BRANDON — Willard “Butch” Dickerson Jr. died on July 20, 2024, at the age of 88, six years after the loss of his wife of 62 years, Clara May Dickerson. He will be remembered for his generosity, hospitality, love of his family, passion for fishing and ice cream and the Detroit Tigers and Boston Celtics, and especially for his deep Christian faith and character, and his long-term commitment to Christian ministry.

He was predeceased by two younger brothers, Walter and Larry, and one grandson Brad, and is survived by sisters Miriam and Susan as well as by four sons and a daughter: Willard “Jody” Dickerson III, Melvin “Ted” Dickerson, Anh Thu Nguyen Tran, Matthew Dickerson, and Thanh Dickerson, as well as their spouses, and by six granddaughters, six grandsons, eight great-grandsons, and his first great-granddaughter, born shortly before his passing.

Born on Nov. 9, 1935, Butch was second of five children, and the oldest son, of Willard W. “Spike” and Norma Dickerson. He grew up in rural central Michigan, where he enjoyed fishing with his father and brothers in the lakes of his home state as well as on annual wilderness fishing trips to rivers and lakes of Ontario. After graduating from high school, he studied industrial engineering at M.I.T. in Boston, where he came to Christian faith, and then did one year of graduate school in business at what was then a joint program between M.I.T. and Harvard Universities.

He played numerous sports throughout his life, including as the starting center of his high school basketball team that went to the state championships during his senior year. His sons remember weekly touch football games on the meadow down the rural dead-end road where Butch and Clara May lived for half a century, and Butch continued playing racket sports into his 70s. Music also remained important to him throughout his life. In high school, he attended Interlochen Center for the Arts summer music camp (as a trombonist), while in college he sang with the M.I.T. Logarhythms men’s a capella singing group, and for many years well into his 80s he sang with a Trinity Church men’s barbershop-style ensemble.

Butch met and started dating Clara May during his junior year of high school, and the two married six years later, when both graduated from college. They remained married for 62 years, and had three biological sons, as well as three foster children who came to them from Vietnam in 1980. Butch served as Anh Thu’s adoptive father when she was married, and Thanh took the Dickerson name when he became a U.S. citizen.

In 1965, on a visit to Bryant Pond, Maine, Butch met Milton Mills. This led to the establishment of the long-lasting friendship between the Dickerson and Mills families. Through Milton, Butch and Clara May purchased a (small) lakeside cottage that they quickly fell in love with. Over the years, he spent many hours fishing in the lake, listening to loons at night, and trying to keep pine needles off the small lawn. It would become one of Butch’s favorite places on earth, where he hosted many guests, including hurch groups, friends, and international students in addition to his family. Eventually, four generations of Dickersons would come to cherish “the cottage” in Bryant Pond.

Over his lifetime, Butch started a number of successful businesses, including an educational computer company and a mini-golf course with batting cages. The ventures dearest to his heart were: 1. Logos Bookstore, a small independent bookstore in Harvard Square that he managed for nearly a decade; 2. the International Fellowship House, a Christian ministry that provides clean, safe, and affordable housing for international students in the Boston area; and 3. the Roblealto Children’s Home in Costa Rica, which supports itself through a poultry and pork business. After running his own bookstore for many years, Butch became the Executive Director of an association of independent bookstores, and then worked for the American Booksellers Association as their Director of Education. His work in the 1990s helping independent bookstores led to his travel all over the world to teach management strategies at book conventions, including in Singapore, Malaysia, Egypt, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Russia.

Throughout his life, Butch was involved in numerous Christian ministries including Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, for which he served on full-time staff for eight years, and the Latin American Mission Society, for which he served on the board (including a term as President). He also loved, and was loved by, Trinity Church in Bolton, Mass., where he was a member for more than 50 years, taught adult Sunday school, served as an elder, led the youth group, and on two occasions served as interim pastor. When Butch was widowed in 2018, his Trinity Church family took excellent care of him, and when he moved to Vermont to live with his son and daughter-in-law, many members of his former church continued to visit and stay in contact with him. During the final two years of his life, he was cared for at Wintergreen North in Brandon, Vt., where he was much loved by the staff.

Willard W. Dickerson’s memorial service will be held at Trinity Church in Bolton, Mass., on Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. Those wishing to honor him may make gifts in his name to the International Fellowship House in Boston at ifhboston.org. ◊