Willie Southard

Willie Sue (Rochelle) Southard, age 83, of Grand Rapids, was called Home and went to be with our Lord peacefully on Monday, January 23, 2017, from Spectrum Health-Butterworth Hospital, Grand Rapids. The daughter of Leonard Leslie & Willie (Banks) Rochelle, she was born on December 17, 1933 in Obion County, Tennessee. In the early-1950's she met the love of her life, Willis Gene Southard, on Blueberry Hill. They married in 1953 and raised two children. Willie Sue's family is wide spread throughout the United States and she loved sharing the stories of all of them with us. To know her was to love her. Everyone who crossed her path, was a friend. She touched so many lives, and will be greatly missed and loved. She absolutely loved the color green, and requested it for everything. She loved new life and marked her milestones with each one. She said that her greatest accomplishment, was seeing her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren come into this world, and was blessed and lucky, as she called it, to be around to see it, and to know that it all started with her. Surviving are two children, Gary Wayne Southard and Cheryl Ann Southard; two grandchildren, Monica Lynn Vogelar and Jacob Kyle Southard; and two great grandchildren, Jaiden Joseph Vogelar and Tyler Jameson Warren (whom she absolutely adored). Relatives and friends will celebrate Willie's life on with visitation from 12-1 p.m. on Friday at Michigan Cremation & Funeral Care, 3627 Linden Avenue S.E. at 36th Street (one block west of Eastern Avenue), Grand Rapids, where memorial services will be held at 1:00 p.m. on Friday. To order memorial trees or send flowers to the family in memory of Willie Southard, please visit our flower store.