Lillian (Haan) Spyke
I am saddened to receive the phone call telling me of the recent passing of Tom. I first met Tom when we were barely in our teens. He was attending Muskegon Heights High School and I was at Mona Shores. Shortly afterwards, his parents moved near my family in Roosevelt Park and he began attending Mona Shores. Through those years I have special memories of Tom spending a great deal of time at our house, loving baseball, playing hockey for the Shores team (against my husband who played hockey at the time for Muskegon High School Big Reds), Lake Dances, rock and roll, plenty of Dairy Castle hamburgers, pizza, movies and drive-in theaters. I remember riding almost daily to Lake Michigan, in his dad's convertible and later his convertible. He found a portion of the beach that he began calling "Root Beer Beach," because of the smell of root beer all around. As with many friendships in the 60's, Tom joined the Marines, I went off to college, and contact was lost. However, in more recent years Tom came to visit my mother still living in Roosevelt Park. For a number of years, he sent very generous and thoughtful gifts to her before her passing in 2009, always referring to her as "Momma Haan." One gift was a homemade wooden plaque he had made for her that brought back memories of her job as a bus driver for Mona Shores. It hung on her kitchen wall until her death and the house was sold. Please know that the entire family is being thought of with fond memories. May each of you find peace and comfort through our many prayers.