Thelma Westfall Theodore

THEODORE, Thelma Westfall
Age 100, of Portage A resident of Portage since 1957, in recent years she lived happily 8 years at Crossroads Village apartments and the last 6 years at Fountain View Home. She died on Friday, June 29, 2012. She was the daughter of Elmer and May Williams Westfall, born August 17, 1911 in Southwestern Cass County, Michigan. She had two brothers and two sisters, all much older than she was, who have preceded her in death. She was a graduate of Edwardsburg High School in 1929 and the Business Department of Western Michigan Teachers College in Kalamazoo in 1933. She enjoyed playing baseball and basketball in high school and intramural basketball at Western. She has said, "they were then friendly sports". She was a business teacher in Michigan High Schools for 25 years and 2 years in Parsons Business College. Her first 4 years were in East Jordan, way up north. Then she started typing and shorthand classes in Portage H.S. when it was a teachers training school for Western, with all grades in one building, and was known as "Portage Agricultural School". She later taught 4 happy years in Otsego. She ended her teaching in 1975 at Athens and her son, Dean, going with her the last half of that time to teach Social Studies there. She met Howard Theodore, who had come from Marquette, MI with his family when she was at Western in Kalamazoo. They were married on August 17, 1935. They lived in Kalamazoo's Oakwood 14 years and were members of the Oakwood Methodist Church. She loved the little church that was built then and is now abandoned. They became permanent residents of Portage in 1957. He was an Army veteran in the war in Europe. He became a foreman of the pressroom of the Kalamazoo Gazette and worked there 40 years. He died November 30, 1983. She has two sons, Dale Jenny Theodore and three of her grandchildren with families, including 6 great-grandchildren, who all live in the Holland-Zeeland area of Michigan. Dean Michelle Theodore, who now live in her Portage home and have three of her grandchildren, 2 step-grandchildren and 5 great grandchildren in the Kalamazoo-Portage area. Only one surviving relative in her generation is a very loyal sister-in-law, Nadine Theodore in Kalamazoo Township. There will be a visitation on Tuesday from 1:30 -2:30 PM in the Langeland Family Funeral Homes, Portage Chapel, 411 E. Centre Ave, with a committal service at 3:00 PM in the Chapel of Mt. Ever-Rest Cemetery, South, conducted by Revs. Tim and Marla Rotman from Grand Rapids.