James Bingle, Scientist, Preservationist and Former DuPage Town Assessor, Dies At 84

Caption: James and Marge Bingle in pioneer costumes at a community event. | Bolingbrook Historic Preservation Commission

James “Jim” Bingle was so strongly identified as the protector of a forgotten old settlers’ cemetery that he helped to restore, someone once mailed him a headstone at the DuPage Township Assessor’s office hoping he could identify it.

A retired scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, DuPage Township’s longest serving assessor and Bolingbrook’s premier historian, Mr. Bingle passed away April 3 in Prescott, AZ. He was 84.

He lived a storied life, born July 20, 1930 in Ohio, but raised in the wilds of Alaska where his father served as Presbyterian missionary. There, Mr. Bingle grew up helping to build log cabin churches.

Mr. Bingle often told a story of how as a teen, he and his father were following each other in separate vehicles down a remote stretch of the Alaska Highway, when his father drove into a ditch.

“A passing circus caravan helped pull the car out with an elephant and put it back in the middle of the highway,” his son Donald Bingle recalled.

It was while on a trip back to Ohio to visit relatives where Mr. Bingle met his wife, Marge, of 65 years. Eventually the couple relocated to DuPage Township.

During his career as a scientist for Argonne National Laboratory Mr. Bingle acquired a reputation as an excellent chess player and was on the lab’s chess team.

“At the annual summer picnic he’s play 20 boards at a time and win all the prizes, which he handed out to the kids,” his son recalled. “He always had chess buddies or belonged to a chess club. It was his passion.”

Mr. Bingle was also the longest serving town assessor -- 28 years -- for DuPage Township in Will County, helping to nurture the township through its boom years of rapid population growth.

“He kept perfect records,” said John Randall, the current town assessor. “Some of his techniques and methods we use to this day. He was way ahead of his time formulating the correct way to assess properties.”

When he wasn’t playing chess, Mr. Bingle’s other passion was preserving the history of Bolingbrook and The First Presbyterian Church of DuPage, where he was long-time member. The township’s chief deputy assessor, Tammy Altonen Horak, recalls as a child watching Mr. Bingle driving the church bus and teaching Sunday School.

“He was always very caring, godly person,” Altonen-Horak said. “Our church is one of the oldest in the area and kept care of all the church books and historic photos. He was one of the smartest men I’ve ever known.”

In 1972 when a local girl discovered a forgotten old settlers’ cemetery dating back to the 1830s, she contacted Mr. Bingle, then township assessor, who launched an investigation that determined the cemetery was owned by Will County. He led the movement to refurbish and repair Boardman Cemetery, an early community burial ground from the 1830s, lovingly restoring it back to its original serene splendor.

He also arranged for Will County to deed the cemetery back to the township. When land was purchased for the Heritage Creek subdivision, the homes were built around the cemetery, with many of the streets named for the original settlers buried in Boardman.

Mr. Bingle was a founding member of the Bolingbrook Historical Society, a precursor to the Bolingbrook Historic Preservation Commission. He authored several pamphlets on the village’s early history when it was a small settlement called Westbury nestled among the timbers along the DuPage River.

As a tribute to his role as a preservationist, Mr. Bingle’s family arranged several years ago for him to be buried among Bolingbrook’s early settlers at Boardman Cemetery. His will be the first modern burial at the historic cemetery in many decades.

Mr. Bingle is survived by his wife, Marge, four children, as well as grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Visitation will be held on Saturday, April 11, from 3 to 8 p.m. at Anderson Memorial Chapel, 606 Townhall Drive, Romeoville, IL 60446.

Funeral services will be held on Sunday, April 12, at 1 p.m. at The First Presbyterian Church of DuPage, 180 N. Weber Road, Bolingbrook, interment immediately following at Boardman Cemetery on Paxson Road, just north of Royce Road, in Bolingbrook.

In lieu of flowers, his family asks that donations be made to the family requests that charitable contributions be made to: Pineda Presbyterian Church (USA), 50 North Wickham Road, Palm Shores, Florida 32940