CHICAGO (WGN) — A South Side nurse is now 101 years young, celebrating a milestone of longevity.
The McDonald’s at Navy Pier is where Gertrude Mary Lillian Hickey Smeltzer celebrated a milestone of longevity.
The Chicago native, who was baptized at St. Columbanus, met her late husband at a roller skating party. The pair would later marry when he returned home after serving on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific in World War II, and they started a family, raising three children.
After putting off her dream of becoming a nurse, Gertrude returned to school in her 50s to pursue a career in nursing. Daughter Carolyn Smeltzer and son Jim Smeltzer say their mom was always there, putting others first, and as someone who grew up in the Great Depression, it shaped who she would become later in life…