Family and former colleagues recall retired Col. John B.W. Corey as the perfect image of composure, whether serving his country in the Army Corps of Engineers or the City of Chicago as its water commissioner.
“I remember being in a room in a meeting with different departments, and I would look around and he would be sitting there very serenely with a little smile on his face, taking notes and listening,” former Mayor Jane Byrne said. “He was just a very nice person. Nothing rankled him, nothing threw him. He just handled everything.”
Mr. Corey, 91, whose career spanned four Chicago mayors after he had served his country for more than two decades, died of complications from diabetes Tuesday, March 9, in the Fountains, a nursing home in Crystal Lake.
“He was honest to a fault,” said his daughter, Marcia Hategan, “hardworking, kind and so smart. And he never complained about anything.”
The son of an Army colonel, he earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Washington in 1935. The following year, he accepted a one-year position with the Army under a provision of the Thomason Act. After serving as a battery officer in Washington, he taught surveying for the next year at his alma mater. In 1938 he became a commissioner in the Army Corps of Engineers through a national competitive examination, his family said.
He spent the next decade rising through the ranks while serving as chief engineer and battalion commander across the nation, including Alaska and Washington, and overseas at various locations such as Australia and New Guinea.
During World War II he commanded an engineering group overseas that erected hangars, paved runways and built the facilities for U.S. assault troops.
After the war he earned a master’s degree in civil engineering from Texas A&M University in 1948, then was an assistant professor at West Point. Over the next three years, he was with NATO in France as an executive officer. In 1956 he came to Chicago as the Corps’ engineer for its North Central Division, then became the commanding officer of the division’s procurement office before retiring in 1962.
Mayor Richard J. Daley hired him as a consultant, and the next year appointed him assistant commissioner of water and sewers.
He steadily became the mayor’s top troubleshooter. In March 1964 Daley chose him to replace the city’s chief water works construction engineer.
In 1965 he became deputy commissioner of public works. In 1969 Daley named him to an eight-member committee of city officials charged with conducting a study of security at Navy Pier and Calumet Harbor because of a scandal in which merchants had lost millions because of theft and intimidation.
He took on the duties of deputy commissioner of water and sewers in 1976, and three years later Byrne named him commissioner of the department.
Other survivors include his wife of 65 years, Verna; two other daughters, Susan Newell and Judy Johnsos; and eight grandchildren.
Visitation will be held for an hour before a noon service Friday at Edgebrook Community Church, 6736 N. Loleta Ave., Chicago.
