By Lauren FitzPatrick
Staff writer
As one of America’s oldest Boy Scouts, Melvin D. LeCocq Sr. still wore his khaki shirt resplendent with merit badges and Scouting neckerchief with great pride.
A charter member of the St. Patrick’s Boy Scout troop in Kankakee, Mr. LeCocq reached the first rank of Tenderfoot in 1933 and kept going until he made Eagle Scout.
Years after achieving Scouting’s highest rank, Mr. LeCocq kept going, setting up and leading troops so other boys could enjoy the experience that molded his life.
Mr. LeCocq died Dec. 18 at age 86.
“He brought Scouting to little farm communities,” said his daughter Denise LeCocq.
Born May 12, 1918, in Martinton, a small farm town south of Kankakee, one of 10 children, Mr. LeCocq lost his father at age 12. He joined the Scouts in Kankakee a few years later and loved it enough to stay, even after his Eagle Scout requirements were completed.
As a young man, Mr. LeCocq ran the LeCocq Oil Co. on Schuyler Avenue, right next to the old Nightingale Restaurant in Kankakee.
“It was a gas station, but he called it his oil company,” his daughter said. “He was a colorful man, let’s say.”
There, he took the daughter of a gas station client on a date to a community dance, and her younger sisters tagged along. He would fall instantly for the one they called Bonnie.
“He saw her and knew he was going to marry that woman,” his daughter said.
He and Wanda “Bonnie” Batch were married in 1939 and celebrated 55 years together before she died in 1994.
He would always tell his six children, “I got the good sister.”
By the early 1950s Mr. LeCocq had moved back to Martinton to work on his uncle John LeCocq’s farm, growing grains and raising animals. In that farming community of a few hundred residents, he started up a troop for its boys, and then expanded Scouting to its western neighbor, L’Erable.
In 1966, Mr. LeCocq moved his family to Crete, where he raised horses and switched to the Calumet Council of Scouts. He also took a job with the Ford Motor Co. as a tool and die maker.
“He was a very, very active man,” LeCocq said.
Mr. LeCocq served as a troop Scoutmaster during the years his two sons were young. In his later years, he stayed active as an honorary Scoutmaster. He left his Scouting badges and uniforms to his grandson Ryan, who was a Tiger Scout when his grandfather was lauded for years of service to scouting. Grandfather and grandson would attend the annual banquets together.
In 1993, the Archdiocese of Chicago honored Mr. LeCocq with the St. George Award for his decades of service to the Boy Scouts. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to Catholic youth through Scouting.
A Joliet bishop and the Loyal Order of the Moose also acknowledged his commitment to the Scouts, which included membership in the National Boy Scouts of America alumni.
With his and other French-Canadian families settling around Kankakee, Mr. LeCocq took an interest later in life in his family’s history, tracing his roots back to Melin, Belgium. He was proud to find an ancestor, John Baptist LeCocq, who settled in L’Erable before the Civil War. He also liked to tell the story of how he saved a man who fell into the Kankakee River in the 1930s. To hear him, you’d think he did it himself, his daughter said.
“He was part of a group of people who did that,” she said.
Mr. LeCocq also is survived by his daughters Sue Giannantonio, Diane Beland and JoAnn Wisher; his sons, John LeCocq and David LeCocq; his sister, Evelyn Coxey; 15 grandchildren; 19 great-grandchildren and many friends.
Arrangements were by Crete Funeral Home, (708) 672-7600.
Lauren FitzPatrick may be reached at lfitzpatrick@dailysouthtown.com or (708) 633-5964.
