Andrew 'Andy Sr' Boersma

91 year old, Andrew Boersma, passed away November 19, 2022.

Andy was born on July 14, 1931, to Raymond and Maggie (Hamstra) Boersma in DeMotte, Indiana. Andy attended high school at Fair Oaks. He married the love of his life: Ruth E. Williams on July 6, 1951. They celebrated 69 years of marriage before Ruth’s death in October of 2020. Andy worked delivering eggs to Chicago and Gary, routes for many years while raising hogs, cattle, chickens, and grain on the farm. He retired from all of that, and moved to Wheatfield, and supposedly retired. He then went to work as a painter for Hamstra Builders for several years. He loved sitting on the front porch watching everyone drive by. He enjoyed caring for his yard, moss roses, marigolds, and other flowers. He loved playing Mexican Train, and going “Full Throttle” on the golf cart when taking the great-grandchildren for a ride.

Andy is survived by his family: children: Shirley (Harry ‘Butch’) Marshall, Andrew R. (Diana) Boersma, 3 grandchildren: Heather Marshall (R.J. Howard), Nicholas (Amanda) Boersma, Keith (Katie) Marshall, and 3 great-grandchildren: Dylan & Emmie Marshall, Maggie Lu Howard, and several nieces and nephews.

Andy was preceded in death by his parents, wife: Ruth, daughter: Connie Jean Boersma, siblings: Rose Kamminga, Bill Boersma, Ann King, Hilda Curry-Gilbert.

Friends are invited to visit with the family from 2:00 until 7:00 p.m. on Friday, November 25, 2022 at the Boersma Funeral Home, 90 E. Grove St., Wheatfield, In 46392.

Graveside services for Andy will take place at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 26, 2022, with Pastor Dave Patterson officiating.

In lieu of flowers memorials may be made to: the Kniman Methodist Church – Share the Warmth (Hang a Coat on the fence) or the Sorrowful Mother Catholic Church Food Pantry.

So, God Made a FARMER…

And on the 8^th day. God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker.” So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at the meeting of the school board.” So, God made a farmer.

“I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait for lunch until his wife’s done feeding, visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon - - and mean it.” So God made a farmer.

God said, ‘I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt, and watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, ‘Maybe next year.’ I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain’n from ‘tractor back,’ put in another seventy-two hours.” So, God made a farmer.

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor’s place. So, God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to teen lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark. It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, week, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week’s work with a five-mile drive to church.

“Somebody who’d bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life ’doing what dad does.’ “So, God made a farmer.

An old family friend ~ Paul Harvey~