
James Richard Turay, 58, of Lombard, passed away January 20th, 2012 and is survived by his loving wife Sandra, father Michael, mother Bertha, sister Shirley Grimsley (Dave), nephews Michael and Lenny, nieces Tina and Marisa, father-in-law Roy Walker, mother-in-law Diane, brother-in-law Rob and preceded in death brother Michael. We were also very lucky to have many close and loving friends: Joe and Tammy Ropinski and their beautiful kids Danny, Ashley and her fiance Jake which are like and are part of our family, Mike and Kristen McAleer and beautiful daughter Kayla, Erin and Ed Moltzan and their beautiful family as well as our extended family at Modern Optical: Ken and Yale Weissman and their gracious families, Dolly Zito, Al Morgan, Linda and Bill Pack and sons and so many others that we will always love and cherish.
Funeral Service Tuesday 10:00 a.m. at Brust Funeral Home, 135 S. Main St. Lombard, IL. Visitation Monday 3-8 p.m. Interment Private. In lieu of Flowers, Memorials to the Juvenile Diabetes Association appreciated.
Jim loved to go on vacation especially tropical ones Puerto Vallarta, Cancun, Cabo San Lucas, a cruise on the world largest ship to St. Thomas and St. Martin (during hurricane Irene and handled it like a champ!), Punta Cana though he also loved the road trips to Michigan and Wisconsin, The Dells for Monks burgers and Door County were his favorite. I believe in the 23+ years we were married we made to the Dells at least 20 times. That adds up to alot of Monks burgers and Purple Monkeys!
Jim also loved to mess around outside always making sure the lawn looked good and the leaves were mulched (he hated the Fall for only that reason) He and his dad would work as a tag team one with the riding mower – Jim’s dad and the other with the push – Jim. They spent many, many hours working together over the years to make our home a nicer place.
It took about 19 years into our marriage but I was able to turn him into an avid sports fan – a DIEHARD White Sox and Bears fan. He loved going to the baseball games with me, Mike, Kristen, Al, Ken (thank you for the honor of watching a few games from the Scout Seats behind home plate Ken! ). Jim also made sure he had a Polish with grilled onions at every game – best in Chicago unless you asked him what his favorite Italian beef was. He shout out Mr. Beef on Orleans in the city followed by Buona Beef in Lombard. As to the rest of the sports teams I was still working on the Blackhawks and Bulls but he was coming around. Sorry Cubs but no way!!
He also shared a love of antiques with me as well as his mother and father-in-law. He loved to jump in the car and head out to Kane County Fleamarket to see what treasures we could find for ourselves and then later to sell. He found his calling in restoring old antique wall and candlestick telephones. He always made sure the parts matched up and the bells would ring. If they didn’t ring he didn’t put it up for sale. He was very proud of his work almost as proud as I was of him.
He also loved music and thankfully we shared a lot of the same types of music. Some of his favorites: Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Motley Crue, Led Zepplin, AC/DC, Metallica, Kid Rock, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Chicago, Elton John (not everything was hard rock!!) just to name a few.
His favorite past time was watching TV. He watched his 55″ whenever he could. You name it he watched it TV Land (almost everything they showed), The Three Stooges, Sons of Anarchy, Desperate Housewives (yes he watched it for me) and All My Children which he watched faithfully until its demise last year which up until the day he died was pissed about. Go figure!
During the summer Jim loved to go to car shows to check out the muscle cars of the 50’s and 60’s. His dream was to get an old ’55 Chevy and fix it up. Instead he decided to talk me into a 2011 Camaro (wasn’t too hard to do) He was only able to enjoy the car for a short time but loved it every time we went out in it on the weekends.
We were very lucky to have found each other, to be able to all the wonderful things we did together, and to have the abiding love we had for each other. I don’t know what I’ll do without him but will try to remember that he is with me always and forever.