Itasca's first female mayor remembered for serving 'on the forefront' of feminism

A longtime leader and the first female mayor of Itasca, Shirley Helen Ketter was a voice for a changing time.

Ketter served as a village trustee for 12 years and mayor for another 12 from 1973 to 1997, and she stayed involved after stepping down from office, her only child, Barry Ketter, said Saturday. She died Tuesday after a fall at age 90.

Ketter was born in Chicago as Shirley Renner and married Robert Ketter before moving to Itasca in 1954. Her husband died three years later, when he was 29, which led Ketter to "reinvent herself," her relatives wrote in her obituary.

She went to work, first in human resource management for Beltronics and later for the Illinois Department of Transportation. And she started to get to know more people in the Itasca of the 1960s and '70s, which relatives described as a northern DuPage County hamlet with quiet charm and a quaint downtown.

"The town was good to her, and she took an interest in it," her son said.

By 1973, the year after Title IX prohibited gender discrimination in education and the same year the Supreme Court decision in the Roe v. Wade case legalized abortion, Ketter became an Itasca trustee.

"That was a time where male chauvinism was real high. She had a double cross to bear," her son said. "At that time, Itasca was a good, strong, old-boys, German community. Women weren't supposed to do certain things."

But Ketter did, both out of necessity to provide for her son and out of interest in government.

"She was on the forefront of the female movement," her son said.

While in office, Ketter got involved with the Hamilton Lakes office project, which helped create a broader commercial tax base. She took pride in an expansion of the library as well as in Springbrook Nature Center and in Usher Park, with its resident swans. And she helped bring in curbs, gutters and sidewalks to modernize neighborhoods, even though the idea was controversial, her son said.

In politics outside Itasca, Ketter worked with Illinois governors, including James Thompson, Jim Edgar and George Ryan. She attended the 1988 Republican National Convention when George H.W. Bush was running for president, and her son said she relished the memory of speaking with Jeb Bush.

Ketter leaves behind her son and his wife, two grandchildren and a sister.

Relatives, friends and village leaders will remember her during a memorial visitation from 3 to 8 p.m. and a funeral service at 9 p.m. Tuesday at The Oaks Funeral Home, 1201 E. Irving Park Road, Itasca.

Instead of flowers, the family asks well-wishers to make donations to the nature center, courtesy of the Itasca Park District, 350 E. Irving Park Road, Itasca, 60143; the Itasca Community Library, 500 W. Irving Park Road, Itasca, 60143; or a charity of the donor's choice.