PEACHTREE CITY—Deacon N. Michel (Mike) Landaiche Jr. died Friday, Jan. 26. He was 83.

The late Deacon Mike Landaiche from Holy Trinity Church, Peachtree City, was ordained Jan. 31, 2004. Deacon Landaiche worked for several years with the Interfaith Airport Chaplaincy at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. This July 2008 photo was taken on one of the concourses in the airport’s domestic terminal. Photo By Michael Alexander

He was born on Feb. 25, 1934, in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was the only son of N. M. Landaiche Sr. (Bob) and Leonie Gremillion Landaiche.

He was preceded in death by his sister, Judith Ann Landaiche, in 2015.

He grew up in New Orleans and attended Catholic elementary schools and graduated from Jesuit High School in 1952.

After taking pre-engineering classes at Loyola University, he attended Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, graduating with honors in 1957. His class was the first to go through the Cooperative Engineering Program, which allows students to receive engineering experience and earn money before graduation.

He married Carol Comstock on Sept. 6, 1955, in New Orleans. They first met as juniors in high school.

After graduation, he began his long career with Esso Standard Oil, now ExxonMobil Oil, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Job transfers took the family to Venezuela, New Jersey, Aruba and Egypt. He retired in 1986.

He is survived by his wife and the couple’s nine children: Mick, Ken, Greg, Keith, Susie, Randall, Cynthia, Debbie and Jennifer and 23 grandchildren.

After retirement in 1986, the couple moved to Costa Rica with their youngest daughter. They lived there for eight years.

As a retiree, he wanted an activity that would be as challenging as work, so he took up flying, earned a pilot’s license and bought a plane.

The family moved to Georgia in 1994 and became members of Holy Trinity Church, Peachtree City. In 1999, he began his years of formation for the permanent diaconate and was ordained on Jan. 31, 2004.

In addition to parish ministries, Deacon Landaiche served in the chaplaincy program at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

In a 2008 interview with The Georgia Bulletin, Deacon Landaiche spoke about serving the spiritual needs of the airport community and travelers.

He recalled a man coming up the arrival escalator, asking him if they could pray together. The passenger had returned from a medical trip where he learned of terminal cancer. A quick prayer and they went their separate ways.

“You get a sudden request for something extremely important to somebody and then after that it goes away. The person goes away. He doesn’t know who I am. I don’t know who he is. But that’s not important because the Holy Spirit knows who both of us are,” he said.

A funeral Mass was celebrated Friday, Feb. 2, at Holy Trinity Church. Expressions of sympathy may be made in the form of donations in Deacon Landaiche’s name to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul at Holy Trinity, 101 Walt Banks Road, Peachtree City.