Bruce Vanica

Bruce Vanica, 93, peacefully passed away early Monday morning, October 12, at St. Vincent Hospital. He was born in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio on March 8, 1927 to Homer and Grace Vanica. After working at several seasonal and transient jobs while attending Kent State University in Ohio, he began his 65-plus year career in transportation in 1948 as an American Airlines ticket agent at the Akron/Canton airport. He later transferred to a similar position at the Cleveland, Ohio airport while also working as a bus driver for the Berea Bus Lines. In the mid-1960s, after almost 20 years with American Airlines, he landed a sales position with Northwest Airlines in Cleveland. He was transferred to Cincinnati and was successfully able to find passengers for Northwest in a city they didn't even serve by selling charter trips. In 1968, he was promoted to District Sales Manager at Northwest and was transferred to Billings, Montana for what was supposed to be only a few years. He liked Montana so much, though, that he turned down future transfers to places such as Chicago, San Francisco and Honolulu to be able to stay here. While he was with Northwest, he was able to travel to lots of different places around the world such as the Holy Land, Italy, Ireland, France, England and Tokyo, to name a few. He was proud to be a member of the Montana Aeronautics Commission during Governor Tom Judge's administration and he also served as President of the Billings Kiwanis Club. In 1981, he retired from Northwest Airlines, and opened two travel agencies in Billings. He especially enjoyed organizing and leading yearly bus tours to the Southeast, Texas, California, the Calgary Stampede and the New England Fall Colors. He also led occasional tours to Alaska, Hawaii and Washington D.C. Ten years later, he sold the travel agencies and finished his working life by driving a school bus for First Student for almost 25 years. He saw a nice symmetry in having been a bus driver at both the beginning and end of his career. Although Bruce worked hard all his life, he also had time to support a rather large family. He married Lucille “Lucy” Hanna in 1947 and the two of them had seven children over the next 16 years. After nearly 50 years of marriage, Lucy passed away in 1996. Bruce then remarried in 2001 to Elizabeth “Liz” Quinn-Love who had had six children of her own. Liz and Bruce hosted some terrific backyard parties for both sets of children and grandchildren over the years. Liz passed away in 2013. Bruce is survived by all seven of his children – four daughters, Sue Stover in Pensacola, FL; Kay in Santa Rosa, CA; Joy and her husband, Dave Becker, in Detroit MI and Amy Watt and her husband, Pat, in Great Falls, MT; as well as his three sons, Lee in Forsyth, MT; Ray and his wife, Kris, in Phoenix, AZ; and, Don in Billings. He is also survived by 19 grand-children, 20 great-grandchildren and 5 great-great-grandchildren. His parents, wives and two grandchildren have pre-deceased him. Funeral arrangements are being made by Dahl Funeral Chapel and a memorial service will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 17 at Dahl Funeral Chapel at 10 Yellowstone Avenue. The number of attendees will be limited due to COVID-19 restrictions. The service will be livestreamed directly to this page below. Please refresh your browser at the start of the service if it does not start to play. Tribute Video