SR1319 103RD GENERAL ASSEMBLY

SR1319 LRB103 43161 ECR 76423 r

SENATE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois Senate are saddened to learn of the death of George Francis Dietz, who passed away on May 3, 2024; and

WHEREAS, George Dietz was born in Detroit, Michigan on April 9, 1931, the eldest of six siblings; he was raised a few blocks from Blessed Sacrament Cathedral, where he attended grade school and served as an altar boy; and

WHEREAS, George Dietz enjoyed playing sports during his youth, becoming famous in his neighborhood for winning an exhibition boxing match as a seventh-grade underdog; he played football and baseball in school and continued playing sports into adulthood, later sharing this passion with his children and grandchildren; and

WHEREAS, George Dietz graduated from Catholic Central High School in Detroit, and he proceeded to attend the University of Detroit and later earned his medical degree from Loyola University Medical School in Chicago; and

WHEREAS, George Dietz was often invited to get-togethers at the home of one of his professors, Dr. Herbert Ratner, where he met his future wife and Dr. Ratner's daughter, Helen Ratner; and

WHEREAS, George Dietz went to work for a Native American Reservation in South Dakota on a government assignment during the Korean War; he carried many fond memories of playing catcher on the reservation baseball team; and

WHEREAS, George Dietz's medical school mentor advised him to take residencies in surgery, obstetrics, and psychiatry to prepare for general practice, and this training helped prepare him for his work in a Cook County hospital, where he helped establish one of the first residencies in Family Practice; and

WHEREAS, George Dietz learned Spanish after studying abroad for two years in Europe, enabling him to serve Spanish-speaking patients, including the workers on the backstretch of the Hawthorne and Arlington horse racing tracks; he was fond of watching the Kentucky Derby, and it brought him great joy when a visiting friend told him that they would be placing a bet in his honor; and

WHEREAS, George Dietz established a private practice towards the end of his career to care for an underserved population on the South Side of Chicago, where he continued to make house calls to patients until he was 89 years of age; and

WHEREAS, George Dietz's family was very important to him; every year, he would take his boys camping, hiking, and on trips spent praying the rosary on the way to a shrine to Mary, a part of the May Pilgrimage tradition he passed onto his grandchildren; he loved teaching his children about the catechism and sports and reading workbooks on logic to them, which he later read to his grandchildren, great-nephews, and great-nieces; and

WHEREAS, George Dietz will be remembered for his habit of wearing a suit, his morning visits to the post office to "do the mail" and chat with the postal workers, his breakfasts at George's Restaurant, his medley of old songs that he played on the piano at family gatherings, his fondness of talking to people new and old, his bedtime stories of Paul Bunyan, his footraces around the block with his children, and his delight in being the first one on the dance floor with his wife; and

WHEREAS, George Dietz is survived by his wife, Helen; his children, George III and Nicholas, and their wives, Jamie and Magaly; his grandchildren, George IV, Edward, Carmen, and Simon; his siblings, Gerald, John, Anthony, Paul, and Lori; and many nieces and nephews; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE ONE HUNDRED THIRD GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we mourn the passing of George Francis Dietz and extend our condolences to his family, friends and all who knew and loved him; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to the family of George Dietz as an expression of our deepest sympathy.