William J. Lambrecht was a third-generation jeweler whose first job was climbing into a vault beneath the sidewalk on Milwaukee Avenue to adjust and set the large clock that stood outside the family’s Logan Square shop.
Moving to Wilmette in 1961, Mr. Lambrecht worked to remove parking meters from the suburb’s business district and to purchase Northwestern University’s golf course, which had been slated for development but now belongs to the Wilmette Park District.
Mr. Lambrecht, 77, died Sunday, April 29, at his Wilmette home of complications from colon cancer, said his son Matthew.
Lambrecht’s Jewelers was started in 1892 at Milwaukee and Western Avenues by Mr. Lambrecht’s grandfather, a German immigrant who brought his clock-making skills to Chicago.
For many years, Lambrecht clocks were hung at public transit stops, and someone from the store had to make the round of all stations once a week to wind and maintain them, Matthew Lambrecht said.
The clock outside Lambrecht’s was a local landmark, with its works underneath the sidewalk. Mr. Lambrecht set and wound that clock among other chores while attending Loyola Academy and then Loyola University, from which he graduated in 1951 with a degree in philosophy, his son said.
Mr. Lambrecht served aboard the USS Boxer in the Navy during the Korean War and worked briefly for a toy manufacturer before joining the jewelry business for good in the mid-1950s. At about the same time, Lambrecht’s opened its store in Wilmette. The Milwaukee Avenue location closed in 1966.
In Wilmette, Mr. Lambrecht was a board member and then president of the Wilmette Park District in the 1960s and 1970s.
During those years, the village condemned and then purchased what had been Northwestern University’s golf course after learning the school wanted to develop the land, said Tom Cutler, a former Park District board member. It is now the Wilmette Golf Club.
Mr. Lambrecht also led efforts to buy and develop land that is now the Centennial Recreation Complex, which includes a swimming pool, ice rinks and tennis courts.
“He quarterbacked the awakening of the village,” Cutler said.
Upon Mr. Lambrecht’s retirement in 1995, the jewelry store went into the hands of his son Matthew and daughter Beth.
Mr. Lambrecht is also survived by his wife, Ticki; another son, Bill Jr.; two daughters, Cathy and Trish; two sisters, Jo Miller and Mary Wehling; and three grandchildren.
Visitation is set for 4 to 9 p.m. Wednesday at Donnellan Funeral Home, 10045 Skokie Blvd., Skokie. A mass will be said at 10:30 a.m. Thursday at St. Francis Xavier Church, 524 Ninth St., Wilmette.
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ttjensen@tribune.com
