James Sidney Rothfuss

MADISON-His children at his side, James Sidney Rothfuss, age 72, passed away on Sunday, Sept. 24, 2017, at Agrace HospiceCare in Fitchburg, ending an eight-month fight with leukemia and ten-year battle with lung cancer. Jim was born to George Adolf and LaNore Josephine (Hansberry) Rothfuss on Friday, Dec. 29, 1944, in Baraboo. Jim’s service in the U.S. Army and U.S. Army Reserves from 1963 through 1969 took him to Texas, New York, Saint Louis and overseas to Germany. Affable, hardworking and meticulous; Jim returned to Wisconsin after his overseas service, and lived in Madison and in Richland Center, where he owned a couple taverns, The Black Cat and The Jitterbug. Jim married Marjorie Jane Hunt in Gowanda, N.Y. on Aug. 13, 1970, and Jim and Marge lived for a time in Miami, Florida as Jim worked in hotel management. They moved to Madison in 1976, and Jim began working at Meriter Hospital in 1978. In 1988 he was named Meriter’s Director of Facilities Management, a position he held until retirement in 2009. For 35 years, Jim spent summers in Hayward, where he and his family vacationed and, in 1989, built a lake home. After Marge’s passing in 2007, Jim continued to summer at his Lake Nelson home, often joined in the last ten years by his best friend and partner Sonja Briggs of Bradenton, Fla., whom he’d first met in grade school in Madison. Jim and Marge were active at Burke Lutheran Church, and Jim loved golfing, playing games with his family, entertaining, water sports, Birkie weekends, semi-annual family gatherings, carefully directed family photos, plays with Sonja, and tending to his Madison and Hayward homes. An easy and generous friend, quick to smile, Jim doted on his grandsons, kept abreast of the activities of friends and family near and far, and curated files on nearly everything. In Florida, in Madison, in Hayward, Jim maintained a busy social calendar flush with opportunities to test his deadpan humor on any within his orbit. Jim is survived by his son. Patrick; daughter, Jamie (Matt Mullins); Patrick’s partner, Sarah Tompkins; grandsons, Emmet and Tam; best friend, Sonja Briggs; sister, Rene McFall; brother-in-law, William McFall; brother-in-law, Bruce Hunt; sister-in-law, LouAnne Hunt; nieces, Carley and Katie Hunt, and Molly McFall; nephew, Taylor McFall; and cousin, Betty (Rothfuss) Allen. A Celebration of Jim’s Life will be held at GUNDERSON EAST FUNERAL AND CREMATION CARE, 5203 Monona Drive, Madison, from 4 p.m. until 7 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 24, 2017. A funeral service will be held at MESSIAH LUTHERAN CHURCH, 5202 Cottage Grove Road, Madison, at 11 a.m., on Saturday, Nov.25, 2017, with a luncheon to follow.  Visitation will be held at the church from 10 a.m. until the time of the service on Saturday.  Interment will be conducted in Hillsboro at a later date. Memorials are requested in lieu of flowers, and will be distributed among several of Jim’s favorite charities. Online condolences may be made at www.gundersonfh.com.