Oil company executive known for his volunteer work
Every week for nearly 20 years, August S. "Gus" Hoyer would pull up to the kitchen of St. Joseph's Home for the Elderly in Palatine with his latest delivery.
Refusing any help, he would unload the 30 40-pound boxes of fruit and vegetables himself, bringing them into the kitchen run by Sr. Mary Timothy of the Little Sisters of the Poor.
Mr. Hoyer died in his sleep Saturday. The longtime Palatine resident, most recently of Arlington Heights, was 92.
Over the years, Mr. Hoyer, a retired Union Oil executive, had established relationships with area grocers and solicited their day-old produce for the nuns and their senior residents.
Officials with the home figure he arrived with deliveries two to three times a week from 1979 to 1998, and fed nearly 200 residents and the sisters who cared for them.
Since their founding in 1839 in Paris, when their founder, Jeanne Jugand, took in an elderly blind woman in her home, and then went begging to find her food, that has been a cornerstone of their ministry.
"The sisters beg five days a week, and on Wednesdays they go down to the fruit and vegetable markets in the city," says Lisa Schiro, development director. "Mr. Hoyer, through his years of service, was extending their ministry."
Jen Minarik of Mundelein, one of Mr. Hoyer's 10 grandchildren, says his kindness reflected his humble upbringing in central Pennsylvania.
His father died when he was 3, and his stepfather died when he was 16. Mr. Hoyer left school after the 12th grade to help provide for his mother and seven younger siblings.
"All through his life, he would show his love through acts of kindness," Minarik says. "Even when he was young, he was very creative and resourceful in finding whatever his family needed. "
As a teenager, he worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps on the Tennessee Valley Authority Project. Later, he joined AMSCO in New Jersey, learning to be a laboratory technician.
From those humble beginnings, Mr. Hoyer rose through the ranks to be president of the supply and distribution division of Union Oil Company of California, during years when the company became a major oil producer in southern Alaska and a major natural gas producer in the Gulf of Mexico. The company had its Midwest headquarters in Schaumburg in a building now used by Roosevelt University.
When he retired in 1982, it gave him more time to spend with his wife, Julianna, and their large extended family.
Mr. Hoyer was preceded in death by his wife, who died in 2003. He is survived by his children, Marjorie (Greg) Isbrecht of Hackettstown, N.J.; Tom (Mary) Hoyer of Rolling Meadows; Dan (Trudy) Hoyer of Palatine; John Hoyer of Denver, Colo.; Paul (Valerie) Hoyer of Boise, Idaho; Edward Hoyer of Denver; and Anne (John) Becker of Arlington Heights.
Visitation will take place from 4-8 p.m. today at Meadows Funeral Home, 3615 Kirchoff Road, before a 10 a.m. funeral Saturday at St. Colette Church, 3900 Meadow Drive, both in Rolling Meadows.