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William Vandermay

December 29, 2021
Portage, MI

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Kalamazoo native and longtime Portage resident William John Vandermay passed away early the morning of Dec. 29, following an extended battle with COPD. The Lord called him Home in the way he'd hoped: in the arms of his wife, Joyce, in the home he built for their family on the shores of West Lake. Visitation will be held for Mr. Vandermay, known to his friends as "Bill", on Monday, Jan. 3, starting at 10 a.m., inside the Prairie Edge Church on Oakland Drive in Portage. An 11 a.m. funeral service will follow, at Prairie Edge, the congregation he and Joyce joined in 1962, and have since nurtured through their prayers, fellowship, philanthropy and hard work. Friends and family who cannot attend the Jan. 3 services are invited to view a live stream of the events linked here. Donations in Mr. Vandermay's memory can be made to the Prairie Edge Church and/or Kalamazoo Christian Schools. Bill Vandermay was born in Grand Rapids on Jan. 16, 1938, to William Vandermay and Ann (Yonker) Vandermay. The second of three children, he graduated from Kalamazoo Christian High School in 1955. He briefly attended Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, before joining his father in founding Vandermay Construction Co., a mason-contracting firm that still operates from its Vine Street offices in Kalamazoo. Bill possessed a keen and curious mind generally, but especially for business and finance. The Vandermay Construction signature can be found today on commercial and institutional structures across Southwest Michigan - at the Pfizer complex, on the campus of Western Michigan University, at Central High School on Drake Road, the Library in Kalamazoo, the Southland and Maple Hill malls, and the historic courthouse in Constantine, among hundreds of others. The firm handled plenty of smaller projects, as well, including construction of Nagle's Top Dog & Malt Shoppe on Burdick Street, where for decades Bill and his construction contemporaries met every workday at 10 a.m. to network, gossip and sip coffee. Bill combined this professional acuity with a down-to-earth, outgoing personality that served him as well in the Kalamazoo Christian community (where he was a longtime school committee member), as it did with the International Union of Bricklayers & Allied Craftworkers, where he was a lifetime member. In the spring of 1958, Bill met Joyce Peterman at Schwartz's, the iconic Westnedge drive-in located where Meijer's sits today He was driving a red convertible Oldsmobile that Joyce remembers being "not new but shiny and good looking." Sorta like Bill. They were married just more than a year later, on Aug. 28, 1959, in Portage Reform Church. Her sister Bertha Peterman Bos was the maid of honor. Bill's lifelong friend Ron Koning stood up as best man. The new couple drove east in that Oldsmobile to honeymoon on Cape Cod, along the Massachusetts coast. Three children blessed the young couple in quick succession: Randy William Vandermay arrived in 1960, Sharon Lyn Vandermay in 1963, and Brian Frank Vandermay in 1967. The construction company thrived and Bill built for his family a handsome brick home on the northwestern shore of West Lake. A year later, in 1970, Joyce was diagnosed with cancer of the terminal ileum and liver. The ensuing nine years brought a wrenching sequence of hospital stays, surgeries and chemotherapy, but she beat it - a fact that only strengthened Bill's faith. As the children grew up, Bill and Joyce traveled more frequently and further afield - to Hawaii, Florida and eventually Europe. In the early 1990s, the snowbirds made a beloved second home in Hollywood Beach, Florida. With each of their kids married off, winters brought a parade of grandchildren to the beachfront Mariposa. When Bill retired, in 2000, he turned Vandermay Construction over to his sons. This freed up even more time for grandchildren, for University of Michigan football, for fishing and boating. And bocce. He picked up the game down in Florida, fell in love with it, then built his own court overlooking Barberry Channel. He hosted a regular Monday night game there all summer long, without fail, through 2020. Bill was preceded in death by his eldest son, Randy, who passed away in May 2021. He is survived by his wife, Joyce; a sister, Anne Vandermay Bancroft and her husband Chauncey Bancroft of Ellsworth, Maine; a brother, Jack Vandermay of Portage; daughter Sharon Vandermay and her husband Hal Phillips of Auburn, Maine; son Brian and wife Tracy Vandermay of Portage; six grandchildren and dozens of cousins, nieces and nephews. To view Bill's personalized webpage please visit https://www.langelands.com