Law clients and colleagues of Gerhard E. Seidel can thank his father, who dissuaded him from the acting career he began as a child and pushed him toward the college degree that later led to graduation from law school.
“Gerry loved the law. It was like a halo around him,” said Richard Verkler, managing attorney in the Lake Forest office of Schiff Hardin, where Mr. Seidel spent his final years as an attorney. “Something challenging would come up, some legal question, and his eyes would light up. He loved to weigh in, and invariably his opinions were very perceptive.”
Mr. Seidel, 87, a tax and commercial law practitioner for more than 50 years and a former mayor of Lake Forest, died of cancer, Wednesday, Feb. 25, in Lake Forest Hospital.
At the urging of his mother, he studied at the Walton Pyre School of Dramatic Art in Chicago, performing Shakespeare at benefits and fundraisers in the city. But as he was about to graduate from Lake View High School, his father, a doctor, began insisting he pursue a different career.
Mr. Seidel enrolled at Columbia University in New York City, where football caught his attention and culminated with his playing in the 1939 College Football All Star Game at Soldier Field. After graduating that year, he enrolled in Columbia’s law school. Two years later, he attended a friend’s wedding and met his wife, Lois.
Their first date was to the All-Star Game that year. He proposed on Christmas, and they got married in 1943.
He had enlisted in the Navy as a petty officer, and seven months after his marriage he was sent overseas to fight during World War II.
After his discharge in 1945, he returned to law school and earned his degree from Columbia the next year. A short time later, he and his wife decided to return to Chicago.
Mr. Seidel worked at the Chicago law firm of Millet, Lewis and Ross for a few years before joining the firm that became Peterson, Ross, Schloerb and Seidel after he was named a partner in the 1970s. He retired from that firm in 1992 to become of counsel at the Lake Forest office of Jenner & Block. Schiff Hardin acquired that office in 2002.
“When he entered our practice he did so at an age when most people would be slowing down or retiring. He was at the opposite end of the spectrum. There was a spring in his step; he was witty and enthused,” Verkler said.
Mr. Seidel never regretted leaving acting behind, his wife said. But he was known to recite the narrative poem “The Cremation of Sam McGee” when asked.
“He loved his profession,” his wife said. “He was an avid reader and loved sports, but he really loved to work. Even after he became sick, he wanted to keep going down to the office.”
After six years as a Lake Forest alderman, Mr. Seidel was elected mayor in 1981. One of his first decrees during his three-year tenure was to have lights installed on trees downtown at Christmas, his wife said.
Other survivors include a son, Robert Albert; a daughter, Sarah Jane McNitt; and eight grandchildren. Services have been held.
