Interesting obituaries

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-hed-sapp-05-mar05,0,5671566.story

Robert J. Sapp, 1923-2009; 2nd-generation ice-cream shop owner

School building engineer followed his dad in serving signature dish at Original Rainbow Cone in Chicago's Beverly neighborhood

By Trevor Jensen | Tribune reporter | March 5, 2009

Robert J. Sapp grew up above his family's ice cream shop, eating crushed cones with milk for breakfast during the Depression.

The little store on a then-desolate stretch of South Western Avenue made its mark early on as a stop for families visiting the many nearby cemeteries, and Original Rainbow Cone remains a Chicago institution under third-generation ownership.

Mr. Sapp, 85, a longtime resident of Chicago's Beverly neighborhood, died of natural causes Tuesday, March 3, at Hope Hospice in Bonita Springs, Fla., said his daughter, Lynn Sapp-Stenson.

Mr. Sapp was just short of 3 years old when his parents opened Rainbow Lodge on Western Avenue, then moved the shop a couple years later to Original Rainbow Cone's current location at 9233 S. Western Ave.

His father, Joseph, a former Buick mechanic from Ohio, saw the opportunity for growth in the far southwest corner of Chicago. The family at first lived behind the store, then built a second-story apartment.

Joseph Sapp also invented the shop's signature dish, slabs of chocolate, strawberry, pistachio and Palmer House ice cream and orange sherbet.

Mr. Sapp helped out around the shop from a young age and was a soda jerk through his years at St. Rita High School. He had started classes at Xavier University but then served in the Army in the Pacific during World War II.

Returning to Chicago, he began a career as a building engineer with Chicago's schools, working at Foster Park, Green and Barnard Elementary Schools over a 36-year career.

He continued to work nights and weekends at the Original Rainbow Cone, taking over the business when his father retired in the 1960s, then selling it to his daughter Lynn in 1987. He never changed much at the store, and its reputation grew.

Other survivors include his wife of 59 years, Jean; two sons, Robert Jr. and Thomas; another daughter, Kathi Brizek; and three grandchildren.

Visitation is from 2 to 9 p.m. Sunday in Brady-Gill Funeral Home, 2929 W. 87th St., Evergreen Park. Mass will be said at 10 a.m. Monday in Christ the King Catholic Church, 9235 S. Hamilton Ave., Chicago.

Chicago Tribune wrote:Richard Pegue 1944-2009

Richard Pegue, 1944-2009: Disc jockey who spun dusties on Chicago radio
By Trevor Jensen | Tribune reporter
March 5, 2009
Richard Pegue, best known as an on-air spinner of "dusties" on Chicago radio, was also a savvy promoter and station manager who contributed to WGCI's rise to a ratings power.

Mr. Pegue (pronounced like McGee), 64, died of heart failure Tuesday, March 3, according to WVON, one of his former stations. He was a resident of South Holland.
...

At Hirsch High School, Mr. Hegue started a doo-wop group and wrote music. He later wrote "I'm Not Ready to Settle Down," which was recorded by the Cheers.

His best-known composition is likely the long-running jingle for Moo & Oink markets: "Wave for catfish—Moo & Oink! Scream for ribs—Moo & Oink!"

The jingle was replaced in 2006 by a rap number to appeal to younger people.

"They talk a different language," Mr. Pegue said philosophically in a Tribune story. "I'm more into the classics."

Moo and Oink commercial

That's a damn catchy tune!

Odd that, at the close, they don't list the Madison St. location...

I wonder if he also performed the song.

I'm always struck, when I encounter news like this, by the realization that there are many people out there that create the infrastructure of life, making little contributions we don't even think about -- not always significant, but still part of the world around us.

Taco Bell founder dead at 86 wrote:...
"Glen Bell was a visionary and innovator in the restaurant industry, as well as a dedicated family man," Greg Creed, president of Taco Bell, said in the statement.

Bell launched his first restaurant, called Bell's Drive-In, in 1948 in San Bernardino after seeing the success of McDonald's. His restaurant sought to take advantage of Southern California's car culture by serving hamburgers and hot dogs through drive-in windows.

The World War II veteran next helped establish Taco Tias in Los Angeles, El Tacos in the Long Beach area, and Der Wienerschnitzel, a national hot dog chain.

Bell launched Taco Bell in 1962 in Downey after cutting ties with his business partners and quickly expanding around Los Angeles.

He sold the first Taco Bell franchise in 1964. In 1978, Bell sold his 868 Taco Bell restaurants to PepsiCo for $125 million in stock.
...

RIP. Taco Bell made my "enhanced" nights as a youth all the more tasty. I don't frequent the Bell as often, but back then, it was a great compliment to a long night out

Having gone to college in southern California, we relied heavily on Taco Bell back in the day. I had been eating Mexican food for years, but it was still not common everywhere, and I can remember the ads they ran back then: they'd talk about how American their tacos were, with beef from Colorado, lettuce and tomatoes from California, and cheese from Wisconsin, then ended with the tag line, "Think of it as a cheeseburger that goes 'crunch.'"

When I was back in California a few years ago, for a college reunion, I visited a friend who was giving a speech at some event honoring Glenn Bell, because apparently he was a major philanthropist, plowing pretty much everything he made into charitabe and educational organizations. It made me glad I'd eaten so many of those enchuritos during my student days.

Sorry to lose him. Taco Bell is not what it was when it started, but it was still fun and reliable and may have done more to introduce Americans to the idea of Mexican food (if not exactly authentic Mexican food) than anyone else.

He was like a Norman Borlaug for stoners.

Never has one man done so much for so many with 4 ingredients...

Who discovered the hard shell taco?

In a Glenn Bell obit, he was credited with inventing the hard shell taco. The link above disputes this with information on how the hard shell taco evolved.

Hard shell taco b. 1948.

Regards,

Robert J. Hastert, 1936 - 2010, Ran White Fence Farm restaurants

Robert J. Hastert helped transform a rural southwest suburban estate bought by his father into a landmark family-style restaurant known for its succulent fried chicken and friendly atmosphere.

Today, the White Fence Farm restaurant on Joliet Road near Romeoville seats 1,100 people in 12 dining rooms.
...

Born in Aurora, Mr. Hastert worked in his father's poultry business as a boy, delivering chickens to restaurants. Robert C. Hastert, his dad, bought the site of White Fence Farm in 1953. It had been the 450-acre estate of coal tycoon Stuyvesant Peabody on the old U.S. Route 66.

Peabody had converted the farmhouse to a hamburger stand in the 1920s. Robert C. Hastert saw the potential for drawing crowds to what was then still farm country by serving hearty chicken dinners at an expanded restaurant, Laura Hastert-Gardner said.
...
In the late 1960s, Mr. Hastert began opening satellite carry-out White Fence Farm locations "to get the food to the people," his daughter said. There are now four White Fence Farm locations besides the original one near Romeoville.

Mr. Hastert also allowed the White Fence Farm name to be used on one other restaurant — an eatery run by a family in Lakewood, Colo., his daughter said.
...
His first cousin, J. Dennis Hastert, is the former U.S. House Speaker.

His father had the "Build it and they will come" foresight when opening in a largely rural area though now part of the Chicago suburbs.

Regards,

Morrie Yohai, 90, the Man Behind Cheez Doodles, Is Dead

When I lived in Maryland, Cheez Doodles was my favorite after school snack.

The millions of snackers who can’t stop munching Cheez Doodles, those air-puffed tubes of cheddar-flavored corn meal, owe all that pleasure to Morrie Yohai — although he insisted on spreading the credit.

Mr. Yohai, who always said it was “we” who “developed” rather than invented the snack — sharing the acclaim with colleagues at the factory he owned in the Bronx — died on July 27 at his home in Kings Point, N.Y., at the age of 90, his son, Robbie, said.

...

Mr. Yohai (pronounced yo-high) was the president of Old London Foods, the company founded by his father in the early 1920s and then called King Kone, which first produced ice cream cones and later popcorn, cheese crackers and Melba Toast.

“They were looking for a new salty snack and became aware of a machine that processed corn meal under high pressure into a long tube shape,” Robbie Yohai said on Monday. “They also discovered that if they used a high-speed blade, similar to a propeller, they could cut three-inch-long tubes, which then could be flavored with orange cheddar cheese and seasonings.” Then baked, not fried.

Although Mr. Yohai insisted on the “we” credit for the recipe, he did say that he came up with the product name. First marketed in the late 1950s, Cheez Doodles soon became so popular that by 1965, Old London Foods was bought by Borden, and Mr. Yohai became vice president of Borden’s snack food division, which among other products made Drake’s Cakes and Cracker Jack.

One of his duties, he said, was sitting around a table with other executives and choosing which tiny toys would be stuffed into Cracker Jack boxes.

...

Design credit notwithstanding, Mr. Yohai took pride in the popularity of Cheez Doodles. At his home, he kept a photograph of Julia Child digging into a bag.

In 2004, he, his wife and children visited a museum in Napa Valley, Calif., where an artist, Sandy Skoglund, had mounted a life-size installation showing several people at a cocktail party — all covered in Cheez Doodles.

“My mother told everyone in the entire museum that he invented them,” Robbie Yohai said.

Morton Steinberg, owner of Mort's Deli: 1935-2010

Condolences to Patty Erd of The Spice House and William T. Penzey Jr. of Penzeys Spices on the death of their father, William T. Penzey Sr., founder of The Spice House in Milwaukee.

Paul WIldermuth, 1964-2010

abe_froeman wrote:Paul WIldermuth, 1964-2010

So sad to see this...one of my favorite cooking classes I ever took was a hands-on Thanksgiving class taught by Paul at Marche--right around this time 3 years ago. He was so dynamic and engaging--it was a lot of fun, as well as informative. I had wondered where he went...

Really a shame. So young, and such a knowledgeable and enthusiastic chef.

My Dad, Bill Penzey Sr., died on September 22, 2010. My husband and I were hosting our 25 year wedding anniversary party that weekend, and we turned it into a wake for my Dad. The venue for our anniversary party, alread paid for, was the Best Place at the old Pabst Brewery, and we thought my Dad would have enjoyed that. Even though it was a totally vacant part of town on a Sunday, a parking checker decided to give us all parking tickets, including the hearse. One of our Wauwatosa neighbors is a writer for the Milwaukee newspaper. This is a link to the best response ever to an idiotic parking ticketer. http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/103977429.html My Dad would have really had the last laugh here. On the next day, Keith Olberman, on television, listed this ticketer as the worst person on Earth. And a few weeks later, a funeral researcher from Ireland posted that in all of his years of research of funerals throughout time, he had NEVER found a hearse had been ticketed. This might go down in history as a first. So way to go Dad, you always had the trump card. We miss you very much.

Patty,

Thanks for the link and the story on the funeral party receiving parking tickets.

I hope your Dad was pleased to be waked at the Pabst Brewery Bar. I sensed he had a great sense of history and would have loved everything about this unique funeral.

Sorry for your loss.

Regards,
Cathy

Sylvia Lenell Bocskay, 1923-2010, Co-owner of Maurice Lenell family cookie business,

Sylvia Lenell Bocskay, 87, a savvy businesswoman and vibrant member of the Swedish immigrant family that founded Chicago's Maurice Lenell Cooky Co., died of natural causes Friday, Dec. 3, in her Des Plaines home, her family said.

In 1937, Swedish brothers Hans and Gunnar Lenell, along with Agaard Billing, founded a small general bakery in Chicago, naming the business after Hans Lenell's first son, Eric Maurice Lenell.

By the 1960s, the family business had grown to become a Chicago institution and one of the city's largest bakeries exclusively devoted to making cookies.

Mrs. Bocskay, Hans Lenell's daughter and co-owner of the cookie company, was the corporate secretary and helped oversee the process where her father's homemade cookies became available for mass production.

...

The family sold the business in 1987, and in December 2008, the Maurice Lenell bakery shut down operations and sold its equipment and trademarks to Ohio-based Consolidated Biscuit. This month, a new Chicago store started selling the beloved Maurice Lenell cookies once again.

Merle Ellis was the author of Cutting Up in the Kitchen, one of the better books on butchering.

http://www.marinij.com/ci_14304213

Proof of his passion was in the pie

William F. "Papa" Passero loved his pizza, his movies and his family, and he wanted the public to love them too.

So he blended his passions into a family-run pizzeria, Papa Passero's Pizza in Westmont, where he adorned the walls with original 1940s and '50s movie posters and peppered his menu with a litany of pizzas and other favorites he culled from his Italian ancestors.

...

Mr. Passero was co-owner of Manor Pizza in Cicero during the 1950s, but he left the restaurant business for the financial stability of construction work while raising his family.

But the father of three missed the pizza game too much, and in 1975, he bought a trilevel house on Cass Avenue in Westmont, where two years later he opened his restaurant. He continued to live there with his family for a short time later before moving to a home in Willowbrook.

"We just kept getting more and more customers, so eventually we moved out to allow for more seating," his wife said.
...

Paul Robinson, who, with Joe Gilbert, invented the fern-bar concept, originating with Houlihan's Old Place on Kansas City's famed Country Club Plaza. The rest, as they say, is history.


Geo

Donald J. Tyson, Food Tycoon, Is Dead at 80 - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/busin ... ref=dining

Nathan "Nate" Batt, age 93, of Northbrook, owned the famous Mama Batt's Restaurant. http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/chicag ... &fhid=6785

Most shocking of all was Ric Hess of Sheffield's at the age of 50, met him once and spent a few hours chatting, nice guy...my friend Mark wrote up a nice obit on Chicago Foodies.http://www.chicagofoodies.com/2011/01/ric-hess-thank-you-for-bettering-the-chicago-beer-community.html

I believe he was actually 48 which would make the dates '62 or '63 to 2010 (2000???)--not sure how you came up with this exactly but it seems kinda disrespectful to have the thread title be so whack.

Sorry I didn't mean to be inconsiderate. I apologize.

René Verdon, French Chef for the Kennedys, Dies at 86

Mr. Verdon brought French culinary flair to the White House, long a headquarters for dull institutional cooking often supplied by outside caterers. Thanks in large part to Jacqueline Kennedy, a walking advertisement for French style, it was a time when the American public was highly receptive to all messages emanating from Paris.

French cooking, in particular, would soon become a passion for home cooks, with the publication of the first volume of “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck, just a few months after Mr. Verdon took up his White House post.

Mr. Verdon took full advantage of his platform, elevating standards at the White House overnight and contributing in no small part to the shimmering atmosphere of Camelot

Marie Wuczynski, 1922-2011: Charismatic bartender ruled at Marie's Rip Tide Lounge

Marie Wuczynski could be found most nights holding court at her Bucktown bar, a shot of Jägermeister, a glass of soda and a pack of Parliaments within easy reach.

The ebullient queen of Marie's Rip Tide Lounge on Armitage Avenue, known for her towering pouf of whitish-blonde hair and bawdy sense of humor, danced and sang along to tunes from the old-time jukebox into the wee hours, entertaining an ever-changing late-night crowd.

"That was Marie," said Leo Zak, a bartender at the Riptide. "She made you feel like you belonged,"

Mrs. Wuczynski, 88, died of heart failure Monday, Feb. 7, at her home one flight above the tavern, said longtime friend and co-worker Tina Congenie.

I only visited Marie's Rip Tide Lounge a couple of times, but was luckily enough to meet Marie on my first visit. She bought a round of drinks for my friends and me, poured a Jägermeister for herself, and sat and talked with us for a while. None of us were regulars. She seemed like a very sweet person.