The Reverend Dr. F. Dean Lueking, 98, a longtime resident of Oak Park and River Forest and former pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in River Forest, died on June 25, 2026 at Sunrise of River Forest after a brief illness. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, on June 21, 1928, the son of Fred and Tyra Lueking, he grew up there through his high school years. He began his preparation for the Lutheran ministry at St. John’s College in Kansas and continued it at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri. Prior to his seminary graduation, he spent a two year internship in Yokohama, Japan, which influenced him lifelong.
On Aug. 15, 1954 he was ordained into the pastoral ministry at Grace Lutheran, where he served for 44 years, first as an assistant pastor and after 1963 as senior pastor until his retirement in 1998. He remained an active member and pastor emeritus until his death. When he came to Grace he was single. That changed in 1957 on a blind date when he met a physical education teacher, Beverly Ann Frano. Less than a month later he proposed. Her surprised response: “Do you know what you’re talking about?” All he could answer was “Please trust me.”
She did and their 68 years of marriage began with their wedding on Aug. 16, 1958 in Wisconsin. Of his many roles of service in the community, Dean was most proud of his board chair work for Thrive Counseling Center at a critical time in its history. He was close to and met often with clergy in churches and synagogues throughout Oak Park and River Forest. Active with Lutheran Child and Family Services, the Luekings fostered more than 30 children over the years. Dean and Beverly were also longtime members of the River Forest Tennis Club and Oak Park Country Club.
Dean is survived by Beverly and their four children, Ann Elizabeth Anderson (Douglas), Christopher Dean (Cameron), Sarah Filipa McCabe (Mark), Joel Frederick (Tiffany), and a foster son, Timothy Lovell (Betty), as well as their 11 grandchildren, Joseph (Morgan), Elisabeth Race (Nate), David (Elizabeth), Kjerstin Uribe (Juan), Grace, Catie, Vivian, Christian, Benjamin, Chloe, Sienna, and their three great-grandchildren, Avery, Lilah, and Tess. All his family reside in the greater Chicago area. He is also survived by many nieces and nephews and friends worldwide.
From the beginning of his pastoral ministry at Grace, Pastor Lueking continued a program of part-time graduate study encouraged by the congregation. He completed his PhD at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago in 1960 which became essential in later years when he taught in seminaries and universities in Europe and elsewhere. He was named alumnus of the year in 1979 and remained actively associated with U of C and Lutheran School of Theology in Hyde Park. He encouraged fellow pastors to write about their pastoral ministries and authored 14 books of his own on parish practice. In 1965 he helped co-found the Academy of Parish Ministry, a national organization providing Protestant and Roman Catholic clergy with an accredited program for professional growth through sharing parish practice, and he published sermons for decades.
He used his two sabbaticals during his years at Grace to travel extensively in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Far East and Southeast Asia, interviewing several hundred clergy and laity for their personal stories of living the Christian faith in their cultural context. Beverly’s active participation during those interviews was especially important when speaking with women.
Following his retirement from Grace in 1998 he and Beverly moved to Bratislava, Slovakia, where he taught in the theological faculty of Comenius University. Thereafter the two traveled to New Zealand, Australia and Papua New Guinea for continued interviews with laity and clergy. Dean’s resultant book, Through Their Eyes, was published in 2010. He was also active in retirement with Opportunity International and World Vision.
In the early 1970s, their house on Detroit Island in Door County, Wisconsin, became a welcome getaway for family and friends. He and seminary roommate and lifelong friend, Martin Marty, conducted a decade of summer retreats on nearby Washington Island attended by numerous Oak Park and River Forest residents.
Among several dozen awards received during his long pastorate, he especially valued the shofar plaque given him by the River Forest West Suburban Synagogue, the honorary doctorate conferred by the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, the Golden Rose of Charity by Dominican University, the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award, and a personal letter of encouragement from a young Barack Obama when he was running for the Illinois senate in 2004.
Dean loved baseball. After a particularly successful outing as a southpaw pitcher on his college team, a Philadelphia Phillies scout saw the game and approached him about signing with the Phillies organization. He turned it down in favor of continuing his pastoral preparation, sensing that his pitching talent could never match that of Robin Roberts, then a Phillies stalwart. Years later he wrote a magazine article about the decision. Not long after its publication he received a letter from Roberts who had read the article and wrote to say that he had once considered becoming a Lutheran pastor but went into baseball instead. His closing comment, “and so we kind of passed each other in the night,” was a fitting commentary on their respective decisions.
Pastor Lueking’s memorial service will be held at Grace Lutheran Church, 7300 W. Division, River Forest, at 11 a.m. on July 18, with visitation prior at 10 a.m. His burial will be at the Grace Church columbarium.