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Kolssak remembered as 'fixture' in Wheeling

Lou Kolssak ran his funeral home in Wheeling like a stage, where families told a story.

It had to be a comfortable, inviting and immaculate place, but also personal.

So Kolssak would search for the "life props." Sometimes, it was a subtle detail, like the fishing pole placed at the top of the casket for an avid angler. Kolssak used these props - be it a petting zoo, polka band, or motorcycle - to help capture someone's life, their passions and interests.

"He was so detailed and so meticulous," his son, David Kolssak, said. "He believed every family needed to have a unique experience."

Kolssak, who was battling colon cancer, died Monday. He was 79.

The father of three sons was a perfectionist, his family and friends say, who treated the Kolssak Funeral Home on Milwaukee Avenue as an extension of his own home.

"He would probably find fault in his own obituary," David Kolssak said.

He brought the same work ethic to his volunteer job chairing Wheeling's fire and police commission, where Lou Kolssak poured over resumes and interviewed would-be firefighters and police officers. During his roughly 17-year tenure on the commission, Kolssak had a direct hand in hiring at least 33 officers, Wheeling Police Chief Bill Benson said.

That's more than half of the village's sworn force.

"It's a great loss for public safety in the village of Wheeling," Benson said.

Born in Chicago in April 1935, Louis A. Kolssak II lived above the family funeral business on the city's West Side. It was a well-established business - more than a dozen of the children who died in the Our Lady of the Angels fire in December 1958 were buried from there.

In 1973, Lou Kolssak opened the funeral home on Milwaukee Avenue in Wheeling, drawn to the suburbs by the promise of good schools for his sons. His goal was to help families adjust to their "new normal," said his son Jon Kolssak, now the funeral home's director and manager.

"Perfection was not good enough," he said.

Lou Kolssak was a professional, but he didn't shut out the tragedy he witnessed over his career.

"In this business, you can't allow yourself to be calloused," Jon Kolssak said.

"My father grieved for people he didn't even know," David Kolssak said.

Their father coped by leaning on his faith and his family. He enjoyed camping until he found an A-frame vacation home in Green Lake, Wisconsin. David Kolssak tried to encourage him to find hobbies, but what he really loved to do is work.

"Idle hands are the devil's workshop," he would say.

Kolssak mentored college students studying mortuary science, teaching them that funeral directors have to be familiar faces in their communities.

"Kolssak is a fixture in this town," said Village President Dean Argiris, who has ordered flags in Wheeling to fly at half staff.

As the chair of the police and fire commission since 2000, Kolssak grilled candidates hoping to join the two departments.

"He could play hardball with people," said Mike Moran, the panel's secretary.

Sure, commissioners ask why an applicant wants to become a cop or a firefighter. But Kolssak wanted to know - why Wheeling?

The candidates who ended up impressing him were familiar with the village's profile, the demographics.

"He really cared about the quality of people who are going to protect the village of Wheeling," Benson said.

In planning his funeral, Jon Kolssak hopes to meet his father's high expectations, to do "what's perfect and what's right for him," he said.

The family is inviting friends to leave a "Louism" or memory on the funeral home's website, www.funerals.pro.

"It all goes back to the idea of our funeral home is your stage, and together, we're going to tell your life story," he said.

Visitation will be held from 2 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Kolssak Funeral Home, 189 S. Milwaukee Ave. (two blocks south of Dundee Road), in Wheeling. Funeral prayers will be said at 10 a.m. Friday, followed by an 11 a.m. Mass at St. Mary Church in Buffalo Grove. Interment will follow at St. Mary Cemetery.

Instead of flowers, donations to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, or JDRF, can be made at www.jdrf.org. For funeral information, call (847) 537-6600 or visit www.funerals.pro.

  Lou Kolssak, left, and his son, David, at the dedication of the small park on Milwaukee Avenue that bears his name. Mark Welsh/mwelsh@dailyherald.com, September 2012
Lou Kolssak Courtesy of THE Kolssak family
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