Lydia Schmalandt, 97, died peacefully on Aug. 6, 2022. She had emigrated from Germany to the U.S. with her husband (Julius) and son (Horst) in late 1951. They worked on a ranch in Montana before moving to Forest Park in 1954 and became citizens in 1961. Julius worked at Forest Park Savings and Loan. For many years, she was a seamstress at Gilmore’s Department Store in Oak Park, doing alterations on wedding dresses. She attended Forest Park Baptist Church every Sunday. The couple moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 1975, where she worked as a seamstress at Goldwater’s Department Store. Her husband died in 1998, and she moved back to the Chicago area in 2006, living in the Oak Trace (then Fairview) Retirement Home in Downers Grove.
Lydia was the brother of Willie (Martha); the mother of Horst (Mary) and Bob (Anne); the aunt of Reinhardt; the grandmother of Kristen (Brian), Michael, Dan, Kevin (Chelsie), and Meg (Cole); and the great-grandmother of Sylvia and Charlie Anne.
