Sad news: Harrison Ruffin Tyler has died at the age of 96. Through a family quirk (marrying twice and fathering children late in life), his grandfather was far and away the earliest president to have living grandchildren. Harrison’s father, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, was born in 1853, and died in 1935 (when his son, Harrison, was six years old). Lyon’s first wife died in 1921, after they had three children, and Lyon married Sue Ruffin, who was 35 years younger than he. Lyon and Sue had three more children: Lyon Jr. (1925–2020), Harrison (1928–2025), and Henry, who died in infancy. Lyon’s father was tenth US President John Tyler (born in 1790). John and his first wife, Letitia, had eight children. Letitia died in 1842, a year and a half after President William Henry Harrison died, making Tyler the first vice president to succeed to the presidency. In 1844, Tyler married Julia Gardiner, who was 30 years younger than he. After leaving the White House, they had seven children (Lyon was the fifth). The president died in 1862, when Lyon was eight years old.

In addition to his family pedigree, Harrison lived a full life. After graduating from Virginia Tech, he worked for Virginia-Carolina Chemical Corporation. He received a patent in water treatment pertaining to shiny aluminum. In 1963, Virginia-Carolina Chemical Corporation was acquired by Mobil, and Tyler left the company to found ChemTreat, Inc. (a water treatment company headquartered in Glen Allen, Virginia) with partner William P. Simmons. In 2000, Tyler led an employee stock ownership program at his company. ChemTreat was acquired by the Danaher Corporation in 2007.

Tyler married Frances Payne Bouknight in 1957. They had three children: Julia Gardiner Tyler Samaniego (born 1958), Harrison Ruffin Tyler Jr. (born 1960), and William Bouknight Tyler (born 1961).

Tyler purchased the Sherwood Forest Plantation—President Tyler’s home—from relatives in 1975 and oversaw its restoration. In 2001, he donated $5 million and 22,000 books and documents from his father to the College of William & Mary department of history.

Frances died in 2019, and Tyler broke with family tradition by not remarrying. He suffered a series of mini-strokes in 2012, and died in the nursing home where he was living on May 25, 2025.