Josef Stengl, 90, of Riverside, died Sept. 6, 2012 at Adventist LaGrange Memorial Hospital.
Born in the farm village of Stankov, Czechoslovakia on Oct. 29, 1921 to Francis and Maria (nee Ninar) Stengl, he was the second oldest of four children.
At the age of 17 he was in police training when the Nazi Germany occupied the Sudetenland. He was then assigned to a munitions factory, where through the war he worked to sabotage antiaircraft shells, making them into duds.
After the war he immigrated to Australia and worked to install waterworks during the postwar expansion of the city of Melbourne. Four years later, he moved to Sydney, where he met a girl from Prague, who worked at a hamburger shop.
He married Ludmilia Suchankova on Feb. 15, 1954 and later that year they sailed to the United States, settling first in Berwyn and then Riverside.
A tool-and-die maker, Mr. Stengl worked in the television tuner industry and retired in 1986. He was known as a handyman around the house, working on automobiles and doing woodworking and metalworking.
Mr. Stengl was preceded in death by his wife. He is survived by his children, Robert (Stephanie), George (Ann) and Jan (Shyla); his grandchildren, Josef, Nickolas, Lucas, Lara and Josef “Pepecheck”.
A funeral service was held Sept. 10 at Kopicki’s Heritage Funeral Home in Berwyn, followed by interment at Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside.
