Palatine Club Helped Build Town, Enriched Lives of Members
By Jay Copp

Fumbling for his wallet as the light turned green, the driver of the red Bonneville quickly changed tactics. He veered onto the shoulder, opened his window and smashed a crumpled bill into the plastic container. “Five dollars,” sang out Lion Everett Charlier after he handed the middle-aged driver his candy roll and pounced toward the next rolled-down window.

Unless the light was green and the commuters zipped straight through the intersection in Palatine, a middle-class Chicago suburb, nearly every third driver paused to fork over loose change, a dollar bill, even the occasional $10 or $20. “Lots of time you see them turn away and then they see Lions [the yellow vest with ‘Lions Club Candy Day for the Blind’] and they’ll reach for their pocket,” said Lion Paul Pioch, 46, working the opposite corner on the brisk autumn day.

For many years the Lions of Palatine have stood on the town’s corners raising funds for Camp Lions, a mobile eye van and other good causes. Indeed, the Lions have been a fixture in Palatine since 1925 when it was a sleepy farm hamlet. Just eight years previous, 25 miles away in bustling Chicago, businessman Melvin Jones had formed Lions Clubs.

The Palatine Lions grew with the village, reaching a membership of nearly 200 in the 1950s. The club itself helped the village grow. It’s hard to drive down a main thoroughfare anywhere in this suburb of 67,000 people and not pass a ball field, park, school or social service agency untouched over the years by the generosity of Lions.

A Lion Life
Flipping through black-and-white snapshots on a metal ring of a Lions’ Krazy Show in 1958, Ralph Schroeder chuckles at the sight of Lions in outrageous get-ups. “We had fun. Boy, did we have fun,” recalls Schroeder.

Schroeder, 92, grew up in Palatine. He shot pheasants as a boy on the land near his home to help feed his family. He was 10 years old when 25 prominent businessmen in town chartered a Lions club, the 391st club overall. Among the charter members were a banker, politicians, merchants, tradesmen, educators and railroad men.

Back then government services were few. The Lions set about fashioning a community from a rough-hewn town. They built playgrounds and an ice rink, supported the Scouts and established youth centers and summer sports programs. Palatine began to evolve from a place to live and work to a place to have a life.

The Lions not only provided important amenities but also helped turn a factious town into a smooth-running community. “The Palatine Lions Club was born at a time when Lionism was sorely needed in the community,” according to a village centennial book published in 1955. “The town, its clubs and much of its social life were involved in personal animosities that wrecked reputations and businesses.”

According to the centennial book, “the Lions club organizer did not have to ‘sell’ the average businessman and professional man on Palatine’s need for the things Lionism stands for.” Indeed, by the early 1940s, Lions were so entrenched in the affairs of Palatine that they led the contest to give the town a slogan. The winning entry was “Palatine: the Real Home Town.”

As for Schroeder, he scrambled to make ends meet. Asked today what he did for a living, he says, “You name it. I did it.” In 1955, settling into a middle-class lifestyle, he joined the Lions. By then the park district and school district had taken on some of the duties Lions had overseen. So the club turned in a new direction. Lions underwrote nursing care, donated to a local hospital and, as Dutch elm disease ravaged the town’s tree stock, sponsored a frenzied spraying and tree planting initiative.

Palatine grew prosperous as did the rest of the nation in the long post-World War II boom. But there was always need, whether personal or community-wide. Without Lions, “there’d be a lot less in Palatine,” says Schroeder. “You’d be surprised. We have a lot of nice homes here. But there’s always families that don’t have the money to buy a pair of glasses.”

For years meetings were held in the cozy basement of Immanuel Lutheran Church. “Guys didn’t miss too many meetings. Those German women could really cook—the fresh bread and all,” says Schroeder. The tail twister always kept things lively. One night he fined every member for not wearing two different colored socks. Of course, he was dressed appropriately.

Membership in the 1950s swelled to 175. “It was hard to get in. You had to be asked. You had to be OK’d,” Schroeder says. With so many members, the club took a hard line on attendance. Members were dropped for missing meetings. A group of ex-Lions started the Kiwanis chapter in town.

Lions centered their social lives around the club. They rented a slow-moving train that escorted them in style to Lake Geneva. In 1967, two dozen members took a grand tour of Europe. “We just had a ball,” recalls Schroeder.

In a closet of the Schroeder home is a colorful Hawaiian shirt emblazoned with Lions emblems. Hawaiian Lions he befriended on a trip there gave him the shirt. In his basement is a bar stocked with amusing knickknacks, many given to him by Lions. On the wall is a glass frame with 30 pins recognizing three decades of perfect attendance. On a table is a large picture of he and his wife in 1936, stunningly young and elegant in black clothes. The Schroeders have been married for 70 years. They’ve been in the same home for 42 years. He’s been a Lion for 52 years. “It’s the best organization in the world,” he says.

Schroeder was never a club president. He served a different role. ‘’OK, Schroeder, say your prayer,” members have cajoled him since the 1960s. So Schroeder, a deacon in his church, would recite the prayer he wrote. It’s a long prayer, but Schroeder, despite his age, knows it by heart. He recites it. The closing lines are: “Keep us as Lions ever mindful of the need of others. Please bless this food. Bless us to thy service.”

Dedicated Members
It’s common wisdom today that we are more busier, more harried than generations before us. But making time for Lions meetings was never easy. At 6:30 p.m., Dick Brumm would lock up his hardware store, which dates back to 1883, and hurry to the gathering. He joined in 1978. The Lions were the right group for him. “All the funds we raised were strictly for the needy. We’re not using the funds for our own benefit,” he says, explaining why he joined and why he stays on.

Owner of one of Palatine’s most visible businesses, Brumm could hardly ever step out in public as a Lion without pausing to catch up with friends or give a piece of advice. “Yeah, the other guys tell me, ‘Hey, Dick, don’t just visit. Do some work.’ ”

Alice Terrill, 89, wasn’t eligible for membership but she assisted her husband, Dave, in his Lion duties and fully supported their Lions-centered life. “Anything that came up the Lions came first. He did everything he could for Lions. He could not wait for the next one [activity],” she recalls. “It didn’t feel like work. Everything we did was fun.”

Dave Terrill served as district governor in 1979-80. As Alice saw it, he was too busy to die. “He lived with cancer for 30 years. He lived for Lions clubs. Being a Lion kept him alive as long as it did.”

Their son, James, moved to nearby Long Grove, an equally nice place to live but lacking a Lions club. “On his death bed, he [Dave] said Long Grove was ready for a club,” says Alice. Dave died in 1982 and Long Grove chartered a club the next year with James as a founding member.

As for Alice, she knew what to do when membership was opened to women in 1987. “I was born in 1917—the same year and same month as Lions. I had to be a Lion,” says Alice, a Long Grove Lion.

Splendid Service
On a main street in town is the Palatine Vision Center, the spoke of the Lions’ main service wheel. Children from local schools in need of glasses come here. The Palatine Lions and the vision center partner on a program to provide an eye exam and glasses to needy children who fail a vision screening at school. Last year, 76 children in the school district received glasses courtesy of the Lions and Palatine Vision Center.

“It’s amazing what a lot of kids are not able to see and how much better they do in school once they get glasses,” says Dr. Morris Lehrfield of the vision center. A few times Lehrfield or his staff discovered a more serious vision problem that would have led to loss of the eye if it had gone undetected and not treated. Lions paid for the needed medical assistance.

Palatine Lions also help the hearing-impaired in the local school district. One classroom has all kinds of marvelous gadgets that enable hearing-impaired children to learn better. A printer produces documents with both Braille and regular lettering. Another machine creates tactile images. Students carry talking dictionaries. “It’s wonderful to have all this,” says teacher Gianna Guskey. “We wouldn’t have it without the Lions because of limited funding. We can only get what’s considered absolutely necessary.”

Palatine Lions also fund college scholarships, provide care baskets for needy families, sponsor an Easter egg hunt, support training of Leader Dogs and contribute to the Lions of Illinois Foundation and Lions Clubs International Foundation. The long hours working Candy Day, their food booth at the Palatine Street Fest and their golf outing pay off nicely when it comes time to responding to local, statewide and international needs.

The Lions of Palatine today represent more of a cross-section of the community than did the founding members. There are women members, of course. The membership roster also includes a florist, a software company owner and a printing company owner, as well as a banker, retailers and insurance agents. Membership is holding steady at 37.

Growing up in St. Joseph, Missouri, Paul Pioch tagged along with his dad as he sold light bulbs door-to-door for the Lions. Pioch joined the Palatine Lions in 1992. “I wanted to give back to the community,” says Pioch, 46, a loan officer. “I like it a lot. I love it.”
BC Coleman, an information technology specialist, joined in 2005 when his attorney told him about the club. “I had just turned 50,” says Coleman. “That was a milestone year. I thought it was time to start giving back.”

Coleman’s membership resulted in a new project for the club. LifeSource had worked with Palatine town officials on a blood drive with only a modest turnout. Coleman, who had a prior connection with LifeSource, agreed to pitch the blood drive to his club. “They were all over it. It was great. A couple of Lions donated the next day. One donated platelets. That’s a 2 ½-hour procedure. I was thrilled by that kind of response.”

Cornered
The morning rush has slowed. Everett Charlier still bounds from one car to the next with his donation jar in one hand and candy rolls in the other. A retired teacher and assistant principal, Charlier has been a Candy Day mainstay since 1982. Once, a man leaving town on vacation grabbed a fistful of bills. His wife in the passenger seat protested but he handed over $100.

Today Charlier’s donation jar is bursting with coin and bills. All those dollars mean eye exams and glasses, holiday food baskets and summer fun at Camp Lions.

Taking note of Charlier’s non-stop motion, Pioch tosses his collection partner a compliment. “He got $1,400 one year.” Charlier smiles and says, “It was $1,465.”