Birthday prompts Gorski family to trace their Lemont history

LEMONT – The Gorski family, which has helped shape Lemont’s business landscape since the late 1800s, this week sends out a collective birthday greeting to Mary Gorski, who just turned 91.

As part of the birthday celebration, the family shares the following overview of their history in the village.

It was a different Mary and husband John Gorski who started their first business on Canal Street in 1894, called John Gorski’s Place. In 1904, it moved to Main Street, its windows proclaiming wines, liquors and cigars.

Theo “Ted” Gorski, their son, went into his first business in Lemont in 1915. Ted Gorski bought their present building and began coal, ice and Pony Express enterprises. Sometime later, he also started selling soda and beer.

In 1949, he purchased the single school bus that launched the Theo J. Gorski & Son School Bus Co., which currently serves the schools of Lemont. He had to purchase a steel bridge to cross the I&M Canal in order to get the vehicle to and from the warehouse for the school bus runs.

Robert Gorski Sr., Theo’s son born in 1923 who would go on to wed Mary, attended St. Al’s Elementary School, Joliet Catholic High School and Notre Dame College. He served in the South Pacific during World War II.

He took over the family business in 1955. In the mid-1950s, he became a Hamm’s beer distributor for Cook and DuPage counties.

In the 1960s, the bus company grew, and he added a snow removal business. Robert “Bob” Gorski and his sons plowed churches, schools, businesses and private drives.

Bob Gorski recognized a need for faster mail service and secured a contract with the Lemont Post Office to pick up mail on the grounds of Lemont High School, landing site for the helicopter service he arranged to speed delivery. He then ventured into the restaurant business with The Beaten Path. He was president of the Chamber of Commerce for two terms and a lifelong member of the Lions Club. He and a group of investors started the Lemont Savings and Loan in the late 1960s. He served on the board of the Lemont Fire Department in the 1970s.

Mary Gorski has handled bookkeeping for the Gorski Bus Co. through the years. The couple also found time to raise a family of six children.

When their kids were not busy, they delivered beer to picnics on the weekends for their many friends and neighbors. They also used empty beer trucks to load furniture and move households for people in Lemont.

“Bob had the kids running in circles so much that one day he told (son) Kevin it was time to pick up the school kids and to hurry up,” the family recalled. “He jumped in the beer truck and started off to get them and got a mile or so away before he realized what he was driving.”

The clan added, “Robert and Mary and their six children did all these things and more – in many cases at no cost – because they loved Lemont and its citizens.”

The Gorski family said they would like to thank the community for all the shared history and almost 125 years of doing business in the fine village Lemont has become.

Note to readers: Lemont Suburban Life joins the community in congratulating Mary Gorski on her birthday.