A crowd of at least 700 mourners packed tightly inside the vaulted cathedral of United Lutheran Church on Ridgeland Avenue Saturday, Feb. 14 to experience in solidarity what Dan Greenstone called the “real pain, raw pain, blinding pain” of his friend Peter Traczyk’s sudden death.
Traczyk, a District 97 elementary school board member and candidate for the board at Oak Park and River Forest High School, was found dead on Saturday, Feb. 7 in a forest preserve near Melrose Park in what authorities have concluded was suicide.
The memorial service had to be moved from Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, where the Traczyk family attended, to accommodate the anticipated crowd, which included fellow D97 board members, village leaders, students, staff members, neighbors, friends and family, among other mourners.
Greenstone said Traczyk, 48, was the first person he and his family met when they moved on to the 300 block of North Scoville Avenue, the Traczyk’s longtime home.
“Within 20 minutes, we were friends,” Greenstone said. That very evening, he noted, Peter and Cindy Traczyk invited Greenstone’s family over for dinner—a meal that turned into the first of many.
In a long and eloquent eulogy, Greenstone talked about “four common threads, four remarkable traits of Peter’s personality.” They were, he said, Traczyk’s kindness, talent for uniting people, helpfulness and joyfulness.Â
Jeff Charkow said he met Traczyk nearly 30 years ago when both were students at the University of Wisconsin — Madison. Charkow said the two bonded over a common home state – Connecticut — and similar tastes in music, particularly that of Jeff Tweedy and Wilco.
Charkow, after recalling his friend’s loud, animated laugh, read a few lyrics from Wilco’s “How to Fight Loneliness:”
“And the first thing that you want / Will be the last thing you ever need / That’s how you fight it / Just smile all the time.”
Both Greenstone and Charkow recalled their friend’s handiness.Â
“Traczyk-fixed,” Greenstone said, meant that was something was fixed the right way, for good. It often followed after “Greenstone-fixed,” he joked, which was the often substandard repair that begged for Traczyk’s deft attention.
“What am I going to do the next time the gutter has fallen off my house?” mused Charkow.
Greenstone said that Traczyk, well known for his way of putting strangers at ease, was also a craftsman in the art of knowing people.
“He studied people,” Greenstone said. “He used his grace and wit to find a way to in, a way to connect.”Â
That ability to connect was on full display in a church full of people who Traczyk touched, the ceremony, as his friend and in-law Greg Friess noted, a fitting “measure of the value of Peter’s friendship.”Â
“Peter loved Oak Park and Oak Park loved Peter,” said Charkow.Â
Music at the service was provided by school children from District 97 schools. Jukebox, made up of students from Percy Julian Middle School, sang several songs while the Beye School Gospel Choir closed the service.
As if scripted, students streaming into Oak Park and River Forest High School the Monday following the service encountered a forest of trees from which hanged scarves that had tucked inside of them short notes of encouragement. That effort was led by neighbors and friends of the family.
It was a display of the kind of solidarity in mourning Greenstone described, an extension of his friend Peter’s characteristic commitment to community over self and his uncanny way of extending himself beyond the point that would have made most other people uncomfortable.Â
“I’ve witnessed…hundreds of people help each other through their sorrow,” Greenstone said of Oak Park’s reaction to Traczyk’s death.
As he stood at the podium, Greenstone admitted to feeling a distinct absence of joy. He was hopeful that it would return, but noted that until it does, “we can take some small solace from the echo of Peter’s laugh.”
Dan Greenstone’s eulogy of Traczyk has been uploaded in full below:
 Dan Greenstone Eulogy of Peter Traczyk
CONTACT: michael@oakpark.comÂ