Anselm W. "Andy" Simonis, 91, Vesper, a Rosholt native and father of a Stevens Point man, died Tuesday, April 29, 2008, at Riverview Hospital in Wisconsin Rapids.
Funeral services will be held at 11:30 a.m. Saturday at St. James Catholic Church in Vesper, with the Revs. Jude Ndugbu and Chester Osowski officiating. Burial will be at a later date in St. James Catholic Cemetery in Vesper. Military rites will be provided by American Legion Post 9.
Visitation will be at Taylor, Vollert and Jennings Funeral Home in Wisconsin Rapids from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday and at the church from 10:30 a.m. Saturday until the services.
A memorial in lieu of flowers is being established in his memory by the family.
Mr. Simonis was born Feb. 27, 1917, in Rosholt, a son of the late Nicholas and Magdalena (Dehlinger) Simonis. He graduated from Rosholt High School in 1935.
He went to work for the Rosholt Post Office, and in 1937 he moved to Milwaukee and managed two stores for Goodrich Tire and Rubber Co., and then went to work for Jaeger Baking Co. building new bread routes.
In April 1941, he joined the U.S. Army. He volunteered for the Army Combat Engineers and became a corporal. He served with the 522nd Combat Engineers near Moneymore, Ireland, where the Army Engineers built a base, and then in North Africa and Italy. His duties included building and blowing up bridges, disarming land mines and at one point, he served as the driver for the adjunct to Gen. Eisenhower. He was honorably discharged in 1945.
He was married to Agnes Olds on Dec. 24, 1941, at St. Francis Cathedral in Alexandria, La., while stationed at Camp Livingston, La. She died in 1955.
He was married to Erna Stake Hoekstra on Jan. 10, 1959, at the Little Brown Church in the Vale in Nashua, Iowa. She died Nov. 17, 2004.
He returned to Milwaukee in 1945 and then moved to Vesper, where he purchased the Olds Locker Plant business from his father-in-law, George Olds. He built this business into Andy's Supermarket, from which he retired in the 1990s.
He was a member of St. James Catholic Church in Vesper, the Wisconsin Rapids Rotary Club, the Vesper Volunteer Fire Department, the Arpin American Legion and a charter member of the Vesper Lions Club. When his sons were young, he coached the Vesper 4-H softball team. He often worked in the kitchen in the church basement or the Legion Hall kitchen and served food at the stand at the Vesper Lions Softball Field.
Survivors include three sons, George (Toni), Silver Spring, Md., Norbert (Ginger), Oconomowoc, and David (Debbie), Stevens Point; one daughter, Mary (Conrad) Accola, Vesper; 12 grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren.
He was also preceded in death by one stepson, Roger Hoekstra; three sisters; and three brothers.