Elizabeth “Beth” McTigue, 78, passed away unexpectedly, but peacefully, on Sunday, February 8, 2026, at her home in Davenport, Florida. Beth was born on November 3, 1947, in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up in Milton, Massachusetts. She graduated from Fontbonne Academy, an all-girls high school in Milton, and Emmanuel College in Boston. While at Fontbonne, she attended a Friday night dance in 1963 at all-boys Boston College High School where she met her future husband, Jim. They dated through the rest of high school and throughout college and when they graduated in 1969, Jim went on active duty in the Navy. While he was deployed to the Persian Gulf in 1970, they decided they couldn’t wait any longer and after he returned, they were married on December 20, 1970.

His next assignment was to Vietnam, but Beth put a very anxious period of her life to good use by completing her Master’s degree in Library Science while he was gone. For 28 years, Beth took on the “Toughest Job in the Navy: Navy Wife” as they moved up and down the East Coast. Their daughter Amy was born in 1975 while he was serving on a destroyer and their son Kevin was born in 1987 when he was assigned to the Pentagon. While Jim was Commanding Officer of USS Simpson in 1988, the ship engaged the naval forces of Iran in the largest naval battle since World War II. Beth was the calm, cool, steadying influence on one of the most frightening days that families of Navy Sailors could face and was the role model for a generation of Navy wives whose junior officer husbands went on to command ships of their own in the decades ahead. Through all this she maintained her career as a medical librarian, finding new professional opportunities in every place they lived.

After Jim’s retirement from the Navy in 1999, they retired for the second time in 2012 and moved to Davenport, Florida, where they became part of the Del Webb Orlando (DWO) community and lived their best lives in retirement. In her 14 years at DWO, Beth’s activities have been innumerable, but included being active in the Chorus club, the Photography club, the Sharing Stitches club, the Veterans club, the New England club and the Travel club. She has chaired the Architectural Review Committee and been a long time member of the Chartered Club Advisory and Violations Review Committees. She has amassed a vast number of friends who have loved her for her warmth, sincerity and great good humor. She loved to travel and, with Jim, went on 36 cruises in the last 14 years, including an incredible trip to Australia last year. There have also been family trips to places such as Hawaii and Sonoma, California, and a high point in her life was the marriage of Kevin to his wife Susan in New Orleans in 2017.

Beth is survived by her older brother Fred Kibble and his wife Linda, and she will be greatly missed by all, but by none more than Jim, her husband of 55 years, her daughter Amy of Bristol, Connecticut, and her son Kevin and daughter-in-law Susan of New Orleans.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you honor Beth's generous spirit by making a donation in her memory to World Central Kitchen or to any organization that helps care for others in times of need.