Reflecting on those who died in Fox Valley in 2013
Several notable Fox Valley residents died in 2013, and they left a legacy of impressive accomplishments and years of service in their memory. The list includes public servants, a pair of aldermen, a former chief judge, and the founder of a home for severely disabled children and adults. Herewith are some of the people who left us in 2013.
Jim Hansen
Longtime South Elgin Village President Jim Hansen died Nov. 1 after a nearly five-month battle with lung cancer. He was 53.
Hansen was elected to the board of trustees in 1991 and took on the role of village president in 2001. He was serving his fourth term as village president and had just been re-elected earlier this year.
Colleagues remembered him as a quiet leader unconditionally dedicated to South Elgin. He was a consensus builder and put people before politics.
Hansen had been active with the South Elgin Little League and was instrumental in getting lights up and fields constructed at Concord Park. The village board decided to rename the park after Hansen. A formal dedication will take place early next year.
Hansen, a graduate of Larkin High School, worked as an auto parts manager for NAPA for many years. His most recent job was assistant director for purchasing in Kane County.
— Elena Ferrarin
Ralph Dantino
Geneva mourned the death of Alderman Ralph Dantino on Feb. 18. Dantino, who was in his first term, was 56.
He suffered from cancer of the appendix that had spread to the lining of his abdomen. He attended city council meetings in 2012 while wearing a chemotherapy pump, and when he was too ill to attend in person, he attended by telephone.
That determination to serve showed at a February 2011 fundraiser for the Geneva Cultural Arts Commission. He fulfilled his commitment to perform a swing dance at the “Dancing With the Geneva Stars” event, despite undergoing chemotherapy and being hospitalized the afternoon of the event.
“I think his passion for family and his upbringing” inspired Dantino’s drive to serve the community,” said Alderman Dean Kilburg, a longtime friend who also served with Dantino on the Geneva school board. “It carried over into Ralph’s values … He was concerned about those who maybe he felt didn’t have a voice.”
— Susan Sarkauskas
Chuck Beckman
On Jan. 20, former Batavia alderman Chuck Beckman died, at age 84. Beckman was the second-longest serving alderman in Batavia’s history, putting in 30 years. He stepped down in 2005 due to ill health. He was passionate about taking care of the town in which he had grown up. Beckman spent 16 years as a firefighter, and also served on the Batavia school board. He was the founder of Chuck’s Garage.
“He always had the best interests of Batavia at heart,” Mayor Jeff Schielke said.
“He was opinionated. I did not always agree with him, but we always got along,” 5th Ward Alderman Eldon Frydendall said. They were co-chairmen of two efforts to rebuild Batavia’s city hall, as well as build a new city warehouse and public works garage.
Beckman was conservative with money, the mayor said, but open-minded when it came to adding staff or improving facilities as the town grew in the 1980s. Schielke suspects that came from Beckman’s time in the fire service; when he started, sometimes Beckman was the only employee on duty, answering the phone and driving the firetruck to the scene. “He knew what it was like as a city employee to work under austere conditions,” Schielke said.
— Susan Sarkauskas
George Gebes
George Gebes was not a lifelong Batavia resident, but you wouldn’t know it from his devotion to the town’s veterans.
Gebes, a co-founder of the Batavia Overseas Post 1197, Veterans of Foreign Wars, died Nov. 4 at age 98.
He first moved to Batavia in 1936 from South Dakota to work at his uncle’s greenhouse. He met and married his wife, Fran, and they settled in to raise a family. At the beginning of World War II they moved to Michigan, where Gebes worked at the Willow Run B24 bomber plant. In 1943, when he received a draft notice, he instead enlisted in the Navy. He received the Bronze Star and the Combat Action Ribbon in 2004 for his efforts to keep his landing ship tank from sinking in battle in 1945.
And after the war, he fulfilled a promise he made while standing on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima: He would see to it people never forgot the sacrifices soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines made.
“We buried more than 3,000 boys in the first two days going in to Iwo Jima. This is what I wanted after I saw so many of our boys (who died),” he said at a 2001 ceremony dedicating a war veterans memorial at the VFW Post.
He served as commander and quartermaster of the VFW Post. The Gebes’ started the annual Loyalty Day parade. Gebes also served a term as alderman. In 2002, he and wife Fran were named the Citizens of the Year.
— Susan Sarkauskas
Juil Patricia “Pat” Wasmond
Patricia Wasmond and her husband, Bob, raised 11 children, and made a lasting impact on the lives of countless others by starting Little Angels, a facility in Elgin that offers long-term care for children and young adults with profound disabilities and complex medical needs.
The couple also opened Lolly’s Dollhouse and Miniature store in 1971 in Elgin.
Wasmond of Cary died Sept. 2 at age 87 after recently celebrating her 64th wedding anniversary.
She had a calling for caring for children with special needs and also served for many years as a children’s Court Appointed Special Advocate in Kane County.
Since its founding in 1958, Little Angels has expanded to 57 beds and a staff of more than 100. The Wasmonds initially lived next door, and tore down their family home to build an addition to the facility.
— Elena Ferrarin
Monsignor Robert Hoffman
Robert Hoffman served in churches and schools in DeKalb, Rockford, Aurora and St. Charles and achieved the title of Prelate of Honor by Pope John Paul II while working as the pastor of St. John Neumann Parish in St. Charles. Hoffman died in March while battling brain cancer.
— James Fuller
Laura Crawford
Laura Crawford, 46, was passionate about reading, writing and sharing her love for those subjects with her students at Sleepy Hollow Elementary School, where she spent 20 years teaching second grade, third grade and literacy. The school and Community Unit District 300 community were devastated by her October death, which came after complications from chronic lymphocytic leukemia. At Sleepy Hollow Elementary School, Crawford went beyond the basics. In addition to working with kids in smaller groups to receive additional literacy support, she also helped coach teachers on literacy efforts. The Geneva woman also worked with students who wanted to be authors by hosting an author night in which she would tell them how she became an author, and how to write, research and put books together.
— Lenore T. Adkins
Gene Nottolini
Former Kane County Chief Judge Gene Nottolini, who oversaw the transition from the Third Street courthouse in Geneva to the current Judicial Center in St. Charles, died in September from leukemia at the age of 69. The lifelong Elgin resident was remembered as being warm and caring, putting family first, prodding tough cases to settle and baking legendary pies.
— Harry Hitzeman
David Smith
David Smith, who devoted his life to public service as the village’s longtime police chief, its first village administrator and the director of the QuadCom emergency dispatch center in Dundee Township, died in October at age 64 after being diagnosed with cancer less than a month earlier. From 1977 to 1986, Smith worked as East Dundee’s police chief and was instrumental in professionalizing the department by instituting a police and fire commission to hire and fire officers in 1980, as well as a pension system for the police officers. After he left the police department in 1986, Smith became village administrator, a position he held until 1999. From there, he became the director of public safety communications programs at Elgin Community College. He returned to the Dundee area in 2008 as the director of QuadCom, a position he held until he died.
— Lenore T. Adkins