151 members and guests attended the annual luncheon and reunion of the Chicago Chapter of the Veterans Association of the Chic

VETERANS’ ASSOCIATION

of the

CHICAGO & NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY

Chicago Chapter Luncheon

September 15, 2007

114 members and guests attended the annual luncheon and reunion of the Chicago Chapter of the Veterans’ Association of the Chicago and North Western Railway held on Saturday, September 15, 2007 at Elks Lodge 1526 in Des Plaines, Illinois.

Visiting dignitaries included Dan Sylvester, General President & Kenosha-Waukegan Chapter President; Dewayne Stiefvater, General Secretary-Treasurer; Yvonne Sylvester, Kenosha-Waukegan Chapter Secretary-Treasurer and Warren Hachmeister, Chicago Chapter Past-President. John Leahy, Past General President, could not be with us for medical reasons. Our best wishes go to John for a quick and full recovery.

Joining us again were retired Head Chef & Bar Tender “Sugar” Cain. Accompanying “Sugar” were his wife Grace and son, Wisconsin Division Engineer Charlie Cain. It was great to see them all again. If you haven’t already done so, click here to read some more about “Sugar” and his 53 years of North Western service.

At 1:00 PM, Chapter President Dave Svendsen asked for a moment of silence for departed members and said a blessing on the meal. The spread laid out by the Elks was excellent and there was plenty of it. Dewayne made a valiant effort, but could not exhaust the food supply!

The business meeting was dispensed with, it being explained that once elected to office there is no way out except to resign! There being no resignations, the present officers will remain - David Svendsen, President; Mary Flynn, Vice President and Bob Guhr, Secretary-Treasurer.

The meeting wound up with the drawing for the door and raffle prizes. Sincere thanks to Brenda Mainwaring – UP, Omaha, Tom Cote’, Joe Bass, John Carlson, Fred Manrose, Dave Svendsen and other who brought donations for the door prizes and raffle. Our apologies to those whose names we missed! We really appreciate these contributions, which helped make the event a success. Special thanks also go to Pete Schmidt and Dan Sylvester who pitched right in and helped distribute the door and raffle prizes.

Next year’s luncheon will be on Saturday, September 13, 2008 at the Des Plaines Elks Lodge. We hope to see you there.

Thanks to Mark Llanuza, well known Chicago area rail photographer, the event was well photographed and the pictures are located here. These photographs are in a different format. Clicking on the link will take you to a page of small photos, or thumbnails, as they are called. Click on a thumbnail to bring up a larger photo. There is a navigation bar at the bottom of these pages, allowing you to move from one picture to another. Or, use the arrows at the top-right corner. To return to the page of small photos from any large photo, click on the icon in the small circle to the left of the header bar at the top of any large photo page. To return to the web site main page from the small photo page, click on the icon in the small circle to the left of the header bar at the top of small photo page.

Posted: 10/27/07