Antonio Michael Garcia

Antonio “Tony” Michael Garcia, 74, passed away unexpectedly at home on November 25th, 2025. He was born on November 26, 1950, in Welch, West Virginia to Orlean Pearl and Joaquin “Jack” Garcia. He spent his childhood in West Virginia, Texas, Ann Arbor, and Pennsylvania with the family eventually settling in Farmington, Michigan. 

Tony enjoyed his junior high and high school years in Farmington. He had a wide range of interests. He enjoyed music and vocal arts throughout those school years, playing clarinet, singing and performing in choirs, musicals, and plays. He also participated in sports. He excelled at track, baseball, and football. He became an integral part of the North Farmington High School Football Team. Tony played fullback and middle linebacker all three years of high school. He centered on extra points and was the team punter. He was also team chaplain his senior year. Academics were also a large part of his life. He was Student Council President of North Farmington High School and the recipient of the Outstanding Citizenship Award in 1969. Before he graduated from high school in 1969, Tony received the William Randolph Heart Foundation Award as a United States Senate Youth Program Delegate, which included a weeklong visit to Washington D.C. where he got to meet and interact with many politicians and learn about the workings of our government. 

Tony attended Albion College for two years. He played one year on the football team. He then transferred to Michigan State University. He received a Bachelor of Science in Administration of Recreation with Management Emphasis in 1974. After college, he worked for the Vought Corporation as a security officer from 1975 to 1978. Related to his job in security, he went back to college to obtain an Associate Degree in Applied Science-Security and Loss Prevention from Macomb Community College in 1979. In addition to his education and career, Tony had other interests that he enjoyed pursuing. He taught cross-country skiing classes at Stony Creek Metro Park as part of the Utica Community Schools Recreation Department in the wintertime. In the summertime, he and his wife, Patty, were playground leaders for the summer recreation program for the Utica Community Schools at Ewell Elementary School. They worked as a team. Tony did all of the outdoor activities and Patty did all of the art projects and crafts. In 1978, Tony began his career at General Motors in Pontiac at the Truck and Bus Division. He was a security officer with emergency first responder responsibilities. As the years went by, he studied and received his Masters of Science in Administration Degree from Central Michigan University. In 1990, he became a member of the Personnel Department at the GM Pontiac East Assembly Plant. Eventually, Tony made the leap to the GM Tech Center in Warren. He retired in 2013, after 35 years of service to GM, with his last job being in Supply Chain Logistics. 

Tony was a kind and caring person. He enjoyed socializing and interacting with everyone. He always relished in telling stories about his childhood days, high school and college days, as well as all of the adventures that he had when he was traveling out of state for his work positions throughout the years. Tony and Patty’s children, Lauren and Andrew were born in 1981 and 1984, and Tony enjoyed participating in all of their activities, school and otherwise. He was a soccer coach, a member of the PTO, a Band Booster who created regular newsletters for all of the members, and a Cub Scout and Boy Scout leader. He created a FIRST Robotics Team, Team 818, for the Macomb Mathematics Science Technology Center in Warren, which he volunteered and participated in with his son, Andrew. When his daughter, Lauren, became a member of Sistrum Chorus in Lansing, he and his wife, Patty, enjoyed seeing all of her performances and singing along at times with the choir. 

Tony and his wife, Patty, were married for 48 years. They met after college. They had season tickets to Meadowbrook Theatre for 40 years. They loved the theatre and enjoyed supporting the arts. They were members of the Detroit Institute of Arts and visited their various exhibits numerous times a year. Tony also liked following sports. He was a big fan of the Detroit Lions and the Michigan State Spartans, football and basketball. In the summertime he enjoyed golfing with his friends and cousins and, at times, participated in golf leagues. 

As his children grew, the family took many road trips which included tent camping: setting up the tent each day, cooking on the Coleman Stove, and eating toasted marshmallows and smores around the campfire. Those trips took the family to different campgrounds in Michigan, Canada, and to the East Coast visiting Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, and Connecticut, as well as many other states along the way. In 1996, after Tony saved all of his vacation days for the year, the family took a month long tent camping trip in the summer to the west coast and back, which included visiting the Rocky Mountains, the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Yosemite National Park, San Francisco, the Redwoods, Yellowstone National Park, Mt. Rushmore, and the Badlands. As the days wore on during this long trip, the family would often be tired at the end of the day and would just sleep in sleeping bags under the stars, rather than pitching the tent. A lot of western states don’t seem to have mosquitos, and you can do that without concern. 

Tony enjoyed woodworking and over the years, after building his own work bench in the basement, he slowly acquired power tools, clamps, glues and all of the other necessities needed to build different projects consisting of various types of wood. These projects included a storage cupboard, an end table made from redwood, a large clothes storage dresser for his daughter Lauren when she was a baby (that he refinished before grandbaby Owen was born) and a bookcase for his grandchildren, Owen and Kara. In the summer of 2006, Tony tackled a larger project with his son Andrew. They tore down the rusty old metal shed in the backyard and built a new wooden shed from “scratch,” sometimes getting building advice over the phone from his brother-in-law, Paul, who is an architect who lives in Napa, California. With the finished shed painted in gray with white trim and gray shingles, it was an attractive welcome addition to our yard that perfectly matched our house. 

Tony also enjoyed working on projects in our home. With the help of the family, he created a finished room in the basement. He also put new porcelain tile in the foyer and bathroom. He did a lot of painting projects in the house to brighten up the living spaces. Throughout the years, the handyman projects continued. In the spring and summer each year, the outdoor projects began in the yard with the planting of seedlings in the various garden beds, which included tomatoes, green peppers, green beans, zucchini and cucumbers. He tended to the vegetable plants, as well as the various perennial and annual flowers throughout the summer, weeding and watering all of the beds when needed. By August, he was happy with the results: all of the ripe vegetables ready to harvest and all of the pretty flowers accenting the yard in different colors and shapes. He would occasionally take photographs of the vegetables and flowers. Sometimes he would cut some of the flowers to bring inside to put in a vase. They always made a cheerful display on the kitchen table. 

Tony is survived by his loving and devoted wife, Patricia “Patty” Ann Garcia, daughter Lauren Carissa-Garcia Glass, son-in-law Devon Glass, grandson Owen Rapaport Glass, and granddaughter Kara Zozula Glass. He is also survived by his caring sister Angela (Chuck) Johnson, his sister-in-law Terry Garcia, his brother-in-law Paul J. Zozula, as well as his loving extended family. Tony is predeceased by his son Andrew “Drew” Garcia, his brother Jack V. Garcia, and his brother-in-law Frank Robert Zozula. 

A Memorial for Tony to be remembered by friends and family will be held in the spring or summer of 2026 at the Wysocki and Wilk Funeral Home, 29440 Ryan Road, Warren, Michigan 48092. Time and date are pending.