Ben Van Houten, the father of the Lakeshore, Michigan area well-known sextuplets, died at age 39 this week after suffering a heart attack.
Van Houten, a technology worker who also served as a deacon at Calvary Baptist Church in Holland, had just finished setting up a trampoline in his backyard for the kids and was beginning to play with them when he suffered the heart attack.
“He was always spending time with the kids,” father-in-law Calvin Reimink told MLive.com.
Reimink said that Ben was a terrific father who excelled at raising the children.
“Just to know Ben for even one day would be a blessing,” he said.
“You couldn’t ask for a better guy. To know him was to love him,” Reimink told the Holland Sentinel. “He was a great husband to my daughter and a great father to my grandkids.”
The sextuplets were born in January 2004 and are now 10 years old. They’re the first surviving group of six multiples in Michigan.
Widow Amy Van Houten is receiving help from the church and employees at TUV/SUD, the tech company where Ben worked, are considering helping raise money for the family.
“He was the most selfless person I’ve ever met. He was just a servant, through and through. Every fiber,” Amy said in a statement.
Arrangements are pending with Dykstra Life Story Funeral Home.
