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T HE ENTERPRISE Your Complete Source For Plainfield News Since 1887
thursday, January 15, 2015
volume 127 no. 24
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czerkies says rialto saga mars mom’s memorial Czerkies history of giving to local causes might be over
Residents spurred to get Tribute Memorial moved to Settlers’ Park
By STewarT warren staff RePoRteR
stewartwarren509@yahoo.com @stewartwarren
a culmination of a labor of love by three plainfield women and their wide circle of friends and families are rallying to finally have a permanent place of honor for a monument to fallen military men and women. plans are officially underway to relocate the monument known as the tribute memorial that for many years was located at a site at plainfield central High school. the new location will be in settlers’ park, where it will be installed near the soldiers’ monument.
(left) the words of the tribute memorial. (above) the tribute memorial at plainfield central High school campus before the move. (pHoto BY JeFF dement)
See The Full STory on Page 7
Ed Czerkies is the kind of guy who gives. He knows what it’s like to be in need. As a poor kid in Joliet, he hitchhiked to work at Cog Hill Golf and Country Club near Lemont. Years later, he made a habit of stopping his truck for people who were standing at the curb, thumb out. “I was always out there trying to get a ride, and I want to repay people,” said Czerkies, a retired contractor who was raised in Joliet and still lives in town. After his beloved wife Carolyn died in 2000 of multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood and bones, he wrote a $1.5 million check to the Mayo Clinic, one of the hospitals that treated her. He gave the same sum to the new Silver Cross Hospital in New Lenox. During the past few years, he’s been looking for the right way to memorialize his parents, particularly his mother, Mary Czerkies. Her entire life was difficult, but she never complained, Czerkies said. When she was about 15, her mother died, and she had to leave school to take care of her brothers and sisters. She later married and had seven children, raising them in a small farmhouse without the luxury of running water or a
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