Alex V. Tisdale, prominent pretzel industry executive, whose vigor and feel for his work and life earned him friends all over the world, died Monday morning, July 4, in the Eaton Hospital, Easton, Pa.
Mr. Tisdale and his wife, Marie, teamed to form one of the most unique couples, who traveled 50,000 miles a year for the past 14 years, appearing on television and radio to promote the pretzel industry.
The energetic Tisdales, who never took a vacation because their work was "too exciting," did their last television show in February, 1965, in Philadelphia with Margaret Truman.
From that time Mr. Tisdale worked from his Cherry Lane farm home office, Chester County, showing the same enthusiasm and love for his work that he did in 1940 when he first entered the pretzel industry.
Dr. David Feinberg, of Easton, Mr. Tisdale's personal physician, said Mr. Tisdale's heart could not withstand the strain of two surgical operations in one week.
An annual physical checkup in June showed the presence of a polyp on Mr. Tisdale's intestinal wall, and surgery was performed June 24 to remove it.
A second operation took place Friday, July 1.
As executive secretary of the National Pretzel Bakers Institute from 1953 to the time of his death, Mr. Tisdale was instrumental in hiking production in the industry from 25 million in 1953 to almost 150 million today.
The even-tempered Mr. Tisdale, born in Chester, the son of James M. and Ann (Thompson) Tisdale, started working at the age of six as a newsboy for the Chester Times.
Before he was 20, he drove a wagon for a banana merchant, was a heater boy at an iron works plant, a pipe fitters helper in a locomotive works factory, a clerk in a haberdashery store, and a tent wrecker.
Two years after the slender Mr. Tisdale completed four years at Swarthmore College, Philadelphia, he was an ensign on the Atlantic Fleet Battleship Minnesota, which was hit by a mine in German waters.
After the war, Mr. Tisdale married the former Marie Frances Nofer, on October 4, 1919, at St. Francis DeSales Catholic Church, Philadelphia.
After brief employment with a Philadelphia refining company and a tire company in that city, Mr. Tisdale joined the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, Philadelphia.
From 1923-1927 he attended classes at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
In 1928, the Tisdales moved to their modest 10-acre farm, Star Route, Pottstown, but did not make it their permanent home for 11 more years.
When Mr. Tisdale decided to leave the insurance business, one of his clients and friend, Robert P. Smith, owner of Mrs. Smith's Pie Company, asked him to go to Easton to look over the Pennsylvania Butter Pretzel Company, which Smith owned.
"Alex was intrigued with the plant," his widow said Monday. "He knew what to do right away."
Mr. Tisdale, as vice president, did everything for the Easton plant, now the Snack Time Foods Incorporated.
In the 1940s, Mr. Tisdale was elected president of the Bakers Institute, and when he retired in 1953, at the age of 61, the institute asked him to stay on as its executive secretary.
As the secretary, he directed the organization, which represented 26 of the largest pretzel manufacturers in the United States of 80 manufacturers in the field.
Mr. Tisdale was familiar and knowledgeable on every facet and phase of the industry, from machinery to sales.
The peppy Tisdales launched their world-wide promotion campaign in 1953, which kept them so fascinated and busy, as Mrs. Tisdale put it, "We got no rest."
They traveled one week each month year round, making an average of 20 radio and television appearances.
Once, when they were in San Francisco, they made 27 radio and TV appearances in a single day, with the Tisdales splitting up and making one minute and two minute appearances on different networks.
Mrs. Tisdale, first social Editor of the Pottstown Daily News, the predecessor of The Mercury, was famous for her pretzel recipes, and often demonstrated one of the 200 dishes with pretzel ingredients.
The Tisdales were on the Johnny Carson show, the Groucho Marx show, with Ernie Kovacs in his prime, on Today and Tonight.
In 1954, a year after they began extensive travels, they even presented pretzels to President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Mrs. Tisdale estimated she and her husband appeared on more than 1000 shows in 293 cities, promoting pretzels.
Many a time, because of their earnestness and sincerity, the master of ceremonies would keep them on for several minutes longer than their booking.
But while Mr. Tisdale was giving his all to his work, and while Mrs. Tisdale played a double role of secretary and wife, the six-foot man also found time to serve his friends and community.
Mr. Tisdale was one of the five founders of the Kiwanis Club in Pottstown, serving as club president in 1936; he was vice commander of the Pottstown American Legion, and a member of the Pottstown YMCA.
He also belonged to chapters of the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army.
He also managed to chairman the 50th annual class reunion at Swarthmore College last year.
The tireless couple helped and complemented each other constantly.
"We would get up at 8:30 o'clock in the morning," Mrs. Tisdale said, "And work until 4 p.m."
"We knew how to relax, how to be healthy," she said.
The Tisdales played golf nearly every day on the two-hole golf course on their property.
Besides golfing as a hobby, Mr. Tisdale loved birds, and has bird baths of stones with running water on his property.
Mr. Tisdale prided in the editorship of the magazine, "The World of Pretzels," a bi-monthly publication which he compiled from his home.
Mrs. Tisdale, who will be 70 in August, spent a great part of the last two weeks in Easton at her husband's bedside.
A strong woman, Monday she showed both grief for her dead husband, and the pride which she had in him.
"We had a wonderful life, Alex and I," she said softly. "The best possible."
Surviving with Mrs. Tisdale are
three daughters, Laura N., wife of
John W. Hawkins, Reading; Ann
T., wife of William F. Bradbury,
Seattle, Wash.; and Frances, wife
of Lewis S. Dreisbach, Easton; a
brother, Col. Henry E. Tisdale, Belair, Md.; and 12 grandchildren.
Howard Sann, The Pottstown Mercury
Reprinted with
permission of The Mercury
SHARKS-In the telephone book it says,
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