John Fornengo, Chicago trader, bon vivant who put his kids first after wife’s death, dead at 61

John Fornengo was the guest every host or hostess wanted at their party.

As comfortable in a tuxedo as a pair of jeans, he’d ease over to the piano, playing anything from classical music to Cole Porter to Elton John.

He could discuss physics, the timeless beauty of blue-and-white porcelain or the time he worked as an auctioneer at a 1985 sale of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia, which included locks of Mary Todd Lincoln’s hair and bits of the flag that was draped around President Lincoln when he was carried out of Ford’s Theatre.

He relished all kinds of food, from caviar to Chicago restaurateur Ina Garten’s turkey lasagna. “Isn’t this great?” he’d say.

“One night, he’d be at the symphony; the next night, the Grateful Dead,” his friend Susan Canmann said.

Mr. Fornengo, 61, who was president of Eckhardt Trading Company, died of heart failure last month at his Gold Coast home.

Debonair and charming, “He could move in any crowd,” said his sister, Julie Fornengo Travis.

Jennifer Ames

As a boy growing up in the central Illinois town of Farmington, young John planted tulips, shrubs and roses on the family farm. They’re there to this day, his sister said.

She said he loved the campy 1960s TV show “Batman” with Adam West ,and, for Halloween, “He was always Batman.”

His father owned a plumbing, heating and electrical business.

“John had started learning to be a plumber,” said Bill Eckhardt, chief executive officer of the futures trading firm where Mr. Fornengo worked. “He and his brother [James] would be sent out to some minor job … . If these people had a piano, he would play for these people. They’d give him cookies and milk while his brother was doing the plumbing.”

He studied music at Lake Forest College, where he met his future wife, Dudley Dwight “DeeDee” Ross.

Friends said they liked to tool around in their vintage Mercedes convertible and spend weekends at their Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, farmhouse, where Mr. Fornengo designed and planted the garden.

They always seemed to have a wire fox terrier or two, including one they named Asta for the feisty terrier in “The Thin Man.”

They were married from 1985 until her death, at 45, from ALS in 2004. He focused on raising their three children, who at the time were all under 10: Dudley Matthews Fornengo, known as Daisy, John Augustus, called Augie, and Alexander Ross “Ally” Fornengo.

“Everything he did, he did for those kids,” his friend Alicia Howington Ziegler said.

“He just loved being around his children,” said Bill Hargrave, another friend.

Before becoming a trader, Mr. Fornengo worked for Leslie Hindman and other auctioneers, calling for bids on items ranging from Louis Vuitton luggage to Chicago Bears memorabilia.

“He loved architecture, gardens and entertaining,” his friend Tom Gorman said.

“He befriended a tour guide in Florence, and she took him on a tour of Italian gardens,” said Roger S. McEniry, another friend. Mr. Fornengo knew the Latin names of plants and flowers, “and, the story is, he educated her that day.”

His wife was an interior decorator, and that showed in their home, where some of Mr. Forenengo’s own paintings graced the walls. It was an elegant setting for parties and fundraisers, with Mr. Fornengo playing his Steinway piano.

“He appreciated beauty,” Canmann said, recalling that, when they planned events together for the Guild of the Chicago Botanic Garden, “He said, ‘Let’s just make it beautiful.’ ”

“He literally would cross the street to say hello to your dog,” said Mary Ellen Christy, who wrote about him in Classic Chicago Magazine.

Every Christmas, Mr. Fornengo enjoyed singing carols at hospitals and nursing homes with other top-hatted members of the Great Lakes Dredge & Philharmonic Society.

He helped raise money for the Chicago Botanic Garden, the Latin School, Lincoln Park Zoo and St. Chrysostom’s Episcopal Church. Just before an “extraordinary” music benefit for St. Chrysostom, “He put his hands on the podium and burst into ‘Cabaret.’ He stole the show,” Christy said. “He danced like Fred Astaire, dressed like Cary Grant and played the piano like Peter Duchin.”

“He always had on his velvet smoking slippers or Gucci loafers with a silk pocket square,” Howington Ziegler said.

The Fornengos had a son Harry who died in infancy. In addition to his children and sister, Mr. Fornengo is survived by another sister, Jane Fornengo Johns. Services have been held. His ashes are stored in a blue-and-white urn from his china collection.