- Date Of Birth: September 5, 1952
- Date Of Death: February 2, 2022
- State: Illinois
Jerome (Jerry) Richard Hendrickson, passed on February 2, 2022, when God called him home.
Jerry was born in Chicago on September 5, 1952 to parents Jerome E. and Mildred M. Hendrickson.
He was raised in Brighton Park, attended Immaculate Conception grade school, St. Philip Basilica and St. Rita High Schools. Jerry was fortunate to have lifelong friendships with Jim, Bob, Jeff, Tom, Rob, Dennis, and Sandee. They called themselves the “Fairfield Gang” as many of them grew up on Fairfield Avenue. Jerry met his wife of 49 years in 1970, Denise Hendrickson (nee Calcagni) and they married in July of 1972. They purchased their first home before their 1st anniversary and Jerry did much of the remodeling himself. Some of his favorite hobbies were working on cars, camping, fishing, painting, woodworking, cooking, and watching SciFi shows and Star Trek, he always said every episode was “a classic!”
In 1979, Jerry and Denise built their home in Lemont and raised their two daughters there for 26 years.
Jerry had many occupations in his lifetime. This included driving a liquid tanker, a car carrier, a dry bulk tanker, and a refrigerated box truck. He logged over 400,000 miles without incident and frequently won safety awards. He owned a muffler shop in Park Forest, IL and later All-Redi J&D Printing shop in Bolingbrook, IL.
Jerry and Denise moved to Holmen, WI in 2007 and he retired in 2017 from over the road trucking, working for Martin Milk out of Wilton, WI to begin his and Denise’s dream of full time RV’ing. Jerry was diagnosed with Bulbar onset ALS in 2019 and began treatment by an amazing ALS team at Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, AZ. He battled this disease until his ultimate passing.
He is survived by his wife Denise; daughters Kimmy (Anthony) Giudice and Candi (Ryan) Warren; grandchildren Elena, Carmine, and Willow; brother Paul (Cindy) Hendrickson; and many loving in laws, cousins, nieces, nephews, and friends.
Never wanting to be the center of attention, Jerry was faithful, patriotic, a good husband, father, brother and friend. We will keep our good memories of Jerry in our hearts and he will be with us always.
