Made for each other. No phrase better describes longtime Medinah residents Bob and Ruth Kretschmer, who died within minutes of each other Friday, five days after they celebrated their 71st wedding anniversary. Ruth Kretschmer, a onetime Republican politician who chaired the DuPage County Board’s zoning committee and served 20 years on the Illinois Commerce Commission, had been in hospice for two years, said the couple’s daughter Roberta “Bobbi” Boston. Bob Kretschmer, a World War II veteran
and two-time Purple Heart recipient, was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, she said. “They both wanted to die in this house and if my father went first, that wasn’t going to happen for my mother,” said Boston, her voice breaking. “He hung in there for her. After she passed away, he asked why everyone was crying, then he passed away. “They worked it out between them, through the grace of God,” Boston said. READ MORE
