Miles E. Cunat Jr., 72, a former lawyer for Chicago Title and Trust Co. and a dedicated community volunteer in Riverside Township and Brookfield, died of kidney failure Monday, Feb. 4, in LaGrange Memorial Hospital.
A resident of Riverside Township since 1934, Mr. Cunat overcame disabilities in his right arm and leg and graduated from Brown University in 1952. He received his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1956.
“He was such a brilliant man and education was his big thing,” said his wife, Rita. “He had a marvelous brain.”
Mr. Cunat was a staff lawyer for the Pullman Co. and the Belt Railway Co. before joining Chicago Title and Trust in the early 1960s. He retired in 1992. He relished his work for the trust company, his wife said.
“He loved a challenge,” she said. “So anything that was confusing and really involved, they would give it to him to do because he would get to the bottom of it.”
Mr. Cunat also was active politically. He was a member of the National Young Republican college executive committee and from 1966 to 1968 was treasurer of the Riverside GOP.
From 1964 to 1972 Mr. Cunat was a member of the planning commission and its chairman for two years. From 1972 to 1977 he was on the Brookfield Zoning Board.
He also was on the Riverside Brookfield High School Board of Education from 1965 to 1971. He believed in continuing education for himself and others, his wife said.
“He was forever reading,” his wife said. “What he really loved to do was test all his grandchildren. He just tested our little granddaughter on the state capitals about a month ago.”
Mr. Cunat was a charter member and elder of his church, First Presbyterian Church of Brookfield, and an elected trustee from 1973 to 1981 of the Presbytery of Chicago, serving as treasurer from 1978 to 1981.
Mr. Cunat also was a member of the Illinois and Chicago Bar Associations and the Bohemian Lawyers Association. He became seriously ill about six years ago and had to move into a nursing home.
While Mr. Cunat was in the nursing home, Joe Stejskal, who grew up with him, was a weekly visitor. Stejskal remembered Mr. Cunat as a “very earnest gentleman” who impressed people with his wide-ranging knowledge as a young man.
Stejskal recalled an incident in 1951, when he, his cousin and Mr. Cunatwere sitting around talking, and the cousin mentioned that he weighed 225 pounds.
“Miles said, `That’s a tenth of a long ton,'” Stejskal said. “Miles was accurate. He was a veritable encyclopedia.”
Other survivors include two sons, David and John; two stepdaughters, Rita Landreth and Colleen Toriumi; two stepsons, David and Steven Sheehan; and six grandchildren.
Visitation will be from 3 to 9 p.m. Friday in Ivins Funeral Home, 80 E. Burlington St., Riverside. Services will be at 10 a.m. Saturday in First Presbyterian Church of Brookfield, 3545 McCormick Ave., Brookfield.
