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Obituary for William "Bill" Haffermann Jr.

William "Bill"  Haffermann Jr.
HAFFERMANN Jr., William F. (Bill)

87, died March 27, 2017.

He was born January 2, 1930, in Fifield, Wisconsin, to Bill and Anna (Persteiner) Haffermann. During his life, he was an ice hockey player, a math tutor, a model train builder, a railroad telegraph agent for the Soo Line, a chemist, a ham radio operator, a plant manager, a faithful cardiac rehab athlete (for 19 years up until a week before he died) and a loving husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather. Besides his family, he loved reading (history, poetry, and the novels of Frederic Prokosch) and music (from Riders in the Sky to Horowitz to Hamilton) and was an inquisitive lifelong learner. He could send Morse Code and learned to speak German, Russian, Hebrew and Chinese.

He was a proud graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh and attended graduate school at the University of Kansas. He moved his family to Louisville in 1961 to become a lab chemist and then plant manager at Inmont Corporation (later BASF) until he retired in 1992. He spent 56 happy years in Kentucky but still called Wisconsin home. He had many friends in his Highlands neighborhood and at the Baptist East Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehab Center including his faithful buddies of the valet service.

He was married to Mary Stilin Haffermann, his soulmate, for almost 60 years until her death in 2009. Besides his wife, he was preceded in death by his parents and his brothers Bob and Chuck Haffermann.

He is survived by three children – Susan Harmansky, Mary Margret Spann (Ray) and Robert Haffermann (Charlotte), his grandchildren Peter Harmansky (Shellaine), Meredith Zahirovic (Robert), Margret Spann, Patrick Evans and Jack Haffermann and his great-grandchildren McKenzie and Cooper Harmansky and Oliver Zahirovic.

His funeral will be held Saturday, April 1, at 11:00 AM at St. Raphael the Archangel Catholic Church, 2141 Lancashire Avenue in Louisville with a private burial at a later date. Visitation will be held at Highland Funeral Home, 3331 Taylorsville Road, on Friday, March 31, from 3:00PM to 7:00PM.

The family expresses its special thanks to Dr. Yi-Yi Tsai who took good care of him and Mom for many years, to the staff of Baptist Hospital East and the Nazareth Home who cared for him his last weeks, and to his very good friends at Baptist Rehab who always kept his spirits high.

Memorial donations for Dad can be sent to Presentation Academy, Summit Academy or Dare to Care.

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of William "Bill" Haffermann Jr., please visit our Heartfelt Sympathies Store.

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