Margaret “Peg” Price, a two-term Naperville mayor and the first woman to be elected to the position, died Sunday at age 87.
Price died of natural causes Sunday at St. Patrick’s Residence in Naperville, where she had been living for the past few months.
Price had a 30-year public service career and served as mayor from 1983 to 1991. She spent two terms as a city council member and served for many years in appointed county and city positions, including tenures on the Naperville Plan and Riverwalk commissions.
Naperville Mayor Steve Chirico said the city was changed for the better because of Price, “whose leadership, influence and determination shaped our city during a time of rapid change.”
“Mayor Price will always hold the title of being Naperville’s first female mayor, and her legacy of strong leadership and decision-making lives on through what she accomplished,” Chirico said in a statement. “From spearheading the construction of the current municipal center to expanding the city council from four to six members during her administration, she never shied away from a challenge.
“Although Mayor Price may have seen Naperville grow by leaps and bounds under her watch, she never lost sight of what mattered to her: seeing her city be a place where families came first and people looked out for each other.”
Price was born April 8, 1933, in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and moved to Naperville in 1967 with her husband, the late Charles “Chuck” Price, and two sons, Steve and Tim Price.
Their father’s job with the Western Electric Co. had the family moving several times around the Midwest and East Coast before they landed in Naperville, Steve Price said.
When she arrived, Peg Price knew immediately Naperville was a place she wanted her family to put down roots, Price told a Chicago Tribune reporter in 1998, when she retired from her government work to spend more time with her grandchildren, Amanda and Scott.
“You could stand in the middle of Jefferson Avenue and chat,” Price said of the city she moved to, which then had just 17,000 people. “It was a great town, and we fell in love with it. My husband and I made up our minds that we were going to stay here.”
Price’s political career began in 1969 when she became involved in the campaign to shift the city from a strong-mayor form of of government to a council-manager form.
In 1971, she was appointed to the city’s Plan Commission and later she was elected to city council. After losing her bid for a third term as mayor in 1991, Price was re-elected to another council term in 1994 and opted to not run again in 1998.
Steve Price said in addition to being a good mother and always there for him and his brother, Peg Price was a hard worker who took her roles as mayor and city council member seriously.
“When she was mayor, she was always busy, and when she was on the city council, she took that seriously,” Steve Price said. He recalled seeing his mother with paperwork spread out across a large dining room table, trying to read and digest everything her elected position required her to do.
He still has “mounds of newspaper clippings” from his mother’s elections, and remembers her pushing hard to get the Naperville Municipal Center built in a downtown location. “She really put herself out on a limb on that,” he said.
But Peg Price didn’t pull any punches, he said. “What you saw was what you got.”
Naperville City Councilwoman Judy Brodhead said Peg Price helped get her started in Naperville government, adding her to the city’s Transportation Advisory Board in 1990 and less than a year later asking her to be on the Plan Commission.
“I owe Peg Price a lot,” Broadhead said. “She was absolutely fearless. You have to remember that’s a time there were not that many women in government.”
Broadhead remembers Price as “very confident and outspoken. She knew how to get things done,” she said.
Price was the one who argued Naperville’s city hall should be located downtown so residents would have easier access to the building and some could walk there rather than having to drive, Brodhead said.
She also was really good at getting people to agree on things, she said.
“She always had everyone’s respect. In her day that was a really fine line to walk between being considered too aggressive and not aggressive enough,” Brodhead said. “She just did it.”
Price is also credited with being the first mayor to give a State of the City address and with beginning the planning for Naperville’s water utility, her obituary said.
In addition to her elected positions, Price also was a member of the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission for eight years and the DuPage Mayors and Managers Conference for three years, according to the city of Naperville.
Price was a longtime member of the Rotary Club of Naperville, which posted a tribute to her Monday.
“We are saddened by the passing yesterday of fellow Rotarian, former Naperville Mayor Peg Price. Peg was the first woman mayor of Naperville and one of the first two women to join the Rotary Club of Naperville in 1987,” the post said.
“We celebrate the impact she has had on our community as a leader and role model. Peg truly lived by the Rotary words ‘Service Above Self.'”
Price was involved in other local organizations, including Loaves and Fishes food pantry, the Naperville Area Homeowners Confederation and the League of Women Voters of Naperville.
The family will hold a funeral mass at St. Raphael Catholic Church in Naperville, where Price attended church, at a future date. Steve Price said his mother did not wish to have a visitation or wake.
She asked that “well-wishers take a few minutes to call a friend” in her memory and in lieu of flowers, donations should be made to the Naperville Riverwalk Foundation either online at www.napervilleriverwalkfoundation.org/donate-2/ or by mail, Attn: Jan Erickson, 400 S. Eagle St., Naperville, IL 60540.
Arrangements are being handled by Friedrich-Jones Funeral Home in Naperville.
ehegarty@tribpub.com
