By Lauren FitzPatrick
Staff writer
Adair Bean Trejo was a darn good cook who used to serve up homemade goodies to refinery truckers in her own Blue Island restaurant, the Oakwood.
After a divorce, the single mother of three set up shop on her own, drawing on her experience working for restaurants her family owned –and a head full of recipes.
“She was a phenomenal cook,” her son Mike Bean said. “She struck out instead of working for anyone else.”
Mrs. Trejo ran her diner, popular among truckers from the late 1970s through the 1990s, at 127th Street and Homan Avenue as long as Premcor and other refinery truck drivers — and their appetites — abounded.
“In the morning, they would come in for eggs and sausages,” Bean said.
The Oakwood also had hearty lunch specials — sandwiches and homemade soups.
“She was pretty good at making meals at a good price,” he said.
Mrs. Trejo died Nov. 16 of cancer. She was 72.
Born in Chicago, a young Adair Kocurek moved with her family to Wisconsin where her father had a lake cottage and farmland. She grew up there, graduating from Redgranite High School.
She moved back to the Chicago area to marry, and then had a daughter and two sons.
Bean said she cooked for her family every night.
“It was a different world back then,” Bean said.
After divorcing the children’s father, she opened the Oakwood in an old white frame house, which sat on land that is now a car dealership. It was a little spot that served up diner-style food to truckers who worked in the nearby oil refineries.
Once the refineries started closing their doors and their truckers drove elsewhere, Mrs. Trejo was put out of business.
“She went on to be a cook at other diners,” Bean said, including Dandy Jack’s on 171st Street, before she retired.
Then in her 60s, she spent her days with a beloved pet, a little Chihuahua named Chi Chi she carried in her purse.
“She would walk with her in the Jewel, and it would stick its head out of her purse,” Bean said.
She also became “Grandma Dear” to 10 grandchildren who couldn’t quite pronounce her first name, Adair.
Above all, she would cook all kinds of wonderful things, especially soups. Sadly, she never wrote any of the recipes down.
Her specialty?
Chicken dumpling soup, Bean said.
“It was absolutely fantastic, and nobody has the recipe,” he said.
About a week before she died, her other son Charles tried his hand at the soup from what she had told him to do.
But he didn’t write it down, either.
“It all goes with her,” Bean said.
In addition to her sons, Mrs. Trejo is survived by her husband, John Trejo; her daughter Linda Merker; three sisters, Dolores Rankin, Carol Reisob, and Albena Little; and 10 grandchildren.
Arrangements were by Chapel Hill Gardens South, (708) 636-1200.
Lauren FitzPatrick may be reached at lfitzpatrick@dailysouthtown.com or (708) 633-5964.
