Carol Willmes

Carol Lois (Lauffer) Willmes, age 83, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, passed away peacefully on January 12, 2022 in Arlington, Virginia. Carol was born in Portage, Pennsylvania on September 2, 1938 to Rachel Elizabeth (Bumford), known as Betty, and Ronald Earl Lauffer. She spent her childhood in small towns in western Pennsylvania until she moved with her family to Arlington, Virginia. She attended Radford College and majored in English, math, and biology. While at Radford, Carol made lifelong friends with whom she continued to have adventures into her eighties. After college she moved to Detroit, Michigan to work as a microbiologist making polio vaccines. In Detroit, she met and married Fran Willmes, who was from Michigan’s upper peninsula and a veteran of the Korean War. They settled in Grand Rapids, Michigan with their three children. Carol loved Grand Rapids and made her home there for the next fifty years.

Carol was smart, funny, loyal, creative, and sociable. She enjoyed playing card games, sewing quilts and needlework, and creating stained glass windows. Her family have many stories about their times with her at the cottage on Silver Lake, an epic trip to Alaska, a tornado that took the roof off their house, visiting Fran’s parents in the Upper Peninsula, and yearly ski trips to Utah.

She shopped frequently at thrift stores, looking for treasures. Her passion was buying jewelry, though the jewelry wasn’t for her. She and her friends from Eastminster Presbyterian Church put on an annual jewelry sale and raised thousands of dollars to combat childhood hunger. She was very proud of being able to help so many through the jewelry sales.

Five things she taught us: Be honest. Read. Be flexible. Be supportive. Keep your sense of humor. But her favorite saying was “I’m not worried about it.” After her husband died of cancer, she wrote, “I had learned many things throughout this ordeal. But, most importantly, I had learned not to let the little things bother me. I try to appreciate life each day, to pay attention to the beauty around us with every new season, and to not be in such a hurry to get things done. Waiting for a light to change, a traffic jam to clear up, a plane to take off -- I take it all in stride.”

Carol was preceded in death by her husband, Francis Edwin Willmes, and her brother, Robert (Catherine Brishcar). She is survived by her daughter, Karen Willmes (David West); two sons, Gary (Jan Agricola) and David (Sapna Batish); three grandchildren, Megan, Katelyn, and Matthew; three sisters, Ruth Birch (Walter, deceased), Nancy Anstice (Howard), and Sandra Lauffer (Thomas Robertson); and many nieces, nephews, and cousins.

A memorial service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on May 7 at Eastminster Presbyterian Church in Grand Rapids, MI. The family will greet friends at 10:00 a.m. Carol will be interred with her husband at Arlington National Cemetery at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Kids’ Food Basket in Grand Rapids or to a charity of your choice.