Women on a MISSION

Against a backdrop of a contentious summer and early fall, a November election rapidly approaches in which we will vote, top to bottom, for virtually every public office. With all that in mind, not to mention a Supreme Court nomination under consideration, we decided to spend some time talking with two DuPage County Circuit Judges of the 18th Judicial Circuit Court: Ann Celine O’Hallaren Walsh and Monique Naffah O’Toole. Both are up for re-election.

We wanted to learn what it is like to be a judge, how they became judges and how they approach their considerable responsibilities these days.

The journey for these very accomplished women to become judges takes us from their early classrooms to their courtrooms. There are some remarkable parallels for both.

Both attended St. Isaac Jogues School in Hinsdale, where we had our conversation. They sat in the same classrooms they attended. They reminisced about teachers like Mrs. Anderson, Sister Joan Clare and Mrs. Dempsey.

“I especially remember Principal Sister Joan Clare,” O’Toole said. “She ran the school with an iron fist, and no one crossed her. She always wore a skirt and heels, and you could hear her coming down the hall. All of us straightened up in our chairs for fear she would be coming into our classroom.”

They both credit the school with not only teaching “reading, writing and arithmetic,” but teaching the importance of respecting “the other person,” respecting authority and being involved in the community.

Tom Brokaw, famous as a national nightly TV news anchor, became even more famous when in 1998, he published interviews and observations about the men and women he called the “The Greatest Generation”—those who grew up during the Great Depression and World War II.

One person he didn’t interview was Charlie Hartley—yes, that Charlie Hartley, of Hartley’s Cycle Shoppe in Hinsdale.

In these times of a pandemic, which has upset the very basics of living throughout the world, and fanciful notions like “cancel culture” are attempting to literally rewrite history, his factual history is worth knowing.—It is also reassuring.

Charlie was born on June 28, 1928 in Elmhurst, one of three children. His father Charles was secretary-treasurer of the Elmhurst Chicago Stone Co., and served in World War I; while his mother was a housekeeper. The family had three children. Even though his father had a good job, Charlie was expected to work at an early age.

Three early doses of reality

On his first job, he learned a valuable lesson about taking care of customers. He recalls working on a route delivering Saturday Evening Post magazines. He would go door to door, with a sack full of the magazines, which were “unusually tall.”

In fact, when it rained, they got soaked. When he started losing customers, he used his common sense and found a magazine that fit into his sack so they didn’t get wet. He implemented another improvement when starting using a bike to make more deliveries. While it expanded his route, when the bike broke down, he had to rely on himself to fix the chain or the flat tire. Little did he know then how handy it would be to know how to repair bikes.

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