Wheaton merchant was known to family as 'Auntie Nonie'

Among longtime Wheaton business leaders, Leona K. Binder was a respected merchant and the third generation to manage the family's business, Estenfelder's Dry Goods Store.

To her 13 nieces and nephews, however, she was known fondly as "Aunt Nonie" and as something of a surrogate parent.

Miss Binder passed away Thursday at the Beacon Hill Health Center in Lombard. The lifelong Wheaton native was 97.

"She was our fairy godmother," says her niece, Pat Wilken of Mount Prospect. "She was very good to all of us."

Miss Binder's grandfather, George Estenfelder, founded the store in 1881 as a boot repair and shoe shop at 107 W. Front St.

His daughter, Tillie Binder, took it over and added a small line of dry goods and ladies apparel.

Beginning in 1945, Miss Binder began running the store with her brother, George Estenfelder, and their two siblings, Edna Atten and Ruth Plummer, who were silent partners.

"For many years, it was the only general store in town," Wilken said. "It was so successful that my grandparents were able to send all four of their children to college - and that was during the Depression."

Miss Binder and her sisters attended Rosary College, now Dominican University in River Forest, where she majored in French and Spanish, and played the violin. However, when she returned home, she began to take a more active role with the store, as her siblings married and began raising families.

"For all those years, she was the driving force," Wilken says. "She ran it and was always very visible in the store."

Over the years, Miss Binder and her brother added a men's department in the basement, as well as women's and children's departments on the main floor, along with linens, accessories and dry goods.

"We bought all our clothes there," says another of her nieces, Peg Hannah of Wheaton, "and it was a great place to buy wedding gifts."

Miss Binder not only managed the store, she did the buying for all of the departments except for men's. She traveled to the Merchandise Mart and to New York on buying trips to ensure the store would have quality brand name items and the latest fashions.

Her own fashion sense was distinctive. Miss Binder loved to wear fanciful hats and gloves, and her elegant flair seemed to set the tone for the store's high-quality selection.

Miss Binder and her brother closed the store in 1973, but its legacy lives on. When Wheaton officials celebrate the city's sesquicentennial anniversary next year, they hope to include the store's history as they document the city's entrepreneurial spirit.

Besides her two nieces, Miss Binder is survived by nine more nieces and nephews and many great and great-great nieces and nephews.

Visitation will be from 10 a.m. until the noon service Saturday at Williams-Kampp Funeral Home, 430 E. Roosevelt Road, Wheaton.