Alice E. Gleason, 79, of Indian Head Park, died of heart failure Tuesday, Feb. 19, at Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood. Born in Lockport, Mrs. Gleason moved to Joliet at age 8 to live with her aunt and uncle after the death of her mother. Mrs. Gleason met her future husband, Robert, in a tight-knit group of playmates on Joliet’s west side. She graduated from Northwestern University in the mid-1940s and taught English at Lockport High School for three years. In 1945, Robert Gleason joined the Navy and served in the South Pacific. A pen pal relationship between the two blossomed into a romance, and they married after he returned in 1946. The couple moved to Wisconsin, where Mrs. Gleason’s husband worked as a Buick salesman for several years. They moved to Chicago in the early 1950s and together founded Gleason Cranes Inc., which leases and sells heavy construction equipment, said Mrs. Gleason’s brother-in-law, Marty. “They started the business from their basement. Alice would type all his letters and answer the phones and handle the kids, all at the same time. Then she started taking sales calls and eventually got to know all the technical stuff,” he said. “It was really an amazing partnership.” In the late 1950s they moved to Glen Ellyn, and in the mid-1980s they moved to a condominium in Indian Head Park. Other survivors include two daughters, Karen Murray and Ginny Rice; one brother, Thomas Duggan; and four grandchildren. Services have been held.
