Elizabeth Bauch Lavicka, nurse who knew Addams

Elizabeth Bauch Lavicka was a local version of movie characterForrest Gump, according to one of her sons, putting her in the rightplace to meet history makers including Jane Addams and Carl Sandburg.

Mrs. Lavicka, a nurse and long-time resident of Hyde Park, diedMonday at the Pavilion Rest Home in Forest Park of natural causes.She was 84.

The oldest of six children, Mrs. Lavicka was reared in Freeport,Ill., by truck farmer parents who would rush their fresh produce tocity markets in Chicago in the middle of the night. While her mother,Priscilla, and father, Clement, worked the fields, Mrs. Lavicka tookcare of her five younger brothers.

When she was a young girl, Mrs. Lavicka once ran away from home toChicago to stay with social activist Jane Addams, who was a friend ofher great-uncle.

Mrs. Lavicka graduated from Freeport High School in 1937 andattended Cornell College in Iowa. There she was the only freshmaninvited to a reception with poet Carl Sandburg, according to Mrs.Lavicka's son William, a Chicago architect and preservationist.

After leaving Cornell, Mrs. Lavicka attended NorthwesternUniversity, where she received a degree in nursing in 1941.

In 1942, Mrs. Lavicka married her husband, William L. Lavicka whojoined the U.S. Coast Guard shortly after they were married. Thecouple moved to New Orleans, where her husband was stationed.

After the war, the couple moved to Batavia, where Mrs. Lavickabecame a homemaker raising four children. She also enjoyed gardeningand sewing clothes for the family.

She found time to immerse herself and her children in culturalactivities, such as visiting the symphony and Art Institute ofChicago. She also took up golf and was the Ladies 9-Hole champion atthe St. Charles Country Club.

When Mrs. Lavicka's husband died of a heart attack in 1959, shewas left to raise five children by herself.

She moved the family to Chicago near Belmont and Broadway andbecame active in a Hull House theater group.

To help raise her children, Mrs. Lavicka worked as a receptionistand as a nurse at Cook County Hospital. She also did social servicework for the city, passing out blankets or ladling soup for thehungry.

She taught her children to fight injustice and she marched in theRev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s funeral procession.

Mrs. Lavicka later moved to Hyde Park, where she lived for 40years.

Mrs. Lavicka often commented that she usually voted for losingpresidential candidates, according to her son William. But she waselated that her support for Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th) paid off.Mrs. Lavicka supported Preckwinkle by making phone calls andcampaigning in her Hyde Park cooperative.

"She was a real live wire," Preckwinkle said. "She enjoyed lifeand was a person who liked laughing."

In addition to her son William, Mrs. Lavicka is survived by fivebrothers, Stanley Bauch, Robert Bauch, Donald Bauch, William Bauchand Davis Bauch; another son, Robert; two daughters, Lisa Pitman andSarah Lavicka, and five grandchildren.

Services were private.