A.F. "TYS" TYSSELING

A.F. "TYS" TYSSELING

Pella

Anthony Francis Tysseling was born in Pella, IA, on June 2, 1908. His father was Gerrit Teunis Tysseling who operated the flour and feed mill in South Pella until it burned down in 1900 at which time he built his family home on the same foundation. The rest of Gerrit's working life was spent at the Blommers Flour Mill in West Pella. His mother was Nellie Breen, who gave birth to three children, all of them after she was forty-one years old. His older sister, Anna Wilhelmena, taught music in the Pella Schools until she died in 1975. His younger brother, Richard Albertus (Babe), distinguished himself as an athlete and coached at Central College, served as athletic director, and later as director of admissions. He died in 1997.

Anthony was attracted to Florence Gertrude Boot when they were both in junior high school and in 1930, on a hot August afternoon, they married in the front yard of her family home on East Liberty Street. They were married for 71 years until she died in 2001. She was employed at what was then called the Rolscreen Company from its very early days, and served as Peter H. Kuyper's private secretary until 1940.

After attending Central College, Anthony went into the retail shoe business, buying the Two Vans Shoe Store on the south side of Franklin Street and later opening Tysseling's Shoe Store on Main Street just north of the Marion County Bank. He spent thirty-eight years in the shoe business, the last several years in the T & D Department Store. After he sold the business he worked for the State of Iowa as a food inspector.

An athlete and a sports fan, "Tys", as he was called by his friends, was a founding member of the Pella Golf and Country Club. He played golf until he was 97 years old. Competitive and determined, he was the club champion more than once and he also scored a hole in one. He played tennis in college, winning a state championship. Always an avid supporter of anything that had to do with Central College, he was especially fond of athletics. In later years, when he went to football games, women's softball and men's baseball games, and could no longer walk comfortably, he'd park his car where he could watch the games as he listened on the car radio. He was honored by Central College as an outstanding alumni in 2007. He also followed both Pella High School and Pella Christian High School sports and was a long-suffering Chicago Cubs fan.

Through the years, he was a faithful member of the Second Reformed Church and Rotary, where he was a Paul Harris Fellow. He and Florence were active participants in several bridge and dinner clubs and they danced in costume and wooden shoes with the Dutch Dancers during Tulip Time. He was a regular attendee of the 8:00 Coffee Group at In't Veld's, several members of which became surrogate family for him as his health deteriorated during his later years.

He is survived by his daughter, Linda Ann, and her husband, Raymond White; his son, Anthony Richard, and his wife, Lois; and six grandchildren, Martin van Doorninck, Alison van Doorninck Sax, John van Doorninck, Leslie Tysseling (Prewitt), Kelly Tysseling, and Amy Tysseling DeAndre. There are six great-grandchildren, Anna and William Prewitt, Mason, Parker, and Ellie Jo DeAndre, and Holly van Doorninck.

Funeral services will be Tuesday, June 2, 2009, at 10:30 a.m., at the Second Reformed Church in Pella, IA.

Online condolences may be made at www.vandykduven.com