The Gerber family lived in the corner apartment in the old Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary during my dad’s 25-year tenure as its superintendent (1940-1965). He had the distinction of being the longest serving superintendent ever, and the only one to come through the Department of Public Welfare, rather than serve as an M.D.

Coming from a social services background, he used his position to serve the community as well as the patients at the infirmary.

Traveling to the state’s many clinics, he gathered good people with a heart for service, to Chicago, offering them a home and employment. Dad touched so many lives with his generous spirit.

I often reminisce about our old home, on the corner of Adams and Peoria. It was an unusual life, and we all adapted in our own ways. My brother, Don, and I played catch in the side yard, enclosed by a tall iron fence. Our younger sister Lynda, and eventually all of the grandchildren, spent countless hours on the swing set there.

Envisioning this area as a park, open to the neighborhood, completes the circle.

Our meals were provided by the hospital kitchen, wheeled to our apartment on a big cart. Ruth, our caregiver and cook, became legendary for her fried chicken, which we have spent a lifetime trying to duplicate.

Dr. Lederer, a training supervisor of the resident doctors, Mae and Eileen Curran, sisters who acted as Dad’s secretary and business manager, and Dr. Kinkella, a good friend, gathered in our apartment to play penny poker on Saturday nights. “Red” Beltz was recruited from southern Illinois as infirmary driver, along with his wife, Opal, who ran the switchboard, often with my daughter on her lap. We all remember making peanut brittle in the “Big Kitchen” for Christmas gifts to the hospital and clinic staff. Doctors and service personnel alike comprised a rich and colorful extended family to our own.

In his rare hours away from his duties, Dad found respite in the wood working shop in the basement of the hospital, filling our apartment with beautiful walnut furniture. When the infirmary was torn down, my dad, the original recycler, salvaged the 5-by-8-foot mirror that had graced the fireplace. He stripped 13 coats of hospital-green paint to reveal an ornately carved walnut frame, around which he built his retirement home. It was a daily reminder of his years at the hospital.

The Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary was such a cornerstone of our families’ lives. Four generations either experienced its warmth, or heard stories of the place that defined “home” for the Gerber family.

It seems fitting that the new park be named for my father, Lester Gerber, who was as much part of the infirmary as the brick we salvaged at its demolition. His license plates always read “77 904,” for the address on West Adams.

Dad and mom would be so honored to have this park bear his name.