‘He left us such a gift’: In ‘Love From the Front … and Beyond,’ daughter shares WWII vet’s stories

It’s been about 30 years since I participated in some nasty work with Bill Wiebmer of St. Charles and other fellows in our service club.

It was a cleanup detail along Randall Road as part of the national Adopt-A-Highway program, in which the Tri-Cities Exchange Club recruited volunteers to pick up litter along the highways. The term “nasty” fits because Wiebmer pulled what appeared to be a large piece of plastic wrap from the ground — and it had some ungodly substance on it that delivered an odor strong enough to knock over an elephant.

He didn’t say a word. He tucked it away in his garbage bag, and we went about our business. It may seem like an odd recollection of the late Wiebmer, but it spoke to his quiet demeanor and devotion to helping his community.

Years later, I wrote about one of Wiebmer’s proudest moments when, at age 82, he was the oldest Quincy High School alum/athlete to show up for the school’s 100th anniversary basketball reunion game in 2007.

In faltering health at the time, he quipped that he couldn’t lean over to pick up the basketball or tie his shoes. But he went up and down the basketball floor a few times and talked about that for weeks afterward.

He passed away in 2009 at age 84.

There had to be much more to this really nice fellow who served in the Navy in World War II and the Korean War. His daughter, Janet Wiebmer Gianfrancesco of Sycamore, felt the same way — and she had to know him better than most others, even those who lived near him or were friends during his 40 years in St. Charles.

Or did she? When looking through hundreds of letters Bill wrote to family and friends during his time in the service, Janet realized there was plenty she didn’t know. She decided to share it through an autobiography about her father titled, “Love From The Front … And Beyond.”

“This autobiography was a love story he wrote for my mom and siblings,” Janet said. “The meaning of it to me is that he left us such a gift.”

It was a learning experience for Janet, now 60, as she was able to “get to know my father as a young child, through his years as a young man, how he courted my mom, and other things.”

The letters and their revelations fueled Janet’s mission to tell her father’s story through the letters he sent home during his military stints on Wake Island and in Korea. Of course, there were various other recollections and experiences he wrote about.

The book forever shares the letters of a young sailor serving his country, finding the love of his life, Barbara, and growing into a family man and the type of guy you’d want living in your community.

The book has some meaning, even if you did not know Bill Wiebmer. It tells us what it means to keep a parent’s life and influence moving forward to future generations.

“I want to encourage those who read the book to reflect on their family and pass down the stories, and traditions unique to them,” Janet said. “If they are fortunate to have a parent or grandparent still living, take the time to sit and talk with them about their lives.

“Keep a journal,” she added. “Pass the stories down. When they are gone, you will wish you had.”

The paperback “Love From The Front … And Beyond” from Laurel Hill Publishing is available on Amazon.

In addition to an entry about the reunion basketball game in Quincy, future generations of Wiebmers would also find out that Bill rubbed elbows with greatness when he ran into Elvis Presley in a hotel elevator in St. Louis.

It was early in Elvis’ career, the book tells us, as Bill wasn’t quite sure who he had just seen.

“I was waiting for the elevator to go to my room when a man burst through the hotel doors accompanied by security guards,” Bill wrote. “He was followed by several teenage girls.

“The security guards took over the elevator and the entertainer got in while we had to wait,” he noted. “I asked at the desk who he was and was told it was Elvis Presley. I had never heard of him.”

They also might be curious to know that during his time at the University of Illinois, Bill roomed with a future technology leader and Nobel Prize winner for physics. Jack Kilby became a famous inventor, a key invention being the handheld calculator and later computer microchips.

Ultimately, you look for clues in a book like this to learn how good people lead their lives — and what steered them to do so. And what sort of things they did to make their community a better place to live.

When asked what he considered the best advice he ever received, Bill simply said: “Be yourself. Don’t change for others.”

Bill Wiebmer’s “self” was certainly a model worth emulating.

Bring me a shake bar:

It’s been about 35 years since mentioning in my column that it would be great for the Tri-Cities area to have a Portillo’s Hot Dogs.

Portillo’s was well known in suburbs east of the Tri-Cities, and I was a fan of the restaurant’s Italian Beef sandwiches.

Not long after the column appeared, Dick Portillo sent me a letter, saying he was indeed looking at the Tri-Cities area for a location and that he appreciated me mentioning his business.

A few years later, Batavia had a Portillo’s on Randall Road, and St. Charles had one on East Main Street. It’s good that I caught Dick Portillo early on, as he eventually sold his restaurants to Berkshire Partners in 2014.

What my request had to do with anything is up for debate, but I figured it’s worth a try again.

This time, I wouldn’t mind seeing a JoJo’s shakeBar turn up in any one of several open spaces in downtowns throughout the Tri-Cities.

I have received feedback only from family and friends who have been to the one on Jackson Avenue in Naperville. Anyone who has never been to one of these places needs only to visit jojosshakebar.com to see the shake creations and food menu.

I’d take this as a fun dining place for families over another bar and grill anytime (and I do like the bar-and-grill business model, but we have enough of those).

It’s not likely I could devour one of Jo Jo’s signature shakes in one sitting, but I wouldn’t rule it out. But just about everything on the menu at this place appeals to me.

If anyone from Jo Jo’s comes across this column, just keep us in mind.

Going to the bikes:

Rex Morrison operated an excellent restaurant on the east side of St. Charles for decades, as Rex’s Cork ‘n Fork had become a favorite of so many in the St. Charles area.

It started out in the late 1950s as Rex’s Driv-In restaurant with carhops coming out to cars to take orders and deliver food on a tray to attach to the driver’s side window. Yes, that’s a trip down memory lane.

The drive-in concept eventually morphed into more of a fine dining location in the 1970s.

Of course, time marches on. With the retirement of Morrison and his passing in 2007, the location was sold and eventually converted to other businesses, including a pet care and kennel operation.

But that site, at 1317 E. Main St., is about to become the St. Charles Motorcycle Museum and Art Gallery. Never thought I’d be mentioning Morrison’s old restaurant in the same sentence with a motorcycle museum. But there it is.

Organizers are targeting a September opening this year, so we’ll have an interesting new place for motorcycle lovers and others from throughout the region to visit.

And you can bet a burger from Rex’s Driv-In that a few motorcycles pulled into this place 60-plus years ago to chat with carhops and order food.

The empty mall puzzle:

I enjoy seeing movies at Classic Cinemas in St. Charles because it is a comfortable and clean theater — and it’s interesting to glance at the excellent art on the hallway walls depicting various locations in the Tri-Cities.

The theater complex remains part of the long defunct Charlestowne Mall, which I wrote off long ago as a problem apparently too big for anyone to agree on and solve as to what happens next.

Ideas and plans have always had the backdrop of several different owners with various levels of funding and follow-through, thus tying the hands of city councils hoping to solve the puzzle.

So far, the puzzle has won.

In the meantime, the city has turned to developer Greco Investment Management to create a retail strip called Fox Haven Square on empty land near the shuttered mall. The new development, complete with a plan to take advantage of the popularity of pickleball, sounds great on paper. It doesn’t take away from the viewpoint that most of us have lost track of what coulda, shoulda or woulda happened at Charlestowne Mall. The more disappointing side of that is many of us have lost interest.

But I am glad the movie theater still calls it home. And those who like the Von Maur department store on the other side of the mall structure probably feel the same.

dheun@sbcglobal.net