We have lost our leader. Our husband, father, grandfather, mentor and friend was injured in a fall on September 1st and left us on September 4th. He is desperately missed by all of us, but his image and example were so strong that his ideals will live on in the generations that follow.

Charles J. Hruska, Jr. was born in Chicago, Illinois, in the middle of the great depression, the son of Charles J. and Rose Hons Hruska of Berwyn. His father was so happy to have a boy that he woke up everyone in the neighborhood tooting his car horn and shouting, "It’s a boy!" He lived with his parents and two sisters, Glory and Carol, in Berwyn until he left for college at the University of Illinois in the fall of 1953. At Illinois, he pledged Sigma Pi fraternity, where he made friends that were still close to him forty-five years later. That same year he met his future wife, Donna Glenn, a small town girl from southern Illinois. They were married in 1956 and their six children can be met in these pages.

Chuck was a person who valued his privacy, yet those who knew him were not amazed at the diverse group of people who came to mourn his passing. Few were aware of the many who came to him for advice and encouragement all his life. One or two called him every day, some weekly, some only now and then, but he was always available, always encouraging and supporting. They are missing him, too.