John S. Gitchell, 70, a former switchman for the Illinois Northern Railroad, died Monday in his Lombard home.
Born in Chicago, Mr. Gitchell began working for the Illinois Northern Railroad in the late 1940s at the railyards at 26th Street and Western Avenue, his wife, Frances Gitchell, said. He stayed with the railroad for 27 years until it was bought out by the Santa Fe Railway.
“He’d hang on to boxcars and unhook them. It was very dangerous work, but he’d be out there like a postman–in all types of weather,” said Frances Gitchell. She recalled her husband took their children for rides in the engines.
After leaving the railroad in the early 1970s, Mr. Gitchell worked for the Bellwood Street Department, retiring in 1989.
A Chicago native, Mr. Gitchell was almost 18 years old in 1943 when he left Crane High School before graduation to enlist in the U.S. Navy. He was a tail gunner on a plane and saw action in the South Pacific. After the war, he returned and earned his high school diploma.
Mr. Gitchell and his wife loved to go ballroom dancing every week. He also was an avid fisherman.
Other survivors include his daughter, Karen Bieterman; three sons, Craig, John and Jim; and eight grandchildren.
A service will begin at 11 a.m. Friday in the Queen of Heaven Chapel, on Roosevelt and Wolf Roads in Hillside.
