Category: Featured Legacies

Roy Wiley worked in advertising and public relations for more than four decades after starting out in journalism and for many years was the chief spokesman for Navistar, the truck and engine manufacturer.

“He was a very positive, energizing kind of person, and he would hang around often times people half his age, but he had more energy than they did,” said Dan Ustian, a retired chairman and CEO of Navistar. “He knew everybody.”

Wiley, 87, died April 4 at Northwestern Memorial Hospital while recovering from hip surgery, said his wife of 33 years, Bobbie Huskey. He had been a Loop resident.

Born in Chicago and raised on the Northwest Side, Wiley was the son of Charles L. Wiley, who ran unsuccessfully in the 1932 GOP primary for a Northwest Side congressional district.

Wiley attended Onarga Military Academy in downstate Onarga for high school, then attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism for two years.

In 1952, while at Northwestern, Wiley was hired as an apprentice copy clerk at the Chicago Sun-Times. He was promoted to full-time general assignment reporter two years later, and later was the paper’s auto editor, a marketing and stock market columnist and finally, the paper’s assistant financial editor, overseeing a staff of 10.

“As a metro reporter in Chicago, back in the day, he’d witnessed some harsh things, but he nonetheless loved the city deeply despite its flaws,” said former Tribune reporter James P. Miller, a longtime friend. “Roy also loved newspapering — the action and the deadlines.”

In the early 1960s, Wiley also was editor of Glenview-based Automotive Fleet magazine, a publication devoted exclusively to passenger car fleets owned or leased by industry and government.

In 1968, Wiley left the Sun-Times to take a job in public relations as a vice president at the Financial Relations Board, a financial communications agency. Wiley remained there until 1972, when he and a colleague cofounded OSLA Communications, a public relations firm that was an offshoot of Olympic Savings & Loan Association.

Wiley later was director of communications at advertising agency Weber, Cohn and Riley before signing on with the Ogilvy & Mather public relations firm in 1982.

In the early 1990s, Wiley managed media relations for clients involved in hostile merger-and-acquisition activity. Miller, then a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, recalled Wiley’s forthrightness and graciousness amid at-times contentious dealings between companies.

“M&A … isn’t rocket science, but it is precision work because a lot of money is riding on the outcome, and tiny signals can swing the price of the target company’s shares, and both sides can be tempted to sling mud at the other,” Miller said. “Not Roy Wiley, though, ever, in my experience, over decades of interactions with the guy. In a hardball business, he was old-school — somebody whose word was always, always good.”

In 1996, Wiley joined public relations firm Hill & Knowlton.

“You could always count on Roy to have that skeptical journalist’s eye on things,” said Hud Englehart, who worked with Wiley at Hill & Knowlton. “He always knew what questions to ask or what the most insightful questions were that got us to a core insight into the community and as well into clients.”

In 1998, Navistar hired Wiley as director of communications. At Navistar, he was known for insisting on only using the stairs in the company’s Warrenville headquarters, as a way to stay fit.

“We had five floors there, and one meeting might be on the first floor and the next meeting would be on the fifth floor, and some of the people would be going to both meetings, and Roy would say, ‘Let’s walk,’ ” Ustian said. “So Roy would walk up five flights of stairs, and the young guys (with him) would be the ones that were tired.”

Wiley retired from Navistar in 2011, at age 76.

Wiley and his wife renovated a vintage home in Lakeview before moving to a Loop high-rise, where their neighbors included former TV reporter and Better Government Association Executive Director Andy Shaw.

“My first thought was that this is one fashionable octogenarian,” Shaw recalled. “He was still as stylish, sophisticated and urbane as he had been throughout his distinguished career — a true boulevardier.”

Two marriages ended in divorce. In addition to his wife, Wiley is survived by a son, Roy; a daughter, Cindy Wiley Hindel; nine grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. Another son, Todd, died in 2018.

Source: Chicago Tribune

Gail Petersen Harwell, 81, passed away peacefully on Tuesday, April 26, 2022, at RiverView Care Center in Crookston, where she had been a resident since October of 2021.

She was born October 7, 1940, to Norma and Jerry Petersen at Minette’s Maternity Home in Fertile, where she also attended school, first grade through 12th. From early years, she had a curiosity for the world and would stand on the front porch and say, “Just wait for me world, I’ll get there.”

To achieve that goal, Gail was a determined high achiever in high school, which led to a full scholarship at Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism. After earning her Bachelor of Science in 1962, she launched a career as an advertising writer in Chicago. She was named a Vice President of J. Walter Thompson Company-Chicago in 1969, where she worked primarily in television, writing for such accounts as Sears dishwashers, Kraft Foods, Sunbeam, and Jovan fragrances. In 1977, she moved to Boston and Arnold & Company; in 1979 to Manhattan and JWT New York; in 1983 to Los Angeles and Evans Advertising; and in 1993 to Marin County in the Bay Area.

Gail met her husband Richard Sterling Harwell in 1971 at Great Lakes, IL, at the end of a sailing race. They were separated by geography and circumstances, but fate brought them together again 20 years later, and they were married in 1993 at Concordia Lutheran Church in Fertile.

In 1995, Gail changed careers, becoming an independent editorial consultant in the engineering-construction field. She often worked alongside Sterling; writing, editing, formatting, and producing proposals, feasibility studies, and marketing materials for multibillion-dollar construction projects. She worked in Asia, Europe, Australia, and Central America, as well as across the U.S., continuing until her final retirement at the age of 73. From that time, Gail and Sterling enjoyed a life of tennis, travel, volunteering, and relaxation overlooking San Francisco Bay. They were members of the Belvedere Tennis Club and the San Francisco Yacht Club. Gail was an avid reader, and she belonged to a local book club for 10 years.

Friends will remember her for her meticulous planning and orchestration of many wonderful birthday parties, club gatherings and class reunions.

Both Gail and Sterling will be remembered by family for initiating and maintaining the “Petersen-Harwell Perpetual Ping Pong Tournament,” complete with engraved trophy. Gail made sure the results with photos were posted in the Fertile Journal.

Family and friends recall her kindness, generosity, acute sense of humor, infectious laugh, courage, and fierce determination. She had a certain “twinkle in her eyes,” and she will be dearly missed by all who knew and loved her.

Gail was preceded in death by her husband, R. Sterling Harwell, by her older sister, and best friend, Marlys Ozga, and by an infant nephew. She is survived by brothers, Harold (Candy) of Brookline, MA, and Michael (Carol) of Fertile, and brother-in-law, Edward Ozga of Plymouth, MN, nine nieces and nephews, a host of grandnieces and grandnephews, and one great-grandniece.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to Parkinson’s disease research or Hospice of the Red River Valley.

Source: Eriksen-Vik-Ganje Funeral Homes

David Searl, the author of expat Bible ‘You & The Law in Spain’ which provides a step-by-step guide to all aspects of legal matters in Spain, has died at the age of 82.

Born in Ashtabula, Ohio, on the shores of Lake Erie, he studied at the Medill School of Journalism at the prestigious Northwestern University, which is where he met his wife Janet Mendel.

They both worked in Chicago’s newspapers before deciding in 1966 to take a year off to live in Spain. It was a chance encounter in a Chicago bar that led them to decide on Mijas, then a quiet hillside village above the Costa del Sol.

“We were thinking about Spain, and then one night in a bar, we heard some people speaking Spanish on the table next to us. It was an American man chatting to some visiting flamenco performers and he raved about this place Mijas where he had spent some time in Spain,” Janet recalls.

“Based on that conversation, the very next day we decided that Mijas was our destination,” she told the Olive Press by telephone.

The pair took a freighter across the Atlantic to Casablanca, then a rickety bus to Tangiers before crossing over the Straits of Gibraltar from Morocco to Spain’s Algeciras. “We arrived in Mijas by taxi where we lived pretty well on our savings. We had intended on only staying for a year, but well, things didn’t turn out like that.”

After a year-long stint teaching at an American school in Switzerland, the pair returned to Mijas and made it their permanent home, buying a plot of land and building their home, where Janet still lives.

It was here that they raised their two boys, Daniel and Benjamin, and forged writing careers, with Janet focusing on Spanish food and David on legal issues affecting the expat community as well as freelancing as a foreign correspondent.

He was sent down the coast to Palomares to report on an incident that saw American nuclear bombs dropped accidentally from a B-52 in 1966 as well as by a Canadian newspaper to follow up on a rumour that then Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau was holidaying with a mistress in Spain.

David and Janet separated in the mid-1980s but both stayed in Mijas where David met artist Mary Eisman, who became his partner for the rest of his life.

He also went on to write 24 editions of what became the expat must-read on all legal matters, a book that appears on the bookcases of expats across Spain.

“He was an impish character with a whimsical sense of humour,” recalls former colleague and Costa del Sol journalist David Baird. “As I understand it, he began contributing to Lookout, which at that time was required reading for expats here in the 70s.”

“The editor, Ken Brown, asked him to answer some of the queries received relating to Spanish law that affected expats. Thanks to his investigations and consultations with lawyers, gestores and tax advisors on the Costa, his knowledge grew until he was something of an expert. He began writing a regular column in Lookout answering readers’ queries about everything from residence requirements to driving licenses.”

“In 1985 with his accumulated knowledge, he compiled the book ‘You & the Law in Spain,’ published by Santana Books. This became what the Times declared was ‘the Bible for foreigners in Spain,'” said Baird.

Another former colleague and foreign correspondent Edward Owen remembered: “David happily advised foreign journalists in Spain who were often covering gruesome stories involving their own countrymen who were caught up in property scams, home seizures and expensive legal tangles.”

“David was a charming and amiable colleague who did not seek to hugely profit from his valuable work. He enjoyed helping others and beating the oft-changing system. At Lookout’s famous lunches in Fuengirola, he would often regale the throng with tales of woe – and how he had helped yet another Brit get out of jail or regain ownership of his villa.”

Searl had the ability to write about complex Spanish legal matters in plain English that was easy to understand, and his work was also translated into French, German and Russian.

Up until his death, Searl was working on the 25th edition, which was to be published later this year.

He was also an active member of his community and regular guest on local radio as well as advising the Foreign Residents’ Department at Mijas Town Hall and other local community groups.

He died on March 18 at the age of 82 and leaves behind Mary, his two sons and three grandchildren.

Source: Olive Press

Sheryl Lynn Jedlinski, age 68, passed peacefully on March 12, 2022, following a seven-year battle with cancer. Sheryl bravely fought Parkinson’s Disease for 24 years, writing a book and popular blog about her journey. She traveled the country, coaching and helping others fighting chronic and progressive illnesses. Born December 12, 1953 in the Bronx, Sheryl was the daughter of the late Leonard Applebaum & Lorraine Gilbert. She is survived by her devoted husband Tony; her sons Jason (Jay) and Steven (Megan); her beloved granddaughters, Parker and Kendall; her brother David (Diane) and their children: Jeremy, Sarah and Jenny.

Source: Legacy.com

Ernie Torriero (MSJ77)

As war approached in Baghdad, most U.S. journalists evacuated. Not Ernie Torriero, a reporter for a major U.S. newspaper. He was one of the few American journalists who remained on the ground during the war that felled the Saddam Hussein government.

Torriero covered some of the world’s major conflicts of the early 21^st Century, working in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Israel for the Chicago Tribune.

By 2010, he brought what colleagues call “his energy and enthusiasm” to Voice of America. Tuesday, February 15, VOA leadership announced Torriero passed away in the early morning.

“I am personally devastated by Ernie’s passing and my deepest thoughts and sympathies are with his entire family and his many friends,” said Acting VOA Director Yolanda López. “Since 2010 when Ernie first joined VOA, he proved himself to be a talented and incredibly versatile journalist, working across nearly every division on some of our highest profile stories and issues. Ernie was an extraordinary colleague who represented the very best of VOA and his loss will be felt across our entire organization.”

Torriero most recently served as Digital Managing Editor in English to Africa where he was working to create a news website and upgrade social media coverage.

“It is so hard to say goodbye to Ernie. He was a terrific colleague, always sharing great insights and ideas, and his energy and enthusiasm kept us all moving forward,” said Sonya Laurence Green who was his last supervisor as former chief of the English to Africa service. “He was also a terrific friend, telling many jokes and stories from his years as a journalist in almost every corner of the world.”

Previously at VOA, Torriero served as chief of the China Branch, managing editor of the Extremism Watch Desk, Middle East editor in VOA’s Central News Division and executive producer for VOANews.com, the agency’s lead English web site.

Torriero won awards from the Overseas Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Scripps Howard Foundation and the Florida Press Club. He was winner of the Paul Hansell Award in 1995, the top merit for a Florida journalist for a year’s body of work.

He earned an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Science from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, where he lectured as an adjunct professor.

Green said Torriero was known among his friends as being “a bit of a gourmand, cooking up wonderful dishes in his spare time” who could also “commiserate about the absurdities of life and work.”

During the past two years, Ernie oversaw digital news coverage of Africa’s 54 countries, significantly driving social media traffic to VOA Africa platforms. The website Ernie and his staff were building, voaafrica.com, is expected to go online in April, about the same time its editor would have turned 68.

Ernie is survived by his loving wife Antje Torriero, who serves as a Craft Video Editor in VOA Central Production Services, and their two 15-year-old twin sons, Andreas and Julius.

Source: VOA