Jon Weiss, owner of one of original Ace stores, dies at 87

Perfectly illustrating the slogan of the international chain, Jon R. Weiss was the helpful hardware man for an appreciative Glenview clientele.

Owner of Weiss Ace Hardware, 1560 Waukegan Road, Weiss died Jan. 6 after a yearlong battle with cancer. He was 87.

“Loving, caring — he cared about his family, he cared about his community, he cared about Ace,” said Weiss’ daughter Lynne Rine of Glenview. “Ace was key on his agenda, and he’s been in this business forever. That was real important to him.”

Weiss Ace Hardware, the Glenview Chamber of Commerce’s Business of the Year in 2004, was among the company’s original stores. It was founded in 1931 in Evanston by Weiss’ father, John W. Weiss, and Art Olson, who left the business before it came to Glenview.

Rine said the store was issued franchise No. 20 by the Oak Brook-based company “compared to numbers in the thousands” today.

When the senior Weiss died in 1953, Jon left college at 19 to help run the store. It moved to Glenview in 1960 and to its current location a little farther north on Waukegan Road in 1983.

Though his illness reduced his normal schedule, Weiss came to work through Dec. 27, Rine said.

“Jon made the building into a beautiful community store. You can feel the warmth,” read one of the notes of sympathy Rine and the Weiss family received after their father’s death.

“A helpful place, that’s kind of our thing here,” Rine said. “We’re in this community to help the people of our community and donate to just about everything under the sun as far as baseball teams, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts. We’re very active in the chamber, very active in Rotary (Glenview-Sunrise).

“It’s all a part of Dad’s legacy in terms of what he’s built here.”

Meghan Kearney, executive director of the Glenview Chamber of Commerce, echoed the “helpful” refrain.

“Jon was part of the key contributors that helped shape not only the business community, but Glenview as a whole,” she wrote in an email. “As the old jingle states, ‘Ace is the place with the helpful hardware man,’ and that phrase rings true when you thought of Jon. His business was built on relationships and exceptional customer service.”

Outside the store, Weiss played lots of golf, Rine recalled. He’d play in outings with the Chamber of Commerce, for which he once served as president, or at the Glenview Park Foundation’s Firecracker Classic.

He was a big fan of the Chicago Cubs, and late in his life Weiss’ children took him on a tour of Wrigley Field that Rine called “a big highlight.”

Weiss served on the boards of several banks as well as on Ace Hardware Corp.’s board of directors in the 1990s.

“He’s served on everything in the community he probably could, in his younger days,” Rine said.

Rine and her brother, Jon T. Weiss, also of Glenview, work in the store, and over the years Rine said some of her father’s grandchildren have taken their turns staffing the shop.

“One way or another, we’re all kind of ingrained in the hardware business,” Rine said.

Weiss also is survived by daughters Colleen Reardon and Cindy Bass and 11 grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Ace Hardware Foundation/CMN 2200 Kensington Court, Oak Brook, Illinois 60523. For an online link to the foundation, which supports Lurie Children’s Hospital, visit acehardwarefoundation.org/events/in-memory-of-jon-weiss/.

“He definitely made an impact on the community, and he’s definitely going to be missed,” Rine said. “That’s what most people keep saying ... your father will live on, but he definitely will be missed.”