Edith T. Kresse

Edith T. Kresse, 108, a resident of Wheaton and formerly of Downers Grove, died Thursday, December 26, 2024 at Wynscape Nursing Center.
Edith was born in Redfield, South Dakota in 1916 and grew up on her family's farm. She was preceded in death by her siblings Clarence, Carl, Amy, Gladys, and Richard, her husband of 61 years Alfred Louis Kresse, and her granddaughter Rebecca. She is survived by her sons Alfred, Jr. (Ann) and Thomas John (Sara), and grandchildren Ryan, Stephen, Nathaniel, and Michael, plus great grandchildren Austen, Frankie, and Alexander.
After high school, Edith became a government certified comptometer operator for the US Department of Agriculture in 1938. Edith moved to Tennessee in 1940 and met Alfred Kresse who was an Army Lieutenant/Captain during World War II. They were married on January 3, 1942. They moved to Downers Grove, Illinois in 1947 where they raised their family and attended Emmanuel Lutheran Church. They moved to Wyndemere Senior Living as charter members in 1996 and joined St. John's Lutheran Church in Wheaton.
As a young mother, Edith was a Cub Scout Den Mom and the shuttle service provider for music lessons and sports activities. She always had Swedish hardtack and chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen for a snack. Edith and Al were avid card players and participated in many local groups. They were the classic family of the 1950s. She cried as they dropped each of her boys off at the University of Michigan dorms as freshmen.
The family regularly visited the farm in South Dakota every summer when Al's Western Electric plant had its summer shutdown. Edith liked going fishing up in lakes of Wisconsin and Minnesota, and the mosquitoes liked her.
Edith enjoyed her bridge, pinochle, and rummikub groups at Wyndemere, even winning several tournaments. Edith continued with her various activities until she entered the nursing home two years ago. She passed away peacefully at Wynscape nursing home.
Interment will be held privately at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood.
Memorials may be directed to St. John Lutheran Church, 410 N. Cross St., Wheaton, IL 60187.
Mom was the product of a farming environment and depression era frugality.
She met Dad while working as a Comptometer calculating machine specialist for the government down in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee area in the late-30s and 1940 prior to the United States entering WW2.
During the war, while Dad was an Ordinance Officer for the South Point (Ohio) Ordinance Works, they lived, with Mom's puppy Freckles, in a log cabin in the hills above Huntington, WV, and then in an Estate Manager's house of an industrialist/politician in Ashland, Kentucky, who had been called off to Washington, DC, for the war effort.
After the armistice, via a Constellation and twin-engine DC-3 Mom brought me out to Huron, South Dakota, where the "boys" picked us up on the grass airfield to drive us to Redfield to "show me off."
After Dad was released in 1947, we moved to our Elm Street house in Downers Grove. It was right across the street to Washington grade school baseball diamonds.
Mom was our cub scout den mother.
She would have the Kate Smith show on when we came home from (Washington) school.
Freckles, our Cocker, continued to be her dog.
Emmett Carlson, Mom's multiple-generation cousin, an electrical engineer and just out of the Air Force, lived in our attic bedroom for a while until Doris finished her nursing program and they could get married and buy a house. Tom and I shared a bedroom, with cowboy motif vinyl floor covering, on the first floor.
Mom made the best chocolate chip cookies and hardtack. She also made a great Swedish chicken and dumplings stew. Her Black Bottom Pie, with dark rum in the bottom layer, was fantastic!
Mom was the co-organizer of many couples and women's bridge clubs... in Downers and Wyndemere.
Mom was my chauffer for Little League, Pony League, etc. sports practices, and Tom's music practices. Night activities fell on Dad watch. Mom was not the disciplinarian; she was my buffer.
Mom had us regularly visit the South Dakota or Yakima, Washington, Johnson relatives most every summer. She coordinated with Dad's sisters for near, bi-monthly Kresse-side of the family get-togethers.
Mom tried four winters' worth of piano lessons to get me some musical skills. It was a failure, and I jumped ship at the first signs of spring.
I don't know what was worse for Mom, me being dropped off at the South Quad dorms at Michigan in Fall 1961, without giving her a kiss in front of all the other students... or sending me off to Vietnam in 1967. Tom might know.
In 1970, she and Dad headed east to attend our wedding in the big city of New York. They were "shell-shocked" by the costs of everything.
After Dad passed away, she continued to want to get back to her South Dakota roots. We drove out to Redfield a couple of times, and Rapid City to see Gladys... and back. She flew out to Yakima to attend her brother Richard's 95th birthday celebration also.
Mom enjoyed an after-dinner Manhattan at home and Cote de Rhone red wine with dinner at Bistro Monet. She'd split a light beer.