An ardent voice for Naperville and its people went silent Sunday when lifelong resident and community activist Don Wehrli passed away after a brief illness.
The father of several prominent city residents — and a former City Councilman himself — Mr. Wehrli, 87, died in his sleep Sunday morning, his daughter Mary Lou Wehrli said.
Those closest to him spoke of his unfaltering loyalty to the place he called home.
“Dad loved our nation, and our city of Naperville,” daughter Annette Wehrli said. “He loved volunteering for all the many special events. And he loved to pass on his attitude: that attitude is everything.”
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Known in recent years for describing himself as a “retired city councilman who has no political agenda,” Mr. Wehrli was a member of the Naperville High School class of 1946. He served in the U.S. Army as a cost accountant during the Korean War, and worked in sales while he and his wife of 63 years, Jean Wehrli, raised their seven children in Naperville.
“If you were raising a family and needed a lot of money, you had to work hard physically. Today it’s more mental,” Mr. Wehrli told The Sun in a 2001 article.
His youngest son, former City Council member Grant Wehrli, described the family patriarch as an independent thinker.
“He certainly lived life on his own terms, and dying was no different,” he said, echoing his sister’s observation about Mr. Wehrli’s passionate attachment to Naperville. “You always knew what his opinion was, whether you wanted to or not.”
Now a member of the Illinois state House, Grant Wehrli recalls his father awakening him early to go lay bricks with other volunteers on the Riverwalk. He remembers taking in many band concerts in Mr. Wehrli’s beloved Central Park. He is certain his own decision to enter public life was informed by his dad’s example.
“His time on City Council, I was in high school then,” he said, recalling the thick stacks of paper the council members then would have to read through before every meeting. “I thought he was crazy to be doing that.”
Mr. Wehrli’s steadfast dedication to community left an impression on his six older brothers and sisters as well, he said. Mary Lou Wehrli said her other siblings’ service on advisory boards and other volunteer positions, and her own tenure as a Naperville Park District commissioner and now a member of the DuPage Forest Preserve District board, were influenced directly by their father. She said she would like Mr. Wehrli to be remembered “as someone who believed in himself, and someone who wanted others to believe in their strengths as well.”
Her dad “could ruffle feathers,” she noted, but living in a town that grew over his lifetime from 3,000 residents to 144,000 today only made him a more interesting person.
“Everybody’s got Don Wehrli stories, and they’re fun to hear,” Mary Lou Wehrli said.
After serving on the City Council from 1983 to 1987, Mr. Wehrli worked with his brother, Dukane Precast owner Dick Wehrli, building “little warehouses and additions,” he said in the 2001 story in The Sun. After his retirement, he established Naperville Trolley & Tours in 1995, becoming its first trolley master.
“He always rolled over into something else,” Mary Lou Wehrli said. “The trolley business really was his energy, and he didn’t start that until he was in his 60s.”
Mr. Wehrli later advocated extensively for restoration of Central Park to its former size and openness, pressing for removal of parking spaces and addition of public bathrooms. The City Council moved forward with construction of the rest rooms two years ago, but the park has yet to be returned to its original 3.8-acre expanse.
“”He loved that park,” said former Mayor Peg Price, who served alongside Mr. Wehrli in the first of her two terms in the city’s top office.
The two didn’t always agree on issues, but Price remembers Mr. Wehrli as an exceedingly decent man.
“There were times when he had a very different agenda than anyone else in the world, but he was always a very good, kind man,” Price said Sunday.
She recalled his flair for baking as well.
“That was always a highlight when Don was involved, because he would bake sticky buns and bring them,” she said, adding that his successes also extended to being father to Mary Lou, Win, Fred, Jill, Francie, Annette and Grant Wehrli. “He and Jean raised a bunch of really great kids.”
In his recollections for The Sun 14 years ago, Mr. Wehrli described growing up in a littler community at a simpler time.
“In the older days when the town was a lot smaller, friendships were more sincere and they were lasting. Today, people are always moving around,” he said.
Visitation will be from 2 to 9 p.m. Wednesday at Friedrich-Jones Funeral Home, 44 S. Mill St., Naperville. A funeral Mass is scheduled for 11 a.m. Thursday at SS Peter & Paul Catholic Church, 36 N. Ellsworth St., Naperville, with interment immediately following at SS Peter & Paul Cemetery.
More information can be found at http://www.friedrichjones.com/obits/obituaries.php/obitID/454283/obit/Donald-E-Wehrli.
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