Diane Dunham
Diane Dunham, a former 20-year trustee of Schaumburg Township and the wife of 52 years of Schaumburg senior Village Trustee George Dunham, died Saturday after a recurrence of the cancer she’d successfully fought a few years before.
Having immigrated to the U.S. from Poland at the age of 12 with her parents and sisters in 1961, she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from the University of Illinois and an MBA from Lewis University.
Diane went on to hold positions with Exxon/Mobil and Northrop-Grumman in IT management.
Her two decades of elected service to the community that began in 2000 were inspired in part by her earlier involvement in village election campaigns and what others learned of her abilities from them, her husband George said.
“She’s a voracious reader and was very astute when it comes to anything financial,” he said. “She had a knack for taking a balance sheet and cutting it down to the bare facts.”
She helped run a tight financial ship at the township during her years on the board, George said. But the specific community responsibilities of the township proved to be a good fit for her interests.
“A lot of it had to do with helping a variety of people, like seniors,” George said. “She just enjoyed that. She saw it as giving back. She had lived under two completely different political systems.”
As a child under Community rule in Poland, the young Diane had seen her father have two businesses taken away from him by the government before the family managed to reach the top of a list allowing their entry into the U.S. after a yearslong wait.
“When they came here they had three large wicker trunks with everything they owned, and they made a new life in Chicago,” George said.
He and Diane met at a wedding in Chicago in 1968 when his cousin married her cousin.
Outside of her professional and elected jobs, Diane had a strong interest in gardening and national politics, was lovingly addicted to the Hallmark Channel, and devoted to her young granddaughter, nieces and nephews, George said.
A visitation is scheduled from 3 to 8 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 13 at Ahlgrim & Sons Funeral Home at 330 W. Golf Road in Schaumburg with a funeral Mass to follow at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 14 at St. Matthew Catholic Church, 1005 E. Schaumburg Road in Schaumburg. Further information will be posted on the funeral home’s website at ahlgrimfuneral.com.