Gerald Lee Duimstra

Gerald Lee Duimstra — Jerry to most, Dyn to his wife, The Dynamo on the basketball court, Buppa to his grandkids — passed away peacefully at his home in Eastmanville, Michigan on the afternoon of his seventy-fifth birthday, surrounded by his family, the same day he came in.

Jerry was born May 16, 1951 at Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids, the son of Martin and Dorothy Duimstra. His family came from the Netherlands after the First World War — Duimstras and Lindhouts and Boumans — and they settled in West Michigan and stayed. They were close, and loyal, and they loved one another deeply. Jerry grew up inside that, and he carried it with him everywhere he went.

He attended Calvin Christian High School, where he played baseball, soccer, and basketball with a relentless intensity that earned him the nickname Dynamo. The name stuck. At fifteen, he also met the great love of his life — Barbara, his high school sweetheart — and from that day forward, the two of them were inseparable. They married on August 6, 1971, and built a fifty-four-year partnership rooted in absolute devotion.

Jerry was a builder. After years in construction, he co-founded Architectural Specialties, which grew under his leadership into one of West Michigan's premier contracting firms, known for commercial interiors and residential exteriors. His work is still visible across Grand Rapids — homes, offices, and landmarks that quietly bear his fingerprints. But the legacy he was proudest of wasn't the buildings; it was the people. Jerry treated his crew like family, and they loved him for it. Many of them stayed with him for decades.

In 1996, when he was forty-five, Jerry had a stroke. And then, in the hospital, another. And a few months after that, a heart attack. It was the kind of year a man does not come back from. He fought hard and came back from it. He came back from it because he had more love to give, and he gave his family another thirty years.

Jerry was hilariously funny. He lit up rooms. He knew hundreds of people and made each of them feel like the most important person there. He coached his sons in baseball, football, and basketball, and across all those years and all those seasons, he did not miss a single game. Not one. After high school he hauled his young family through decades of softball tournaments which they all loved, he golfed often, loved snowmobiling and boating, and could be reliably found during summer in Holland and Grand Haven at the beach with his sprawling extended family. The trips out west — the mountains, the open country, the long miles together — he said those were the best days of his life.

He is survived by his beloved wife of fifty-four years, Barbara; his son Jeremy and daughter-in-law Christal; his son Matthew and his fiancée Jessica; his grandchildren Madison (Koby), Ethan (Kylie), and Cosette, who were the great joy of his later years; his brothers Bruce and Dale; and a vast network of family and friends who adored him. He was preceded in death by his parents, Martin and Dorothy Duimstra.

A celebration of Jerry's life will be held at a later date.