 1969, she flew out of Kotzebue, Alaska, for a successful polar bear hunt in a super cub. She shot a 10.5 foot polar bear on the frozen Chukchi Sea that winter. After this trip she fell in love with super cubs, bought her own plane, Shasta 4210Z, and eventually became an instrument flight instructor in the early '70s.

She will be remembered for a life well-lived full of adventures and never being afraid to try something new. She was involved with Lions Club, Rotary and Toastmasters. She loved fast cars and loved driving her Porsche 914. She started raising AKC toy poodles in the late 1960s, and bred champions until 2016.

Mrs. Doyle is survived by her sons, Chuck, Bob (Karen) and Mike (Nancy); daughter, Mathea Lynne (Jonathan Zimmerman); grandsons, Timothy, Bryan and Sean; and great-grandsons, Jack, Robert, Landon and Colin.

A celebration of her life will be announced at a later date.