Lois Breitmeyer

Lois Patricia Fromm Breitmeyer, a metro Detroit author of children's books and plays, died on Thursday at her Royal Oak home. She was 91. Mrs. Breitmeyer was "a lifelong metro Detroiter whose life mirrored in many ways the journey of our city and state in the last century," Michigan state Rep. Jim Townsend, her son-in-law, said in an e-mail. Born and raised in Detroit, she graduated from the University of Michigan in 1944 and enlisted in the Navy, serving in Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service WAVES in North Carolina until the end of World War II. While there, she married Marine and Arkansas native Thomas Payne in 1945. The GI Bill sent him back to finish college and her to flying lessons, where she mastered an engine stall technique in a Piper Cub, a small prop plane. The couple had two children and later divorced. In 1956, she married restaurateur and lawyer John Breitmeyer Jr. They had four children. Mrs. Breitmeyer worked as an elementary school teacher in the 1950s but largely devoted her life to writing. She published numerous children's books and stories with her friend, Gladys Leithauser. Breitmeyer also wrote several plays and was a writer for the short-lived Detroit soap opera "Generations." She was preceded in death by her husband, John. Mrs. Breitmeyer is survived by her six children, Susan and Thomas Payne and Carol, Patricia, John and Jennie Breitmeyer, 10 grandchildren and many nieces and nephews. Visitation with the family is 4-8 p.m. May 8 at Wm. Sullivan & Son Funeral Home, 705 W. Eleven Mile Road 4 blocks E of Woodward, Royal Oak. A memorial service is scheduled for 4 p.m. May 9 at the Birmingham Unitarian Church, 38651 Woodward Ave., Bloomfield Hills.