Merritt King, devoted to history of, and service to, Geneva, dies at 93
A lifelong love for Geneva and a desire to preserve its charms, even as it grew, were the hallmarks of Merritt King’s life.
King, 93, died Tuesday morning at his home on Fifth Street.
“I just can’t imagine Geneva without Merritt King,” said Terry Emma, director of the Geneva History Center. “Geneva was Merritt, and Merritt was Geneva.”
The love affair began when King was 8 and his family moved to Geneva from Milwaukee.
“It was just a great place to grow up,” King said in a 1999 Daily Herald article. “It was an easy, contented life.”
King attended Geneva High School, graduating in 1938. “At that time you knew everybody. It was a great little city. Then, during the war, people started discovering we were out here,” he said.
King entered the military in April 1941, and ended up searching for the Germans’ maps and other intelligence data. After V-E Day, his unit captured soldiers guarding a truck that turned out to be loaded with maps and other documentation outlining where the Germans had placed land mines throughout France. He was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. In 2009, the French government bestowed its Legion of Honor medal on him.
Public service
King was a 2nd Ward alderman from 1963 to 1995, an era of tremendous growth in Geneva. He was a champion for retaining the historical character of the Third Street shopping district, persuading the city to install old-fashioned gas lamp streetlights and fighting in the 1990s against a streetscape plan that would have narrowed the street. More recently, he was an appointee to the Kane County Public Building Commission.
He was also involved in American Legion Post 75, serving as its president and arranging a deal wherein the legion swapped land with the Geneva Public Library so the library could expand. He was also a member of the Freemasons.
The historical society could count on King to answer questions about Geneva’s history.
“Anytime we needed an answer, he was our first contact,” Emma said.
He also supplied items for exhibits and spoke to local groups, including high school students. He was grand marshal of the Swedish Days parade, and shared wartime memories with Geneva grade-school students. He was known for being a natty dresser (“Dressed to the nines, always,” Emma said.), something he said was impressed on him as a teenager.
“In today’s world, there doesn’t seem to be any manners stressed,” King said. “You would never think of going out on a date wearing an old T-shirt, or blowing the horn and waiting for your girlfriend to come to the door. You showed some respect. That’s one of the things that bothers old-timers like me.”
And King was a regular at the annual Old Settlers Coffee held during the Swedish Days festival. “We’ll talk a lot about how Geneva’s changed,” King said in the 1999 story about the event. “Everybody loved (Geneva) when it was less than 5,000 (people) pre-World War II. ... Nothing stays the same forever. You can’t stop progress.”
His life was not without tragedy. In 2001, his nephew, Andrew King of St. Charles, was killed in the attack on the World Trade Center in New York. He was preceded in death by his wife, Lynne, and son Bryan. He is survived by his two daughters.
Funeral arrangements are pending.