Meat industry executive still found time for family

While Vienna Beef officials worked to promote their franks as Chicago's hot dog, Dennis Wilson worked behind the scene in operations, heading up one of the company's production facilities.

Mr. Wilson oversaw the plant in Los Angeles for 16 years before moving his family back to Vienna Beef's headquarters in Chicago, where he served as senior executive vice president.

However, his lasting legacy lies in his immediate family. Mr. Wilson and his wife, Patricia, had 12 children, beginning with their first child born when they were 19, and the 12th child born when they were 41.

Now, his large extended family is mourning his passing. Mr. Wilson died Sunday. The former 11-year Mount Prospect resident, most recently of Lake in the Hills, was 66.

"For me, as a child, it was pure fun," says P.J. Wilson-Stoebig of Mount Prospect, the middle of the 12 children. "Growing up, we didn't realize ours was so different from other families. But when we went over to friends' houses, they seemed so quiet. Ours was always so full of activity."

Mr. Wilson and his wife grew up in the small town of Mason, Ohio, and never lost their down-to-earth, homespun values, family members said. They married right out of high school, and just celebrated their 46th wedding anniversary this year.

Mr. Wilson worked in different capacities, until he began working for Vienna Beef in its operations department. In 1976, he accepted a transfer to Los Angeles, to oversee operations at its production facility there.

At the time, the couple had 10 children, with an 11th on the way, their daughter recalls.

"When we landed in Los Angeles, we looked like the Brady Bunch," Wilson-Stoebig says. "We were all wearing Vienna Beef T-shirts, and this charter bus picked us up, that said, 'Vienna Bus to the Future.' They even gave us a 6-foot Vienna beef salami to hold, which my parents insisted we eat, over the next three weeks."

Over the course of his career, Mr. Wilson traveled much of the time, both domestically and internationally, yet he still found time to coach his daughters in softball and attend all of his sons' football and baseball games.

"That's the part we're still trying to figure out," his daughter says. "How he was always there."

Mr. Wilson also played a large role in the meat industry. He was a sitting member of the Chicago Midwest Meat Association, and served as one of five management trustees for the health and welfare pension board's medical center, as well as serving on its labor committee, helping to negotiate contracts.

"He was a very important and vibrant member," says fellow board member, Dwight Stiehl, president of Rose Packing in Chicago.

Besides his wife and daughter, Mr. Wilson is survived by 11 children, 29 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

A funeral Mass will take place at 10 a.m. today at St. Raymond de Penafort Church, 301 S. I-Oka St. in Mount Prospect.