Anita Heydecker taught math to 7th graders at Jane Addams Junior High School in Schaumburg with an oxygen tank and an IV pump attached to her body for the last 10 years.
But students, colleagues, family and friends never heard the outgoing woman complain about the pulmonary condition that eventually took her life.
Instead, they describe a woman eager to continue teaching and enjoy time with her husband, Terry, and twin adult sons, Benjamin and Peter.
“She loved teaching,” said Jan Lundeberg, a fellow teacher at Addams. “She would say, `Teaching is my life.'”
Mrs. Heydecker, 56, of Schaumburg, died Wednesday, June 28, from complications of pulmonary hypertension in the University of Chicago Hospitals.
Kendall Rodheim, a pupil from Streamwood, said Mrs. Heydecker made math more fun through games and puzzles, getting many 7th graders hooked on the popular puzzle Sudoku.
“She was really funny. I just remember laughing a lot,” said Kendall.
Students sent baskets of get-well cards to Mrs. Heydecker when her condition worsened and kept her out of the classroom this spring. Mrs. Heydecker had taught in Schaumburg-based School District 54 for more than 26 years.
Lundeberg, a language arts teacher, said Mrs. Heydecker also had a reputation at school for keeping colleagues “on topic” during meetings.
“We called her our grand poobah,” Lundeberg said. “She reveled in that role and was very good-natured about it.”
On the day she learned her condition had become more severe, Mrs. Heydecker insisted on stopping by school with instructions for the substitute teacher before checking into the hospital, said her husband.
Mrs. Heydecker was born in Evanston and raised in Skokie. She met her husband in 1971, and they were married the following year.
Terry Heydecker said he was attracted to his wife’s witty sense of humor and admired her positive attitude and devotion to family and her students.
Mrs. Heydecker spent many nights in the hospital next to son Benjamin’s side as he went through more than 50 operations between ages 5 and 17 on his left leg to correct a length discrepancy caused by a disease he contracted just after birth.
She was just as devoted to getting the boys to their Little League practices and games and later to early morning tee times. Both sons have become professional golfers.
Benjamin Heydecker said his mother taught him and his brother strong morals through example. “She taught us about being a good person toward others and helping people when they needed help,” he said.
The second of five girls, Mrs. Heydecker loved hosting family gatherings, said a younger sister, Gloria Kanneberg.
Mrs. Heydecker’s passion for teaching rubbed off on others, including nephew Ted Burchi, a high school English teacher in Racine, Wis. “She enjoyed … being able to change the lives of some kids,” he said. “Her being a teacher made me know that would be the way I want to go.”
Other survivors include her mother, Virginia Calkins, and sisters Marcia Burchi, Donna Lowe and Pamela Garrity.
A memorial gathering will be held from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at Ahlgrim & Sons Funeral Home, 330 W. Golf Rd., Schaumburg.
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