Carl M. Dennison

On December 30, 2021, Jesus welcomed his new angel home, Carl M. Dennison, to be greeted by his precious granddaughter, Moira Claire Arney who preceded him in death on August 17, 2021. Carl was born April 15, 1945 in Lexington, Tennessee, to William and Sudie Dennison. He was their eighth child.

He attended first grade through sixth grade in the Tiptonville and Ridgely area of Tennessee. His family moved to Michigan in 1957. He started seventh grade in Hart, Michigan and graduated from Hart High School in 1963. Carl worked at Stokleys Canning a few months after high school. In the beginning of January, 1964, he started working at Buick of General Motors in Flint. He was working a very short time when they asked if he would be interested in going to General Motors Institute for supervision training. They told him they would pay for his schooling and give him time to study right at work. In true Carl form, he asked them if they had the right Carl Dennison. They told him they knew more about him than he knew himself. He figured why not? Opportunities like this don't come along often.

Toward the end of August of 1964, he started to date Claire Fessenden from Shelby. After almost a year, Carl and Claire were married on August 21, 1965 at the Ferry Wesleyan Church. They made their first home in Flint. Almost a year later, Carl received a letter from Uncle Sam stating that he would be drafted in the very near future. His brother-in-law received one of these letters and was drafted in a month. Claire was not going to live in Flint by herself with no family around while he was in the service. Because of this, Carl applied for work at several places around Muskegon and Oceana Counties, knowing if drafted, he would return to a job. Carl went to work at Howmet in Whitehall in x-ray. He was only there a few months when they asked him if he wanted to become an assistant foreman. Carl asked them if it paid more? They said yes, so he said yes. It wasn't many years later when he became a foreman on first shift and worked that job until his retirement in January of 2001.

Carl and Claire made their family with the additions of Deborah Gail, Nancy Louise, and Bruce Carl. If he wasn't working, he was with his family. Everything he did was for the betterment of his family. A selfless person, he hardly ever spent any money on himself in case his family needed it. He always stressed to his children that their schoolwork was as important as his work. He went to all of their school conferences because he wanted to know how they were doing for himself. Carl wanted his children to do whatever they wanted in school and to be able to put them through college if they chose to go and not worry about money. He was able to do that with all of his children and they never had student loans. He took his family on vacations every year without going in debt, so he could truly enjoy them. He and Claire went on many lighthouse trips in retirement because Claire liked lighthouses. He always said one lighthouse looks the same as another, but he went for her. In his retirement years he really enjoyed going to McDonalds to drink coffee and visit people while solving the world's problems.

He will be lovingly remembered by Claire, his wife of fifty-six years; daughters, Deborah (Patrick) Arney and Nancy (Mike) Chadwick; son, Bruce Dennison; grandchildren, Jacob (Katie) Dennison, Brianna (Kris) Humphreys, Zackary Dennison, and Liam Arney; his sister, Fay Wells; sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law, Janice Kokx, Dale and Margie Meinert, Barbara Domalavage, Kim and Helen Hettmanspurger, Larry and Diane Rood, Mark and Linda Tanner, Ted Fessenden, Gordon VanderLaan, and Glen Gleason; and numerous nieces and nephews.

Carl was preceded in death by his granddaughter, Moira Claire Arney, parents, William and Sudie Dennison, father-in-law and mother-in-law, Kenneth and Dorothy Fessenden, siblings, William (Betty) Denison, Eugene (Priscilla) Dennison, Katherine (Wayne) Davey, H.E. (Joanie) Dennison, Charlie (Judy) Dennison, Ann (Wally) Blohm, William Wells, Linda VanderLaan, Sally Gleason, Alvin Ramthun, and Susan Fessenden.

Visitation is Saturday, January 8th from 5-8 pm at Harris Funeral Home in Shelby. The funeral service will be held Sunday, January 9th, 2 pm at Hart Wesleyan Church with Rev. Robert Gray officiating. Masks will be required at the visitation and the funeral.  A luncheon will follow the funeral service at the church. Interment will be in Mt. Hope Cemetery in Shelby in the spring. For memorial gifts, please consider the Moira Arney Scholarship Fund, c/o Raymond James Charitable, P.O. Box 23559, St. Petersburg, FL 33742. Please make checks to Raymond James Charitable, memo: Moira Claire Arney Scholarship Fund # 391759.

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Carl M. Dennison, please visit our floral store.