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Edith Olson Bastgen, 102, a pioneer woman in the once-male-dominated field of hide brokering, died Tuesday at the Resurrection Nursing Pavilion in Park Ridge. She was born on Chicago’s South Side. “I guess her claim to fame was she bought hides from the slaughterhouses and sold them for shoes–she was the first woman in the country to do that,” said her nephew, William Klusack. “I saw pictures of her with the furs surrounded by the male hide brokers,” said a grandnephew, Phillip Elmer. Services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Thursday in Mee & Ramme/Barron-Hall Funeral Home, 3918 W. Irving Park Rd.
