Woman inspired those around her

Patricia Ostewig, a champion for the arts and an esteemed high school teacher who inspired hundreds of students under her tutelage, died Wednesday from a brain aneurysm.

She was 59.

A funeral Mass will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at St. Catherine of Siena Church, 845 W. Main St., West Dundee. Burial will follow in River Valley Memorial Gardens in West Dundee.

Visitation will be from 3 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Miller Funeral Home, 504 W. Main St., West Dundee, and from 9 a.m. until the time of the Mass on Thursday at the church.

Friends, former students and colleagues described Ostewig, who taught art at Dundee-Crown High School in Carpentersville for 34 years, as the kind of person every community needs.

"She was a creative, dynamic and wonderful person," said Carol Francis, who worked side by side with Ostewig during her tenure at Dundee-Crown. "She was gifted, she was interested in people and was involved in all kinds of organizations. She was an all-around wonderful person."

Ostewig, a West Dundee resident, began teaching at then Crown High School in 1971 and later became head of the school's art department. She retired in 2005 and continued to serve as a substitute teacher and as mentor for new teachers in the district.

In addition to her long teaching career, Ostewig was a past vice president and president of the Dundee Township Library board and charter member of the library foundation.

"She did a lot of things and was very devoted to the community," said current library board Vice President Carrie Brecke. "She was committed to art and recently donated her collection of art books to the library."

Most recently, Ostewig taught basket-weaving as a faculty member of the Fine Line Creative Arts Center in St. Charles.

Memorials may be made to the St. Catherine of Siena Church, Delta Kappa Gamma Society Foundation or the Fine Line Creative Arts Center, Twin Silos Road in St. Charles.