Don Wehrli was the 42nd Commander of Naperville Post 43, 1961-1962. He was born in Naperville February 28, 1928 the 7th of 13 children. He attended Saints Peter and Paul grade and Naperville High School (class of 1946).
Don, whose family roots in Naperville go back to the 1840s, was married to his childhood sweetheart Jean Knoch whose family also trace its roots in Naperville to the 1800’s. She was the daughter of Appellate and Circuit Judge Win Knoch (Post 43’s 2nd Commander).
Don served in the U.S. Army as a cost accountant during the Korean War, and worked in sales while he and his wife of 63 years, raised their seven children in Naperville.
Don served on the Naperville City Council from 1983 to 1987and helped build the Naperville Riverwalk. In 1995 he began Naperville Trolley and Tours but the inspiration came 50 years earlier. He was selling jams, jellies and ice cream in Disneyland in the mid-1950s and Walt Disney would stop by the stores and chat with employees. “‘Don, there’s great satisfaction in making other people happy,’” he recalls Disney telling him. “I never forgot that. I wrote that down.”
Don died May 17, 2015.
