WESTERN SPRINGS, Ill. – Frederick Arthur Landbeck passed away Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2011, after a brief illness. Fred was born April 9, 1923, and was raised at Illinois Masonic Children’s Home, La Grange, Ill.
He graduated from Lyons Township High School in 1940 and enlisted in the Navy, where he was a torpedoman on the USS Batfish submarine in the Pacific Theatre during World War II. In 1946 he met his wife, Mary Lucille (Duddy) Landbeck, of Bangor, who was a Navy nurse at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in New Hampshire. They married Aug. 1, 1946, and moved back to Western Springs, Ill., where he established Suburban Drapery Shop and was a founding member of St. John of the Cross Church. Together they raised five children and each summer Fred would close the shop and bring his family to Phillips Lake, Dedham, fulfilling a promise he made to his father-in-law to bring Mary home to Maine every summer.
He is survived by his beloved wife, Mary Lucille; sister, Theresa Davis of Cary, Ill.; sons, Fred of Bull Valley, Ill., and Robert of London; daughters, Mary Ellen of Santa Fe, N.M., Kathleen of Cheggio, Italy, and Jean Gabriel of Wauwatosa, Wis.; as well as nine grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.
A funeral Mass will be held 9:45 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 14, at Saint John of the Cross Church, Western Springs, Ill. Interment of ashes will be held 2:30 p.m. Wednesday at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery, Elwood, Ill. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Illinois Masonic Children’s Home, 441 Ninth Ave., La Grange, IL 60525, or USS Batfish Memorial Foundation, 18139 S. 129th W Ave., Sapulpa, OK 74066.