Jim (Kenneth) Chandanais

Jim moved with his family to Clare, Michigan, in the late 1940s, where he excelled at sports such as football and basketball earning himself honors in the Clare High School Sports Hall of Fame.

He was also an avid hunter and fisherman, in the fields and forests around Clare. He and his dad, Art, made November deer hunting trips to the Upper Peninsula, at a time before the Mackinac Bridge existed, and when travelers still crossed the straights by ferryboat.

One of his fondest memories during that time was working at Happy Hanks Dude Ranch near Brevort, Michigan. There he, and a horse named “Lucky,” led summer tourists on rides through the forests and along the beaches of the northern coast of Lake Michigan.

Upon graduating high school, he attended a year of college at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan.

In 1955, the U.S. Army drafted him, sending him to training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and later to Fort Ord, California. Following graduation from Infantry School, he loaded aboard a troop ship along with members of his cohort and sailed north to Alaska. He told many stories of his days in Alaska as a ski trooper, traveling with his platoon through the rugged wilderness of the state. His love for football landed him a spot on the full contact Army intramural football team and he spent many hours practicing and playing on the hard turf of Fort Richardson.

Following his discharge at Fort Ord in 1956, he migrated south to San Diego, California, working a series of temporary jobs. Eventually, he packed up his car and made the drive back to Michigan along Route 66. He briefly settled in Union Lake, Michigan and got a job working on the General Motors assembly plant in Pontiac.

In 1964, he met Ethel Komula on a blind date. They were married in October, 1966. The following year, they moved to the Upper Peninsula where together they built the Wash-A-Rama Cleaning Village, a laundry and car wash, along Montezuma Avenue in Houghton. He and Ethel later acquired another laundry and dry cleaning business called Econo Wash Laundry in Hancock, Michigan. The UP became Jim’s adopted home and he remained there even after his retirement in 2005. He gained endless enjoyment of the area’s expansive forests and lakes and never missed a chance to spend time at the hunting camp. He often repeated the UP’s claim to be “God’s Country” and never wanted to leave it.

Jim is survived by Ethel and they were married for 57 years. He is also survived by his son, Mike and his wife, Nicole, along with their daughters, Mikaela and Elliana, of Colorado Springs, Colorado; his daughter, Molly and her husband, Parker Haeg, along with their daughters Morena and Maya of Scottsdale, Arizona; and his daughter, Laurel Demars of South Range, Michigan.

Jim was preceded in death by his father Art, mother Margaret “Dolly,” brother, Bud Chandanais, sister, Joy Newton, and sister, Jean Woodruff.