Marie Veliquette

MARIE ELLEN VELIQUETTE 1924-2014

Marie Ellen Veliquette passed peacefully at Munson Hospice House, May 29, 2014. She was born July 8, 1924, in Milton Township, Antrim Country, the third of six children, to Leo Alfred Bussa and Mae Ella Gross. She and her siblings were raised by their widowed mother during the Great Depression on a farm along the west side of Torch Lake. Marie attended the one-room Roberts School on Easley Road in Milton Township and when it closed in 1937, she was its last eighth grade graduate. She graduated from Elk Rapids High School in 1941. November 26 that year, eleven days before Pearl Harbor, she married her country school sweetheart from Mud Lake, Beverly Cecil Veliquette.

After husband "Bev" returned from the South Pacific as a US Navy Seabee veteran in 1945, he and Marie were breifly proprietors and operators of a small sawmill on Quarterline Road north of Kewadin. Two years later, the mill burned without insurance. Beverly and Marie raised from the ashes of the mill one of Antrim County's largest families and developed BeMarKe Farms, one of Antrim County's premier dairies, forerunner of Mill Ke Way Dairy, Cherry Ke, Inc., and other local farms and agricultural businesses.

While being farmers and parents, Marie and Bev were both 4-H Club leaders for over thirty years, teaching proteges diverse vocational and home making skills, which among others were dairy cattle husbandry and showmanship, woodworking, sewing, knitting, and cake decorating Marie was the farm bookkeeper and the registrant for the farm's purebred Holstein cattle. She loved the calves and for some of them, when the dairy was liquidated, she knew as many as twelve generations of their female genealogy.

Marie was a life-time member of Sacred Heart Church in Elk Rapids and served for many years in the Altar Society and Women of the Heart. She and Beverly were Farm Bureau members and avid travelers to square dance festivals and annual reunions of the US Navy's 60th Construction Battalion, which Marie hosted in Traverse City in 2009, its 61st and final year. In recent years, she became a handicrafter, appearing regularly at shows with her popular homemade jams, jellies, pickles, wooden toys, and other innovative crafts.

Marie Veliquette is survived by s. Norman Roger, s. Gene Alan (Linda), s. Dean Roy (Sharon), d. Shirley Mae Cisneros, d Trudy Lucia (Mike) Cullimore, s. Jan Rodney (Linda Rose), d. Neva Ann Veliquette, s. James Nelson (Christy), d. Colleen Marie Fryer, s. Jonathan Tad, d. Toni Anita Morrison (Duncan); thirty-four grandchildren; fifty-one great-grandchildren; and four great-great-grandchildren. Immediate family preceding her in death were her husband in 1988; her parents; her brothers Edmund Wilbur, Leo Junior, Lloyd George, and Elton Joseph; sister Evelyn Mary (Neil Way); son Rodney Lee; and daughter-in-law Marjory McPherson (Norman) Veliquette.

Visitation will be Monday June 2, 2014 from 2:00 to 4:00 pm in the Social Hall at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church 143 Charles St., Elk Rapids. Evening Visitation will begin at 5:00 in the Church, Vigil for the Deceased will begin at 7:00 pm.

Mass from the Order of Christian Funerals will be celebrated at 10:00 am on Tuesday, June 3, 2014 followed by interment at Sacred Heart Cemetery in Kewadin, with Rev. Robert J. Zuchowski presiding and Rev. Msgr. Edwin Thome, concelebrating.

A funeral lunch for family and friends will follow at Sacred Heart Social Hall. Memorial donations can be directed to the Sacred Heart Memorial Fund. Arrangements have been handled by the Central Lake Chapel of Mortensen Funeral Homes. Please sign her online guestbook www.mortensenfuneralhomes.com.