Forty Years Ago

Most small business and supermarket retail robberies follow a formula. A light-fingered customer stuffs merchandise into pockets, pants, body cavities – whatever; anything to get the goodies past the cashier. Once outside, he or she is caught. Sometimes a chase takes place lasting three, maybe four or five blocks, usually ending with the wrongdoer huddled under somebody’s front porch. Not this time.

Officer Archambault responded to the Zayers’ security call by pursuing the desperate one many meters, thither and yon, across parking lot, down hill, up valley, past meadow, mead, scrubland and tombstones, down to the edge of the DesPlaines River in the Forest Home Cemetery. The quarry was apprehended next to an open grave containing a (never worn) windbreaker and shirt – just part of the fellow’s booty.

From the June 13, 1968, Forest Park Review

Thirty Years Ago

The headline read, “Friends Mourn for Couple in Stabbing Deaths.” It was a tough few days for hundreds here who knew Glenn and Betty Schulz. Disbelief and grief took hold of their families and friends. The couple, lifetime Forest Park residents, had moved to Downers Grove two years before, yet kept in touch with many here.

On the evening of Wednesday, May 17 they were found stabbed to death in their bedroom. Downers Grove police theorized that since there were no signs of struggle, they may have been killed by someone they knew. Their young grandchildren, sleeping over in another bedroom, had not awakened, and nothing of value appeared to be stolen. An unconfirmed source said the murderer was a disgruntled former employee of Schulz’s at the Wilber Vault Company here.

From the May 24, 1978, Forest Park Review

Twenty Years Ago

Father Darrio Buscutti, the “Little Honcho” mentioned in a recent tribute to “Big Honcho,” Father John Fearon (St. Bernadine Church, 1980s and ’90s), is still around. He’s pastor of St. Patricia’s in Hickory Hills. And he shared the following nugget of wisdom in an issue 20 years back. It concerns what you want, and why you should want it:

A jogger is surprised when he notices a fisherman pull up a large pike, then toss it back. Intrigued, he leaves off his running to see if his eyes had deceived him. Sure enough, same thing. This time a huge perch gets tossed back. Third time, the fisherman lands a small trout, unhooks it and drops it into his creel. “?” asks the jogger. “Because I only have a small frying pan,” answers the fisherman. This parable may be a cousin to the expression, “Most people spend their lives trying to get what they want. Once they get it, only the wisest enjoy it.”

From the June 8, 1988, Forest Park Review

Ten Years Ago

In an April 1998 article that also covered the “near birth” of President Bill Clinton right here in Forest Park, and an account of the Gypsy graves at Forest Home Cemetery, came the disclosure that during the Depression our village might have had a leg up on the Baseball Hall of Fame five years before the one in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Local businessman Emery Parichy (Para-shee) was the owner of the Bloomer Girls, a women’s professional fast-pitch softball team with a home field at the site of U-Haul, Harlem and Harrison. Wilma Mae Turner was the pitcher who smoked the opposition batters. That and their lineup of hitting fools gained national attention. Parichy contacted major league ball teams and accrued a sizeable collection of photos and autographs, including those of Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio, Casey Stengel and a shot of Cub immortal pitcher Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown shaking hands with President William Howard Taft.

What happened to the museum? Early in 1991 Parichy offered to donate his collection for a proper place to display it. The village hesitated, Parichy died and the collection went to his heirs. No runs. No hits. One big error of omission.

From the April 1998 Forest Park Review