Patsy Beall, a plastics industry activist who worked alongside her husband of 61 years, product designer Glenn Beall, passed away Nov. 22.
Beall, of Gurnee, Ill., was 79. She had cancer.
Patsy and Glenn Beall met in high school. She worked to put her husband through college, and later they were both employed at Abbott Laboratories for 10 years. Together they started a product design firm in 1968, Glenn Beall/Engineering Inc. in Gurnee.
She supported her husband in his volunteer work with plastics technical organizations, trade associations and historical preservation. The Society of Plastics Engineers inducted Patsy Beall as an honorary member Nov. 15.
Glenn and Patsy Beall recently mailed out their annual Thanksgiving greeting card, with a picture of the two of them on the front. The message inside said this was the last such card, after 36 annual Thanksgiving cards. “The team is aging, and we reluctantly conclude that the time has come to end the tradition.”
They wrote: “Glenn has always claimed that he has a secret weapon in his wife and sleep-in secretary, Patsy. She is now coping with some health issues that require a change in priorities.”
Visitation will be on Nov. 29 from 1 p.m. until the time of a memorial service at 2:30 p.m., at Burnett-Dane Funeral Home in Libertyville, Ill. There will be a party at The In-Laws restaurant in Gurnee to celebrate her life.
A memorial also will be held in December in Wyoming, Ill., where she was raised.
Memorials can be made to the Plastics Pioneers Association's Plastics History Collection at Syracuse University, in care of Cathy Cornell at 3900 W. Dayton St., McHenry, Ill., 60050.
In their Thanksgiving card, the Bealls wrote about the passage of time: “We wonder what happened to all of those years. Some say they rushed or slipped by; others claim they don't know where the time went. In our case, we were having so much fun that the years danced by and we didn't notice the passage of time.”