John Van Dyke “Tad” Skillman Jr. was Mr. Carpentersville. He served on the Community Unit School District 300 as a board member and later as president. He was a Carpentersville police officer who later became police chief and then, in his retirement, he served as a Carpentersville Village Board trustee and president.
He laid the foundation for the police department and helped guide the village through the tremendous growth that came in the 1990s.
“He was always ‘Mr. Carpentersville.’ Whatever it happened to be, he was always in it for what was best for Carpentersville and what’s best for the community through and through,” said Michael Kilbourne, a village former police chief who became a Carpentersville police officer when Skillman was village president.
Skillman, 88, died Monday surrounded by his family. He was born on Aug. 9, 1933, in Chicago and lived in Carpentersville for the past 64 years.
He had battled leukemia for a couple of years, which took its toll and slowed him down, according to his son, John, the current village president of Carpentersville. Last week, he had a heart attack and was diagnosed with pneumonia, he said.
A Frank Sinatra fan, Skillman was serenaded by a recording of “My Way,” his favorite song, when as he passed, his son said.
Skillman was a U.S. Army veteran when he began his law enforcement career as a Carpentersville police officer in the early 1960s. Over the course of 25 years, he became a sergeant, lieutenant, captain and, finally, police chief, the job from which he retired in 1985.
He served as a village trustee from 1985 to 1989 before being elected mayor, a post he held from 1989 to 1997.
He liked telling stories about his time as an officer. “What he told me and our family was he only pulled his gun once or twice in his whole career,” his son, John, said.
One of those times he was responding to a domestic situation in which the suspect was threatening a woman with a knife. “(My dad) went to pull the gun and it jammed. The guy tried to stab him. In the old days, police wore leather jackets. The knife went into the leather jacket,” he said.
That gun was replaced with one that wouldn’t have the same problem in the future, he said.
Kilbourne, who worked with Skillman for many years on the police pension board, said Skillman liked telling stories about his early days as a police officer. In one, Skillman recounted that the police department didn’t have a police radio early when he first started; if people needed an officer, they turned on the porch light, Kilbourne said.
Carpentersville was just a small town then, Kilbourne said. It grew up around Skillman, and Skillman was one of those who built the foundation for what the police department and the village became, he said.
Skillman also was a charter member of St. Monica Catholic Church in Carpentersville.
Service to the community is something Skillman passed on to his children. One son became a teacher, a daughter became a nurse, and another son became a firefighter.
Son John Skillman was the Carpentersville fire chief before becoming village president. “I know John was proud of his son when he (the younger Skillman) became village president and followed in his footsteps,” Kilbourne said.
Skillman loved presiding over village board meetings and was a stickler about following Robert’s Rules of Order. When the younger Skillman became village president, his dad’s advice was to make sure he followed and understood those rules, he said.
His dad always wanted the best for the village, his son said. “He loved Carpentersville. He loved this community like no one else I know. He always made sure we knew where we came from,” he said.
In addition to John, Skillman is also survived by his other children, Kathleen Sellnow, Maureen Harrison and Robert; seven grandchildren; seven great-grandchildren; and his longtime companion, Peggy Basura.
He was preceded in death by his parents; his wife of 51 years, Rosemary Dooley Skillman, who died in 2007; and two sisters, Barbara Smith and Terry Dewey.
Visitation will be from 3 to 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 27, at Miller Funeral Home in West Dundee and from 9 to 10 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 28, at St. Catherine of Siena Church in West Dundee.
A funeral Mass will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 28, at St. Catherine of Siena Church. Burial with military honors will follow at River Valley Memorial Gardens in West Dundee.
In lieu of flowers, memorials made be made in his name to the Fish Food Pantry, Dundee Crown Athletic Hall of Fame or the School District #300 Foundation for Educational Excellence.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
