Michael Duffy (2019)

BONNER, DAVIS, DUFFY, ORR, SKIPPER

Posted By: Kent Transier
Date: 7/12/2024 at 07:12:46

Des Moines Register
Des Moines, Iowa
July 2019

February 2, 1939 - July 2, 2019

Des Moines - Michael, "Mike", Duffy lived a full, happy life that ended before his family was quite ready. Mike was a man who had many interests but his real passion was reserved for his wife of 58 years, Chick, and their four daughters.

Mike was blessed to have met Chick in 1957, their senior year of high school. He was a Dowling man and she was a Roosevelt girl, but they managed to overcome that challenge and married in 1961. Mike was one of four brothers and went on to have four daughters. He always said he thought girls were easier even though he suffered through the teenage years for almost a decade, which surely has bought him his ticket to heaven! Mike kept calm even in the most trying circumstances as he was a strong, quiet man with a very kind, loving heart. He was always unselfish in putting everyone in the family's needs before his own, but he wasn't at all "soft" in a permissive way. Mike made sure his daughters were as prepared for life as was humanly possible.

He was a natural mathematician which led him from the campus of Iowa State to a career in construction engineering in Des Moines, Minneapolis, MN and Huntsville, AL. And though he and his girls moved away from Iowa for more than 25 years, he remained an avid Cyclone fan of the first degree! No matter where his travels took him, he and Chick were involved in the Catholic Church and in Marriage Encounter.

Mike was always one to try something new. He taught himself to sew because the girls were taking sewing lessons, couldn't sew at home, and he wanted to help. Mike got so good, he made his girls' dance formals and one of their wedding dresses. He embraced baking bread, making his own pasta, and even went through a phase of grinding grains and slicing his own meat at home. Needless to say, each endeavor also required the gadgets associated with it. (The grain grinding phase only lasted as long as it took for 50 pound bags of wheat, corn, and barley to go bad and be ravaged by mice!)

Mike was a true Irishman. Each year on St. Patrick's Day he would tell us his leprechaun, Gregor, had visited and the only reason we hadn't seen him was because we were not 100% Irish like him. He celebrated his heritage always, and painstakingly sought out relatives back in the "homeland" where he established meaningful relationships and friendships with his cousins on many trips over the last few years. One of the highlights of his life was the six months he and Chick spent living in Ireland. And, he was thrilled to have finally received his Irish citizenship in 2018.

Mike is survived by his wife Linda "Chick", daughters Kelly Bonner, Laura Davis-Duffy and her wife Keri, Erin Duffy, Bridget Orr, and daughter # 5 Suzanne Skipper. He also leaves 10 grandchildren; Robert, Quinn and Mackenzie Bonner, Shaia Davis-Duffy, Reese, Bette and Jack DeAngelis-Duffy, and Lilly, Audrey and Riley Orr. He will be deeply missed and lovingly remembered.

A funeral service will be held Friday July 5, 2019 at 11:00 AM at Iles-Dunn's Funeral Home at 2121 Grand Ave. There will be a reception following the service in the Atrium. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Iowa Chapter of the American Heart Association.

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