Nancy Dillon appeared to be old-school River Forest. Lifelong, easy style, tennis champ, volunteer, active but not an activist. But when she died at 87 a week back, the stories came, and it was clear to those of us who knew her mainly from her two decades on the village board, and passing tales about tennis, that we didn’t know the essential Nancy Dillon.
That would be the woman once ranked as a top national tennis player. That would be the woman who became a widow at a young age, the mom of five sons under 12. That would be the woman who taught school and taught tennis to pay the family’s way. That would be the woman who understood public service was not about winning on every issue but being able to work well with colleagues on the next challenging issue.