By Lauren FitzPatrick
Staff writer
Christmas came every day for David Brunner Sr., a longtime Mokena resident whose portrayal of Santa began long ago as holiday cash but evolved into his vocation.
Once upon a time, Mr. Brunner was laid off from his job with the EJ & E Railroad, where he was a hostler who serviced train engines.
So he pulled on a Santa suit and beard and took off for Christmas parties across the Southland, from Joliet to Midlothian to Peotone.
“He started out just to make ends meet,” said his younger son Denis Brunner, better known as the son in Mr. Brunner’s Santa & Son business.
“He truly grasped the meaning of Santa Claus.”
Hundreds of charity events, breakfasts with St. Nick and home visits later, Mr. Brunner had become Santa. Last Christmas, he decided to grow out his own beard, bleached recently to the snowy white required by the Real Bearded Santas.
He died Sept. 8 at age 65 of a massive heart attack. His funeral service closed with his old favorite holiday standard, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”
Mr. Brunner began life on May 20, 1941, somewhere in the middle of seven children in a rollicking Joliet household. His father died when he was a young teen, cutting his school career short and sending him out into the workplace to help support the rest of the Brunner brood.
He married a neighborhood girl who also lost her father at a young age. The unsuspecting young wife had no clue how well she’d fit into a Santa family thanks to her name.
“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” people later would quip to Virginia Brunner.
They married in 1961, and soon after, the newlyweds moved into her grandfather’s Mokena home to care for him until his death. There they raised their two sons in the turn-of-the-century house.
Mr. Brunner was laid off from his job with the EJ&E railroad in the early 1960s, so he donned a Santa suit and hit the road.
“It was getting close to the holidays, so what better way to bring in a little bit of extra money?” said his wife of 45 years.
Before Christmas, the wee Brunner lads just thought Dad clocked a lot of hours. Little did they know he was standing so close at church and neighborhood festivities.
“All I knew was my dad had to go to work so he couldn’t go to the party with me,” son Denis Brunner said.
As they grew older, the mystery was cleared, and by 18, the younger Brunner had a matching red suit and black Santa boots.
Virginia Brunner, who helped keep records of visits and made phone calls when Santa was running a little late, remembered many a Christmas Eve on her own.
But Christmas afternoon was for the family.
Her husband was paid whatever families could afford. Sometimes it was a check and a posh bottle of spirits, other times just a few bills and some cookies.
As steel haulers, EJ&E would prove unstable during the 1980s when the steel mills south of Chicago and in northwest Indiana declined, so Mr. Brunner always had another gig to earn money. He’d tend bar, labor in a wallpaper mill, deliver Aurelio’s pizza — anything to keep his family fed, his son said. Once, he managed a bowling alley in Frankfort where his wife also took a job, so the bowling alley doubled as a family room for the two Brunner boys.
And yet, he always was available to those who needed him, Brunner said. About 15 years ago, he began adopting a family every Christmas, buying gifts for the children and delivering them in costume.
He gave his Friday nights during football season to Lincoln-Way East or Lincoln-Way Central, where he sold pizzas to fans.
“There’s a lot of good, a lot of wonder in being Santa,” Brunner said. “Dad made Christmas every day for everybody.”
Aside from his wife and son Denis, Mr. Brunner also is survived by another son, David Jr.; two granddaughters, Meredith and Brittney; a sister, Dorothy Darnaby; two brothers, James and Phillip Brunner; and many nieces, nephews and friends.
Arrangements were by Vandenberg Funeral Home, (708) 479-1210.
Lauren FitzPatrick may be reached at lfitzpatrick@dailysouthtown.com or (708) 633-5964.
