William H. Grams

William H. Grams of Sun City West, AZ; Tuc­son, AZ; Chero­kee Vil­lage, AR, and for­merly of Hori­con and Mil­wau­kee, passed away Au­gust 24, 2023, at Brookhaven As­sisted Liv­ing Fa­cil­ity in Sur­prise, AZ.
He was born on No­vem­ber 11, 1940, in Hori­con, to Harry and Olive (Kiekhae­fer) Grams. He was bap­tized on De­cem­ber 8, 1940, at St. Stephen Lutheran Church in Hori­con. Spon­sors were Edwin Grams, George Nehring and Rose Haas(e). Bill was con­firmed in his Lutheran faith on April 11, 1954. He was a three-sport ath­lete in high school, play­ing foot­ball and bas­ket­ball and run­ning track.
Bill mar­ried his high school sweet­heart, Bev­er­ley Ann Tesch, of Hori­con and sub­se­quently moved to Mil­wau­kee to work at A.O. Smith, a man­u­fac­turer of au­to­mo­bile and truck frames.
Bill en­joyed play­ing sheepshead, camp­ing with his fam­ily, play­ing soft­ball and trav­el­ing to visit fam­ily.    He also worked as a ref­eree for high school foot­ball and bas­ket­ball games in his spare time.
He re­tired from A.O Smith, after work­ing there his whole adult life and moved to Chero­kee Vil­lage, AR, sev­eral years later. He and Bev split their re­tire­ment years, liv­ing be­tween Arkansas and Tuc­son, AZ. They en­joyed time with friends in both states, trav­el­ing, and host­ing fam­ily get-to­geth­ers. The pair shared a love of hik­ing trails in State Parks around the coun­try. Bill was a life­long church-goer and sup­porter of Wis­con­sin Synod Churches. His gen­eros­ity [in part] led to the build­ing of the new Early Child­hood cen­ter at Cross of Glory Lutheran School and Preschool in Peo­ria, AZ.
Sur­vivors in­clude sons, Michael L. Grams and wife, Sue Ann (nee Hess), of Big Bend and Tim­o­thy H. Grams and wife, Brenda K. (nee Schmidt), of Sun City West, AZ; sis­ter, Kay Schepp and hus­band, Jerry, of Hori­con; six grand­chil­dren and 11 great-grand­chil­dren; many cousins, nieces and nephews..
Bill was pre­ceded in death by his son, Neal An­thony, in Jan­u­ary of 1994; by a sis­ter, Yvonne Pieper, in 1996; and by his wife, Bev­er­ley in Jan­u­ary 2016.
A memo­r­ial ser­vice will be held on Sep­tem­ber 15, at Cross of Glory Lutheran Church in Peo­ria, AZ, at 5:30 p.m.
Memo­ri­als may be given to St. Stephen Lutheran Church in Hori­con; a State Park of your choice, or The Cross of Glory build­ing fund.