Children in Niles would have fewer parks if not for the efforts of former village trustee Keith W. Peck.
In the 1950s Mr. Peck led a successful effort to ensure the village’s rapid development included green space for kids to play.
As chairman of Citizens Committee for Better Parks, in 1962 he spent countless evenings knocking on doors for a park referendum proposal that was voted down in three earlier attempts. Voters approved the request.
Land was purchased and a recreation center built. The Park District put in a swimming pool on Milwaukee Avenue and improvements were made to parks.
“He played a big part in seeing that additional parks were added as the village grew,” said Leonard Szymanski, a former village trustee.
A Niles resident since 1955, Mr. Peck, 76, died of heart failure Wednesday, Feb. 18, in Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.
Born in Akron, Ohio, he graduated from Springfield High School in 1945, then joined the Navy at the end of World War II.
Stationed at Great Lakes Naval Base, he met his wife, Elsie, at a social function for servicemen. They married in 1948.
Mr. Peck took classes at Loyola University Chicago and the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, and in the late 1940s started as a maintenance worker at Interstate Bakeries Corp. in Chicago.
In 1958, he earned a mechanical engineering degree from Marquette University in Milwaukee. A volunteer Little League baseball coach and manager, Mr. Peck initially stepped into politics by becoming active in a homeowners association.
The group fought the development of high-rises and multiple-unit housing, partly out of concern about overburdening public schools, said Szymanski, who also was involved in the group.
In 1963, Mr. Peck was elected a Park District trustee, and in 1965 he won a Village Board seat. He ran with an independent slate in 1969, winning again. Mr. Peck held a “strong belief that village government should be outside of party politics,” said his son, Ray.
In 1973, Mr. Peck won re-election to a third term as trustee, but he resigned two years later to become the director of Niles’ Department of Public Services. By then chief plant engineer at Interstate Bakeries, he left that job as well.
“He was never interested in a political career, as such; he wanted to get parks built and keep the streets maintained,” said his son.
Mr. Peck was a fixture in Niles, said Teofilo Noriega Jr., who replaced him as director of Public Services when he retired in 1992. Despite his work and family, “he still found time to make Niles a better place to live,” Noriega said.
After retiring, Mr. Peck enjoyed traveling and square dancing several times a month with his wife.
In addition to his wife and son, other survivors include three more sons, Richard, Randy and Robert; a brother, Arland; a sister, Willodene Wilson; and 12 grandchildren.
A visitation will start at 10 a.m. Saturday until an 11 a.m. service in Niles Community Church, 7401 W. Oakton St., Niles.
