Frank Keyser

Beloved husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, brother, and uncle

Frank was born to Radena and Frank Keyser Senior on Dec 29, 1926 in Le Roy, Michigan.

He fondly remembered his childhood, which he spent living in a dirt-floor log cabin with his sisters, mother, and eight capricious uncles, from whom he inherited a great love of mischief and merriment, making music (as long as it was “tuney”), and taking a tipple now and again.

He attended the one-room Shingletown School until his teenage years, when he moved to Kalamazoo and briefly attended Kalamazoo Central High School.

At age 17, he joined the navy to avoid being drafted into the army, in his own words: “…because if I was going to die in the War, at least I wanted to have three squares a day and a bed to sleep in until it happened.”

He served valiantly on the aircraft carrier the USS Wasp, which he frequently reminded us “unofficially” shot down the last Kamikaze of the war.  Navy life agreed with him, he claimed, except on fish-for-dinner Fridays, when “the whole ship smelled like cat food.”

After the war, his little sister Leah introduced him to the fetching Ann Ross. According to family legend, his interest in Miss Ross was piqued when his sister related the following incident: During a particularly virulent flu outbreak, Ann and Leah’s high school Principal assembled the students to explain the unusually high rate of absenteeism. He blamed it, quite simply, on “a bug that was going around.” At which point Ann raised her hand and informed him: “Yes, Mr. Principal, today at lunch, I had a bug in my ice cream!” Frank’s response to this story was: “Wow! I’ve got to meet that girl!”

Leah obliged that very weekend. And as Frank (with a girl beside him in the front seat) chauffeured Leah and Ann home from the roller skating rink, the two girls sat in the back and happily made fun of his date the entire way.

Six months later, on June 11^th, 1948, college-bound Ann, the Valedictorian, eloped with her “Peachy-Bubby” to Angola Indiana, the closest state in which an 18-year-old could marry without parental consent. The couple managed to keep the marriage a secret until autumn, when a love-struck Ann was finally forced to inform her mother that she had decided not to continue her studies after all.

The Newlyweds moved to Vicksburg (to a neighborhood lovingly nicknamed “Dogpatch,” which was already populated by more than 20 other relatives). In all, they spent the first 42 years of their marriage in Vicksburg and Portage.

During these years, Ann and Frank had six (yes, six!) children, all of whom will remember him as, among other things: a master Easter-basket hider, a harmonica-and guitar playing balladeer, and an unparalleled chef of animal-shaped pancakes.

He will also be remembered for teaching his children an undying love of homegrown tomatoes, sweet corn, and fresh lettuce sprinkled with vinegar and sugar; and above all, a true reverence for potatoes, to which he attributed his survival as a child and which he continued to eat at every single meal (breakfast included) for the rest of his life.

Throughout his life, Frank worked unflaggingly to support his burgeoning family, first as co-owner of a junkyard with Robert Barry (in 1952-55), in maintenance at Eckrich, in production at Eaton Corporation, where he served as Union Steward, and finally as a Millwright at Allied Paper, from which he retired in 1991.

After retirement, Frank and Ann moved to Casco Township, to a 100-year-old house on 20 acres of land set on a dirt road. There he indulged his deep and abiding love of nature—the bugs, the beetles, the spiders, the birds, the bats, the mice, the flowers, the trees, the sun, the wind, the rain, the snow, the muck, the mud and the dirt—to Frank all were equally wondrous and all were his friends.

With his children grown and gone, over the years he adopted no fewer than ten (very lucky and very pampered) stray cats and dogs.

He will be sorely missed by his loving wife, Ann; his children, Gail, Karen, Beth, Colleen, David and Kayla; sons-in-law, Mark, Harry, and Bryn; grandchildren, Mike, Dan, John, Maitland, Andy, Lori, Kate, Annie, Jake, Haydn and Vivienne; great grand-children, Tyler, Jack, Audrey, Bryce, and Ellie; sister Leah; brother-in-law Bob; nieces and nephews, Lindy, Dan, Max and Marilyn; and of course, by Girl-Dog and Grey Kitty.

Visitation for Frank will be held from 5:00-7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, May 20^th, at the Filbrandt Family Funeral Home, 1076 South Bailey Ave., South Haven, MI 49090. Funeral services will follow at 7:00 p.m. at the funeral home.

The burial processional will leave Filbrandt at 11:30 am on Thursday, May 21^st, for a 1:00 p.m. burial at Fort Custer National Cemetery, 15501 Dickman Road, Augusta, MI 49012.