IRENE L. CUSTER

IRENE CUSTER Obituary

Irene L. Custer, nee Macarow, has passed on at 88 after a long neurological illness. A lifelong Chicagoan, she lived most of her life within a few blocks of her birthplace on 55th Street in Hyde Park. She was born to Polish and Russian immigrants in an enclave near the Lake Park streetcar turnaround, where her parents ran a speakeasy out of their apartment. She learned English when she started school at Ray Elementary School eventually entering the University of Chicago after working five years to pay for it. There she met, and after graduation married, Charles Custer of WaKeeney, KS with whom she recently celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary. After college, Irene and Charles traveled the country taking pictures in small city business districts. Then Charles started a TV repair and sales business back home in Hyde Park, in partnership with her late brother Ed. Charles turned his attention to the University of Chicago Law School and Irene took over the store. She also co-founded the first profitable business in Harper Court, Hyde Park's refuge from the urban renewal that had torn down every building she had grown up in. Irene's Harper Galleries was distinctive in renting paintings with credit towards purchase, so customers could live with art that interested them before committing to buy it. (Pictures were hardly ever returned.) Charles boasted that she was a natural business and marketing genius, whose gifts also contributed to the creation of the Ancona Montessori School and NOHA, and many years of fundraising and service as well to the University of Chicago Cancer Research Center Women's Board. She also nourished a lifelong interest in alternative medicine and natural health, while nurturing her family with natural foods and passionate, all-embracing life. Her many parties and joys are memorialized in hundreds of 8-millimeter movies and volumes of "baby books" that followed her children well into adulthood. She is survived by her husband Charles; her daughter Shannon and husband Bob Nelson and grandchildren Emma and Jack; her daughter Kelly Custer and grandchildren Darius and Alaris Todar and her son Charley Custer and wife Liz Davidson, along with her brother Ed's progeny, her niece Monica Van Fossen and grand-niece Sarah; her nephew Mark and wife Jeri Macarow and grand-nephew Mo, and her niece Lisa and husband James Lani. Her son Murray Custer predeceased her two years ago. A memorial service will take place at the United Church of Hyde Park, 1448 East 53rd Street, Chicago, IL 60615 at 3 p.m. on Saturday, February 19 to be followed by a reception. Memorial gifts may be made in remembrance to the United Church or the University of Chicago College Fund, 5801 South Ellis Ave., Chicago, IL 60637.

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Published by Chicago Tribune on Feb. 13, 2011.

Memories and Condolences
for IRENE CUSTER

4 Entries

February 21, 2011

Dick and I are blessed to have known Irene. Were we in sitters swap together? And we had children that knew each other. The memories will live. Peace, Rosemary

Judy Roothaan

February 19, 2011

My memories of Irene date back to 1954. We're sitting in the living room of our 2nd floor apartment at 5422 University (the Custers lived in the 1st floor apartment, just below ours). We're listening to the McCarthy hearings while watching our baby girls, Shannon and Karen, or more accurately competing over which one had the cutest wiggle when she crawled, and which would be the first to transition from all fours to upright. The contest ended in a draw: Shannon was the first to stand, but consensus was that Karen had the cutest wiggle.
Irene and I shared nutritional values. I'd been raised on the early 20th century nutrition guru Alfred McCann who claimed that the reason Germany lost the First World War was that its submarine crews suffered from Vitamin B deficiencies because they stole only white flour from the ships they sank. Irene introduced me to the more evolved theories of Adele Davis, which led to some very complex cookery.
Ever the businesswoman, Irene also introduced me to the idea of having an income tax deduction baby. Like most baby boom moms, we'd given up paid jobs to devote ourselves to full time motherhood. So money was short. The idea was to have a December baby, but get an additional deduction for the entire year. How much that saved is questionable, but then, every penny counted in those days. Whether we followed that scenario is a story for another time.
That Irene learned to speak and read English only after starting school, came as news to me, but it resonated with a question that has been absorbing me recently, namely how did my parents, for whom English was also a "second language", become such proficient English speakers, readers and writers, despite abbreviated schooling, and long before modern advanced pedagogy developed special methods for teaching this special group.
That question led me to another, namely how did Lincoln learn to read. That question may seem a non-sequitur, but it's just the kind of non-sequitur that Irene and I would have enjoyed exploring. Well, after I read Irene's obituary, I decided to google for the answer - and found it, of course, on Wikopedia. I wish Irene were around so we could talk about it.
Judy Roothaan, February 19, 2011

Max & Sara

February 14, 2011

Dear Charles, Shannon, Bob, Emma, Jack, Kelly, Darius, Alaris, Chuck, Liz, and Annia too. Sad we are for our loss. Happy we are to have had Irene in our lives for so many years. We love this wonderful story of her life. Much Love, Sara and Max

February 14, 2011

Dear Charlie,

Thank you for sharing Irene's fascinating life with us. We had some great times and you were a fine couple.

Love,
Florri McMillan