Celeste Reilly, 59, an elementary school teacher in Bellwood during the 1960s, died Monday of lung cancer in her Hinsdale home. She grew up on Chicago’s West Side and attended Trinity High School and Rosary College, now Dominican University in River Forest. She taught 3rd grade for about five years in Bellwood and then focused on her family. “Family, family, family–that was the most important thing to her without question,” said her husband, Joseph Reilly, longtime general manager of the City News Bureau. She was her husband’s right-hand on many election nights, he said, helping him prepare by stuffing envelopes to hundreds of election precincts so reporters could gather developing numbers on the races. When she found time to relax, she enjoyed the challenge of crossword puzzles, her husband said. “She was very bright,” he said. “I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how she’d finish so many of them so quickly.” She is also survived by a son, Brian; two daughters, Patricia Comenduley and Kirsten Sullivan; two sisters, Mary Jane McGrath and Kathleen Pravda; a brother, Donald O’Connor; and five grandchildren. Visitation will be from 3 to 9 p.m. Thursday in Elliston Funeral Home, First and Grant Streets, Hinsdale. A funeral mass will be said at 10 a.m. Friday in St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church, Fourth and Clay Streets, Hinsdale.
