Obituaries

Our beloved Tamala “Tammy” Kay Talcott Doyle, 64, passed away on August 1^st, 2023, in Naperville, Illinois.

Tammy was born July 4, 1959, in Midland, Michigan to Thayre and Katie Talcott.

She was raised in Midland and was the first of Katie and Thayre’s four children.

Tammy graduated from Western Michigan University in 1982.  It was there she met the love of her life and future husband, Jim.  Tammy and Jim married in 1983 and began their grand life adventure by honeymooning at Disney World.  Jim and Tammy loved Disney throughout their marriage – taking numerous family trips and enabling their grandchildren to experience the Magic in 2023.

The Doyle family started married life in Oak Lawn, Illinois, where their son Jimmy was born in 1985.  Later that year, Jim’s career took them to Minneapolis, Minnesota.   Tammy spent time there pursuing her passion organizing countless outings for community youth and senior citizens in her role at the City of Prior Lake Recreation Department, cultivating Jimmy’s love for sports and making lifelong friends.  In 1990, Tammy and Jim relocated to Portage, Michigan, welcoming their daughter Katie shortly after the move.  Tammy was blessed with incredible friendships in Portage while volunteering at West Portage Little League, co-leading a new elementary school playground construction build, and raising her kids in what she described as a “utopian” town.  In 1994, she received a lifesaving kidney transplant at the University of Michigan thanks to her brother Tom’s kidney donation.  Incredibly, her brother Terry also successfully donated a kidney to their sister Tracy approximately a decade before.

In 1999, the family moved again to St. Charles, Illinois.  Jim’s Chicago-based family embraced Tammy during annual vacations to Sister Lakes, Michigan, and countless family parties in the Chicagoland area.  Tammy once again made lifelong friends in “STC” during travel soccer tournament trips, Saints baseball games, and her 22 years working at Northwestern Medicine Convenient Care.

She became a grandmother in 2017 to Quinn, with Carson (2019), Emily (2022) and Lucy (2022) following closely behind.  The four grandchildren became the light of her life.  She shared her love with her grandchildren through making crafts, baking cookies, playing games, and encouraging them to push the limit of their bedtimes.

While Tammy was young, the Talcott family made annual trips in July to Rudyard, Michigan to celebrate her beloved Grandmother Linne’s birthday – Grandma Muu-Muu.  Tammy was incredibly creative and talented; she had the imagination for big ideas and the skillset to make them a reality.  During her youth, she was a very talented figure skater – spending hours at cold rinks pursuing her passion and making lifelong friends.  Her creativity showed as she often made and tailored her skating costumes.  Her children and grandchildren then were blessed to benefit from her creativity via countless homemade Halloween costumes, elaborately themed birthday parties, and unbelievable weddings, wedding showers and baby showers.  Tammy continued to be both incredibly giving and tremendously close to her family and friends throughout her life.  She jumped into acts of kindness where she saw a need – whether knitting a quilt for a new parent, organizing a niece’s graduation party, or sending encouraging messages to her children’s friends.

There is a Finnish concept of “SISU”, which roughly translates to white-knuckled strength and determination despite long odds.  Tammy embodied SISU throughout her battle with the rare neuroendocrine cancer tumors that were found in February 2023.

Tammy is survived by husband, Jim, two children, Jim (Tiffany) Doyle and Katie (John) Gast, four grandchildren, Quinn, Carson and Lucy Doyle and Emily Gast, her parents, Thayre and Katie Talcott, a sister, Tracy (Steve) Perry, two brothers, Terry (Cindy) and Tom Talcott (Dawn Boomer), her in-law’s Tom and Rose Doyle, sister-in-law Diane (Gene) Egan, and brother-in-law Tom (Nancy) Doyle and several nieces and nephews, and grand nieces and nephews.

A Visitation will be held on Monday, August 7^th from 4:00 – 8:00 PM at Yurs Funeral Home (405 East Main Street, St. Charles, Illinois).  Funeral Services will be held Tuesday, August 8^th at 10:30 AM at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in St Charles, Illinois, with a luncheon at the Church immediately following the service.   A Memorial Service will be held at Memorial Presbyterian Church in Midland, Michigan, on August 19^th with 10:00 AM Visitation, 11:00 AM Service and a luncheon at the Church following the Service. An Inurnment Service will occur after the Funeral.

Tammy’s kindness ensured that she was accepting of all; and the world was a better place because she was a part of it.  Because Tammy always wanted to leave things better than when she found them, the family asks that in lieu of flowers, you hug your family, be kind to others, and do a good deed.

Funeral Services will be live-streamed on the Bethlehem Lutheran Church YouTube channel.  Link at:

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