Obituary: Garner Stern

Gardner Henry Stern, retired business executive and longtime University Trustee, died Aug. 24 in his North Side home. He was 92.

Stern was elected to the University's Board of Trustees in 1950 and became a Life Trustee in 1974.

He was a director of Encyclopaedia Brittanica and the Chicago Title & Trust Co., a past president of the Community (United) Fund of Chicago and served on the boards of Roosevelt University, the Chicago Historical Society, the Chicago Academy of Sciences, the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Adler Planetarium.

Stern retired in 1969 as president of Hillman's Inc., a food store chain that included the Stop & Shop specialty shops and Gaper's Caterers.

He attended the Forrestville School and the Harvard School for Boys and graduated from Yale in 1926. Stern's wife, Hanchen, died in 1991. He is survived by four sons, Gardner Jr., Harry, John and Jeffrey; 12 grandchildren; and 13 great-grandchildren.