Robert J. O’Connor, 78, a former mayor of Aurora and an alderman-at-large for 36 years, died earlier this at his home following a battle with cancer, according to his family.
He was born on Aug. 30, 1944, in Aurora. He died Sept. 15.
Aldermen who served with him are expected to honor him at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
Mayor Richard Irvin said Monday that, “Aurora has lost one of its most dedicated public servants.”
“I admire the life he lived, the lessons he taught, and the legacy he left,” Irvin said. “He is the statesman of Aurora who will forever be remembered for his commitment to Aurora, his beloved hometown.”
The public will have a chance to remember the former mayor and alderman at a visitation Oct. 16 from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. at The Healy Chapel, 332 W. Downer Place, in Aurora.
O’Connor lived a life of public service, including to his clients at his law firm that catered to real estate and estate planning. According to a biography, he was a board member of the Northern Illinois Area Agency on Aging since its creation in 1974, and was appointed by the governor’s office as a member of the Illinois Council on Aging.
He volunteered at the Dominican Literacy Center which teaches English and works on getting citizenship for immigrants to America. He also served on the Board of Directors of the Community Foundation of the Fox River Valley.
He was active in the Exchange Club of Aurora as a member, past president, and treasurer. He was a member of the Administrative Board for Phillips Park and Splash Country Aquatic Centers, the Aurora Public Library Board of Directors and the Aurora Police Foundation Board of Directors.
“Bob was one of the finest individuals that I have ever had the pleasure of working with,” said former Mayor David Stover in a posting on The Healy Chapel website. “He stood above all with honesty, integrity and morality. The city of Aurora is truly now at a loss because of his absence.”
Stover was mayor from 1997 to 2005.
O’Connor was married to his wife of 52 years, Mary. He has two sons, Thomas (Teresa Waldinger) O’Connor of North Aurora, and John (Jill) O’Connor, of Conroe, Texas. He has four grandchildren: Avery, Beckett, Mady and Kate.
O’Connor once joked that his granddaughter, Avery, said while he was mayor, “My grandpa is in charge of the whole city of Aurora, except for Grandma.”
O’Connor first ran for mayor in 1977, at age 32, against longtime state legislator Jack Hill. O’Connor lost by 32 votes.
In 1985, he mounted another citywide campaign, this time for alderman-at-large. He defeated longtime alderman-at-large Joseph Schindlbeck, and eventually succeeded him as chairman of the finance committee, a position he held for 32 years.
While O’Connor had been a local politician and non-partisan one for most of his life – he did run for state representative once as a Republican and lost.
If O’Connor had a politician he modeled himself after, it would have to be Abraham Lincoln, whom he studied, he previously told the Beacon-News. A voracious reader, O’Connor said in a 2021 interview shortly after leaving office that he considered himself a “junior Lincoln scholar,” and often presented lectures on the 16th U.S. president.
O’Connor’s love for Lincoln and his humor manifested itself in his public manner, and was evident the night he was sworn in as Aurora’s 58th mayor in October 2016. He was serving the final six months of former Mayor Tom Weisner’s third term, something Weisner approached him and asked him to do.
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It was almost 40 years from the time O’Connor sought the mayor’s office himself and lost to Hill by 32 votes.
At that time, Weisner was a political operative who had worked for Hill.
“As I said the night I was sworn in – and Tom Weisner was sitting right down in front – if he hadn’t worked so hard for Jack Hill, I might have been here a long time ago,” O’Connor said.
O’Connor also brought to public life a philosophy he said was instilled in him by his mother, that “if you can’t say something nice about someone, say nothing at all.”
“Yes, people have made mistakes, some serious,” he said. “I have had occasion where I had to deal with something. But you should always treat people with respect.”
O’Connor has several lasting monuments to his time serving the city. One is the Alderman’s Office building, on Downer Place at the Water Street Mall. It was named the Robert J. O’Connor Aldermen’s Office and dedicated when he left office in 2021.
The other is the 100 block of South Commonwealth Avenue, between Garfield and Kensington streets — where he and his wife lived for 42 years. It is named “Robert and Mary O’Connor Way,” .
While he is associated with the West Side of Aurora, O’Connor actually grew up on the East Side, in the one-time Thor Power Tool neighborhood, and was a graduate of East Aurora High School.
He also graduated from the University of Illinois and the University of Notre Dame Law School.
O’Connor was also a fan of the Green Bay Packers, and even held stock in the publicly traded professional team.
He was preceded in death by his brother, Francis “Frank” Edward O’Connor, and his parents, Charles and Georgiana (Mies) O’Connor.
In lieu of flowers, his family asks that memorial donations may be made in his honor to the Dominican Literacy Center, the Community Foundation of the Fox River Valley, or to an organization of the donor’s choice.