Restaurant owner, baker, friend to all
A small restaurant called Mona's Place in Huntley drew farmers, truck drivers and local residents to its cozy luncheon buffet.
They came for the homemade soup as well as the desserts, but mostly they came because it felt like home.
Mona M. Wickersheim opened the restaurant in 1982 with seating for 40 people, half at the counter.
"Every day she featured a different cream pie, and she always had homemade sweet rolls as well as apple pie, cherry, blueberry and peach," said her daughter, LouAnn Jensen of Marengo.
Many of her eight children helped her run the restaurant, and customers became to feel like family.
Now Mrs. Wickersheim's large extended family is mourning her passing. The longtime resident of Dundee and Huntley was 77.
"She treated everyone like family; no one was a stranger," said her daughter, Kathleen Battin of South Elgin, who now works at Papa G's, which replaced Mona's Place in 1990.
Her wholesome meals and warm, friendly atmosphere, reflected Mrs. Wickersheim's background growing up on a farm in Nebraska, before she moved as a young teenager with her family to Grayslake.
She met her husband-to-be, Elmer, in her freshman year at Lake Zurich High School before transferring to Grayslake High School. The couple married in 1947 when Mrs. Wickersheim was 18. They celebrated their 52nd wedding anniversary in 1999, one month before Elmer passed away.
Within a few years of their marriage, the couple moved back to the Dundee area, where Mr. Wickersheim's parents owned a 100-acre farm. They helped raise corn, beans and hay as well as chickens.
By the time their fifth child came along, Mrs. Wickersheim went to work at night to help support the growing family. She began at a restaurant in Libertyville before working at Mission Hills Country Club in Northbrook and Indian Lakes Country Club in Bloomingdale.
Through it all, family members said, Mrs. Wickersheim's dreamed of opening a restaurant of her own. Mona's Place fulfilled that goal.
"She loved taking care of her customers," Jensen said. "At Christmastime, she would throw an appreciation dinner where everything was free. We had lots of good times in that restaurant. It brings back lots of happy memories."
When she sold it in 1990, Mrs. Wickersheim continued to draw a steady demand for her baked goods. She was commissioned by area restaurants to bake homemade pies and apple slices. She also prepared food for catered special events.
Besides her two daughters, Mrs. Wickersheim is survived by a daughter, Georgia (Fred) Stoerp of Mendota; sons, William (Carol) of Harvard, Michael (Denise) of Colorado Springs, Colo., John (Sharon) of Round Lake Beach, Gary (Diane) of Huntley and Barry (Pam) of Johnsburg; as well as 18 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren.
Services have been held.