Whiteford Township deputy clerk was an avid dancer

4/27/2010

WHITEFORD LAKE, Mich. - Cleo E. Bunge, 83, who was deputy clerk of Whiteford Township for 20 years and in her free time was an avid square dancer, died of Alzheimer's disease Saturday at Windhaven Eldercare, where she had lived for two years.

Mrs. Bunge was deputy clerk for her husband, LeRoy, who was the township clerk during that time.

The Bunges met at a square dance at Hickory Lake, north of Temperance, and married about eight months later, on Aug. 14, 1948. She was working at Gerity Manufacturing in Adrian, Mr. Bunge said.

Mrs. Bunge and some neighbors founded a small community newspaper that focused on the local school district and the need for Whiteford Township to have its own high school. Until the early 1950s, high school students attended class at Blissfield, Sylvania, Lambertville, or Whitmer High School in Toledo, he said.

"We had no high school at the time, but we did have several grade schools," Mr. Bunge recalled.

She was active as a reading mentor at Whiteford Elementary, and she was on the medical board of the Family Medical Center in Temperance.

She is survived by her husband, LeRoy; sons, LeRoy, Jr., Daniel, Jerome, and Jeffery; daughters, Cheryl Lavimodiere, Mary Kay Bunge, and Beth Pauli; brother, Elroy Crum; sister, Grace Bluhm; 18 grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.

Visitation will be after 3 p.m. today at the Reeb Funeral Home, Sylvania, where services will be at 11 a.m. tomorrow.