'Never did anything easy' made life fun time for him
In 1978, Robert and Margaret Lonze decided to sell their 40-acre farm along Roselle Road in Inverness to the developer of the Shires of Inverness, but with one stipulation: that they keep their home.
That summer, they moved their 5,000-square-foot brick home through the wetland area one mile north to settle it in another subdivision in Inverness.
"My father never did anything easily," quips his daughter, Mary Jo Hoffman of Long Grove.
In fact, his life was filled with high-flying adventures, literally all over the world, from bungee jumping off a bridge in New Zealand at the age of 75, to traveling to China and sleeping in a yurt in the Mongolian desert, at the age of 88. Family members reflected on his many travels and accomplishments this week after Mr. Lonze died on Saturday at the age of 90.
His taste for world adventures may have started back in 1934 when as a member of the National Guard's 122nd field artillery unit, he was assigned to drive a horse-drawn caisson during public ceremonies at the Chicago World's Fair.
By 1939, Mr. Lonze had moved on with his two brothers, Erv and Art, to start his own tool and die company, Tool & Manufacturing in Chicago. The plant produced parts for everything from roller skates to manufacturing parts for Honeywell.
They also filled government contracts, and unbeknown to them at the time, Mr. Lonze's daughter recalls that they manufactured parts for the Manhattan Project creating the atomic bomb used against Japan at the end of World War II.
"They only found out after the war," Hoffman adds.
Mr. Lonze met his wife, Margaret, at the Aragon Ballroom, and the couple married in 1940. After originally living in Chicago, the couple moved to Arlington Heights, where they were among the first families to start Our Lady of the Wayside Church.
By the early 1960s, Mr. Lonze realized one of his dreams - that of becoming a gentleman farmer - when the couple moved to the Inverness property. There, they raised their six daughters and one son.
"My father was insistent that all of his daughters learn how to take care of themselves, and fix things," Hoffman adds. "He taught us that we could do anything."
After to moving to Inverness, Mr. Lonze began teaching tool and die making in shop classes at Harper College, which opened in 1968 literally across the street from the family farm.
In the 1980s, Mr. Lonze and his wife moved to Mundelein, where he began teaching the same shop classes at the College of Lake County in Grayslake.
Through it all, family members say, Mr. Lonze worked out to keep physically fit. At the Buehler YMCA, he was an inspiration as members watched him lift weights well into his 80s in the fitness center.
"He was so proud of the fact that he could almost bench his body weight, which was 160 pounds, and that he had a 22 body mass index," Hoffman says.
Mr. Lonze was preceded in death by his wife of 62 years, Margaret, in 2002. Besides his daughter, he is survived by his children Kathy (William) Terry of Prescott, Ariz.; Thomas (Marilee) Lonze of Round Lake Beach; Christina (Shannon) Ball of Dallas; Mary Anne Lonze (Tom Kennedy) of Chicago; Laurelle (David) Stuart of Libertyville; and Margaret "Marry" (Greg) Black of Vernon Hills; as well as 22 grandchildren; 15 great-grandchildren; and one great-great-grandchild.
A funeral Mass will take place at 9:30 a.m. Friday at Our Lady of the Wayside Catholic Church, 432 W. Park St. in Arlington Heights.