Alyce Florine Banker Heyboer

LAKE ODESSA — Alyce Banker Heyboer, who touched hundreds of lives as a schoolteacher in Western Michigan, died July 21, 2021 at Green Acres Lowell. She was 94 and had been in declining health since late last year.

Although she lived for some 60 years on a farm outside Lake Odessa, Mrs. Heyboer was adventurous by nature, always curious and engaged in the larger world. She kept up with the news, had a diverse array of friends, and considered an airplane flight less than successful if it hadn't involved at least one interesting conversation with a stranger.

Her background was unusual. She was born on Nov. 24, 1926, to Wesleyan Methodist missionaries near Bombay, India. Her parents were the Revs. Floyd and Hazel Rodgers Banker (who had roots in Lake Odessa). Educated 1,700 miles away from her parents at Woodstock School in the Himalayas, young Alyce had to learn early about what we now call “coping skills” and “people skills.” She was an active girl who loved field hockey and socializing, but also embraced the serious role of support and sacrifice that is part of being a missionary kid.

She told vivid stories about her early experiences. She ate curry and chapatis, could don a sari expertly and tried to balance water jugs on her head as the Indian girls did. As the family traveled to and from furloughs home, they visited fascinating places like Kashmir and Pompeii. She traveled on her own across the Pacific on a troop ship during World War II when she headed to the U.S. for college. Decades later, she would still amuse herself in Indian restaurants by trotting out a bit of Gujarati dialect to request a serving of tea.

Mrs. Heyboer graduated from Houghton College in upstate New York in 1945 and later earned her master's at Michigan State University. While working at her first teaching job in Martin, Mich., and boarding with family friends in Grand Rapids, she met Alvin Heyboer, from the Kellogsville area. Her first date with the lanky Dutchman was to a local hockey game; they also went to wrestling matches, the roller derby and big band concerts such as Guy Lombardo. They were married in 1951 and lived in Grandville while he worked as a cement finisher and dreamed of having his own farm. Several years later they moved to the farm, close to the Lake Odessa exit off I-96. She joked that she resumed her teaching career, after having three children, to support his hobby – “hobby” being a tongue-in-cheek term for the often grueling challenges of farming.

Mrs. Heyboer was a first-grade teacher in the Lakewood school system for 32 years, teaching in Woodland, Sunfield and then Lake Odessa. She was a hard-working, extraordinary teacher. For example, she studied kids' kindergarten photos so she could greet them by name on their scary first day of first grade. She created traditions that fostered one-on-one relationships, such as taking kids to the Dairy Queen on their birthdays or inviting each one to have supper with her family during the school year. She was passionate about helping children become good readers, believing this would not only facilitate all the learning that was to come, but enrich them personally. For many years, she also helped to nurture their spiritual lives through her involvement with Child Evangelism Fellowship.

With her wide range of cultural interests – especially music – Mrs. Heyboer created a rich learning environment for her own children, as well. The family invested in a set of World Book encyclopedias and subscribed to newspapers and magazines. Concerts, plays, church activities, museums and piano lessons were part of their lives, as well as following sports, especially the Detroit Tigers. In the summertime, she plunged into all the tasks expected of a farm wife, such as freezing and canning fruits and vegetables. The cool, cobwebby basement of the old farmhouse included a storage room stocked with her wonderful homemade applesauce, tomato juice and corn relish, and gleaming jars of canned peaches, cherries, plums and pears.

Mrs. Heyboer was active in church-related activities all her life, finding ways to serve even as she faced the hardships of age and illness. For example, as a member of South Boston Bible Church, she was in charge of noticing who'd been away on Sunday morning and sending them a church bulletin with a note telling them they'd been missed. Once a month, she was part of a small ministry group that went to a local nursing home to administer communion to residents; she loved playing the piano for them. She also enjoyed playing in the church strings group, having taken up the ukulele in her early 90s.

An avid reader, Mrs. Heyboer was well-known by the Lake Odessa library staff and usually belonged to at least one book discussion group. She retained a lifelong interest in politics at all levels and news of the nation and world. In 2000, she met George W. Bush as he campaigned in Ionia and told him she was praying for him. She remembered that he thanked her warmly. For years she tried to make it to at least one Tigers game every season. The last few years, she settled for watching virtually every game on TV.

In retirement, Mrs. Heyboer enjoyed traveling to visit her daughter and grandchildren in the South, and also indulged her love of adventure with trips back to India and to Israel, Egypt and China, among other places. She and her husband, Al, took trips to see Mount Rushmore and down the Mississippi River. Retired from farming, he died of cancer in 1994.

In and around Lake-O, Mrs. Heyboer sometimes ran into her former pupils. It was gratifying to hear that her old students and their parents still remembered her fondly. She was the heart of her family, an example of empathy and perseverance. Long after most people started offering, at most, brief greetings on Facebook for special occasions, she was still helping to keep the greeting card industry afloat by keeping in touch with friends far and wide. In recent years, she was especially intent on sending books to her little great-grandson in South Carolina, whom she never was able to meet in person. It's sad that he'll never be able to sit on her lap as she reads a story, or benefit from her example of maintaining faith through life's pain and disappointments.

Mrs. Heyboer is survived by a daughter, Linda H. Lamb of Columbia, S.C.; two sons, Joe and Mark Heyboer, both of Lake Odessa; two grandsons, Casey Lamb (Wendy) of Greenville, S.C., and Brady Lamb of Columbia, S.C.; a great-grandson, Logan Lamb of Greenville, S.C.; a sister and brother-in-law, Helen and Ivan Syswerda of Fremont, Mich.; several nieces and nephews and a circle of dear friends.

Memorials may be made to the Lake Odessa Public Library.