There was room in Chad Imlay’s home — and his heart — so he gave kids shelter, love
By Lauren FitzPatrick
Staff writer
Hundreds of foster children in Chicago found shelter in the Imlays’ East Side home.
Chad Imlay and his wife, LaVerne, already had raised five boys and a girl when they began opening their home at East 102nd Street and South Ewing Avenue to children who needed an emergency overnight place to stay or a bed for a few weeks while awaiting court dates.
Mr. Imlay simply loved children. He had grown up somewhere in the middle of four brothers and three sisters. He led his sons’ Boy Scout troop and had a soft spot in his heart for troubled kids.
“They had so much love to give,” said Monica Dempsey, who lived with the Imlays from age 15 to age 22. “They thought they could just touch a couple kids’ hearts and lead them in the right path.”
Mr. Imlay died Oct. 17 of heart failure. He was 72.
“He was a wonderful man,” she said. “You got to be special to do that kind of thing.”
Born and raised in Panguitch, Utah, Mr. Imlay joined the Army and served in the Korean War. The military also stationed him in Calumet Park for a time. There he met LaVerne, then a young student at the University of St. Francis.
Together the Imlays had four sons, and when Gary, the youngest son, was 7 or 8, they adopted their daughter Jackie.
“My mom wanted a girl,” Gary Imlay said.
As the boys grew up and left the house, their parents began taking in foster children, Imlay said.
“A lot of them would just come for overnight” from 11 p.m. until early in the morning, Imlay recalled. “Some would stay for three or four weeks.”
Imlay said the family home was normal, with three bedrooms upstairs, and a modest kitchen, front room and dining room downstairs.
Later, the family would convert their basement into bedrooms for the children to stay.
They were licensed to keep eight foster children at a time, Dempsey said, recalling the hundreds of children who came to stay.
“It was an adventure,” she said.
They mainly hosted temporary children, but Dempsey, wild at 15, needed to stay.
“So I became a member of the family,” she said. “(Chad Imlay) was very strict, but he had a heart of gold. He had a really good sense of humor.”
Dempsey said kids were always coming and going until she was about 20. And LaVerne was diagnosed with cancer. She died in 1990.
“He took care of her and tried to keep everything going,” Dempsey said. “When Mom got sick, they couldn’t do it anymore.”
For a time, Mr. Imlay had worked as an electrician in the mills, but after a fall in the late 1960s that broke his back a second time, he went out on disability.
This left lots of time for Scouting and being outdoors, all of which he loved, Imlay said. Eventually, he was a district commissioner for the Chicago Area Council of the Boy Scouts, and all four sons were Boy Scouts, with three of them making Eagle Scout.
“When my dad took over, I was too young to be a Scout, but he took me along anyway,” Imlay said. “We went camping a lot.”
Mr. Imlay never camped without his favorite hat, a weathered fly fishing hat with fish hooks and lures stuck in it, his son said.
Until recently, he liked to spend his free time growing produce and vegetables near Hammond, Ind. He had always loved to grow things and bake, his children said.
Dempsey remembered how he would take his foster children out to pick strawberries and then make preserves afterward, or cucumbers for pickles. He would bake pie after pie — pumpkin, apple, cherry and rhubarb.
“It’s going to be a real rough Thanksgiving, even now with the boys and their big families,” she said.
Mr. Imlay is also survived by his sons Glen, James and Gene; his daughter Jackie; his fiancee, Donna Kuehl; three brothers and three sisters; and many nieces, nephews and grandchildren.
Arrangements were by Elmwood Chapel in Chicago, (773) 731-2749.
Donations may be made in Mr. Imlay’s name to the American Cancer Society.
