JAMES W. IVERSEN
James W. Iversen, Jr., age 75, of Lombard, died March 18, 2021, at his home.
Funeral Services were held Tuesday, March 23, from Brust Funeral Home, 135 S. Main St., Lombard, to St. Pius X Catholic Church, 1025 E. Madison St., Lombard.
Info: www.brustfuneralhome.com or call 888-629-0094.
EDWARD M. LASSA
Edward M. Lassa, age 87, of Lombard, died March 18, 2021, at Elmhurst Hospital.
Funeral Services were held Wednesday, March 24, at Christ the King Church, 1501 S. Main St., Lombard. Interment followed at Queen of Heaven Cemetery, Hillside.
Arrangements were made by Brust Funeral Home. Visit www.brustfuneralhome.com or call 888-629-0094 for information.
FRANCES JEAN WEINERT
Frances Jean Weinert passed away peacefully on March 16, 2021 at Arbor Terrace, a memory care community in Naperville, Illinois, at the age of 96. She was born on September 11, 1924, in Oak Park, Illinois, the cherished first child of Russell and Bertha (Lange) Acton. Frances was baptized into Christ shortly after birth.
Russell and Bertha had four more children, all boys, and being a big sister trained Frances well to become the encouraging and patient mother she was. She attended St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran School in Lombard, where she excelled academically and loved to sing in the choir. She was confirmed at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1938 and remained a lifelong member. She attended Glenbard West High School, where she studied French and Latin, and developed into a talented artist with a lifelong appreciation of art.
After high school she went to work for First National Bank in Chicago. She enjoyed taking the train downtown, and her circle of friends, but found the work dull. So, in 1945 she enlisted in the US Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), telling her folks only afterwards. Why the WAVES and not the WACS? “They had the best uniforms,” she quipped.
She did her basic training at Hunter College in the Bronx, graduated top of her class, and trained as a control tower operator. She was assigned to Naval Station Puget Sound at Sand Point outside Seattle, where she worked in the tower repatriating naval aircraft from the Pacific (her first choice had been Pearl Harbor, because it was “as far from home as I could go,” but by then the Navy was no longer sending WAVES to the Pacific theater. Seattle was second farthest).
After her discharge from the Reserves in 1946, she attended the University of Illinois at Navy Pier for a time. She married Roumane “Ro” Weinert on March 5, 1949, at St. John’s, and Steven was born in January 1950. Six more children followed over the next 15 years.
Fran was a loving and encouraging mother who was a patient teacher and an expert editor. The family took annual month-long camping trips every August, exploring the U.S. and Canada, instilling in all of us a love of travel and an appreciation for the scope and diversity of the country.
In midlife, Fran earned an associate’s degree in interior design. She enjoyed her work with clients and in her children’s and grandchildren’s homes, often designing and creating the drapes and upholstered pieces.
After Roumane’s retirement, they travelled to Europe, Scandinavia and Russia. When son Michael and family moved to France and later Mexico, she and Ro visited several times. After Ro died in 2006, she moved to a condo in downtown Lombard and spent many happy years there, enjoying a wonderful view of the town where she had spent most of her life. Fran possessed a rare combination of qualities that made her one of a kind, and for which we will always remember her: intelligence, warmth, creativity, imagination, energy, self-control, faithfulness, perseverance and devotion to family.
Fran is survived by her seven children, Steven (LaRae) Weinert, Sharon (Rick) Schmidt, Michael (Cindy) Weinert, Joel (Joan) Weinert, Susan (Brad) Oberling, Tina (Joe) Conte and David (Andrea) Weinert; 26 grandchildren; 34 great-grandchildren; brothers George Acton and Raymond Acton; sister-in-law Ruth (Weinert) Wittenberg; and many nieces, nephews and cousins. She is preceded in death by her husband Roumane, parents Russell and Bertha and brothers Vernon “Bud” Acton and Robert Acton.
A private viewing for the immediate family was held at Brust Funeral Home, 135 S. Main St., Lombard, on March 19, 2021. A funeral service for the immediate family was held on March 20, 2021, at Mount Emblem Cemetery in Elmhurst, Illinois, the Rev. Dan Wegrzyn officiating. Plans for a service in celebration of Frances’ life will be announced at a later date. We would like to extend our gratitude to the staff at Arbor Terrace Naperville for their attentiveness and loving care. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made in Frances’ name to St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lombard.
Visit www.brustfuneralhome.com or call 888-629-0094 for info.
