One of Schaumburg's original residents dies
One of the last direct links to Schaumburg's rural German heritage has passed away.
Viola Straub died May 26 in her Schaumburg home. She was 98. Her funeral takes place at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday in the historic chapel at St. Peter Lutheran Church, which was built in 1863 and where Mrs. Straub was baptized, confirmed and married.
"She was the last of the original farm families, and the oldest surviving member of St. Peter Lutheran Church," says her daughter, Carolyn Gyurnek of Schaumburg. "She took such pride in that."
Mrs. Straub was the sixth of seven children born to Herman and Anna Botterman on their farm, located near Route 53 and Higgins Road. The dairy farm had been settled in the 1800s by her German immigrant grandparents.
Her father, Herman Botterman, was born before the Civil War in 1853, and he and his siblings were members of St. Peter Lutheran Church. Mrs. Straub's brother, Alvin, was the last to farm the family's acres. He finally sold it to developers after nearby Woodfield Shopping Center went up.
"I wish I could go back to those days," Straub said in an interview last year with the Daily Herald. "You'd get up early and start by feeding the chickens and the ducks and the geese. Those were full days."
As a child, she fed the farm animals in the morning, before walking with her older siblings to the one-room East District School of St. Peter Lutheran Church in Schaumburg.
When she returned home she had to change her clothes to resume her farm chores, which ranged from picking vegetables for a neighbor's roadside stand, to cherries to sell in baskets along Roselle Road. She milked the cows when needed, and drove the tractor while the men baled the hay.
Schaumburg historians recorded Mrs. Straub's oral history for their "Preserving Schaumburg History" project, and it is stored in Schaumburg Township District Library's digital archives.
Mrs. Straub met her husband, Albert, at a box social at a neighboring farm. When they married in 1936, they moved to his dairy farm on Wise Road in Schaumburg. They worked the land together until they sold it to developers in 1960.
Her work didn't stop there. Both she and her husband went to work as bus drivers for Walter Fiene who started the Schaumburg Transportation service. They started driving area children to St. Peter's, but their routes soon expanded to include Schaumburg Township Elementary District 54 students, before leading to Palatine Schaumburg High School District 211, where Straub was the first woman driver.
She finally retired from driving at the age of 80.
Leaders of St. Peter's Church are mourning her passing as the end of an era.
"She was a mainstay in our congregation, and one of the last of the remaining links to some of the original settlers," says Senior Pastor David Hudak. "But beyond that, she was a faithful member all of her life."
Besides her daughter, Mrs. Straub is survived by another daughter, Beverly (James) Shuttle of Phoenix, as well as five grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.