William Eugene Boles

November 15, 1930 - March 28, 2021

Graveside services for William Eugene Boles will be held at 3:30 pm on Monday, April 12, 2021, with Rev. Clyde Grammon officiating at Alexandria Memorial Gardens Cemetery. Ennichement will follow under the direction of John Kramer & Son Funeral Home. William Eugene Boles; age 90, passed on to eternally join his beloved Mary Jane on March 28th, 2021. William (Bill) was born in Flint Michigan in 1930 and began his career as a foundry manager for the General Motors Buick plant as a graduate of General Motors Institute. He honorably served as a medical corpsman in the US Naval reserves (Korean Conflict era). Bill progressed as a manufacturing engineer and manager for companies that produced Tappan appliances, Lawn Boy mowers, and Johnson / Evinrude outboard motors. He finished his distinguished career as a contract engineer for the US Army working at the Rock Island Arsenal where one of his projects included facets related to the Apache helicopter. Bill was known as an astute / fair labor agreement negotiator and was respected by both the unions and management. Throughout his life, Bill enjoyed “tinkering”-first with cars and later with technology. In retirement, Bill built high-performance computers and became an active gamer. His innovative spirit lives on in his children and grandchildren. Bill was a member of the Flint Expatriates (http://www.flintexpats.com/), a group that seeks to preserve the honor of a once strong and proud manufacturing city. Bill conducted extensive genealogy research and discovered he had relatives that had fought for both the Union and Confederacy-two ancestors may have opposed each other as combatants with in the same battle. Bill’s first wife Betty Arlene Perry passed in 2006—she was his college sweetheart. Later in life, Bill rediscovered and married his high school sweetheart; Mary Jane Belfie (d. 2015). Bill relocated to the Alexandria, LA area (Woodworth) where he was embraced and supported by Joan McLure and her extended family as one of “their own.” Bill loved his children and is survived by his daughters Amanda and Susan, and also his son Kelly. The Mayo Clinic will be making a donation to Cardiac Research in honor of William Boles. To extend online notes of condolence to the Boles Family, please visit www.KramerFunerals.com.