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History

Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Sycamore has had its share of those committed citizens. Dr. John Ovitz, Yvonne Johnson and Joe Bussone are just three such dedicated contributors to the fabric that makes up the Sycamore community.

• Dr. John Ovitz
Dr. John Ovitz, born in the old Sycamore Municipal Hospital in 1914, comes from a long line of Sycamore doctors, including his father and maternal grandfather. His maternal great-grandfather, Dr. Orlando Bryan, began practicing in Sycamore in 1846, exactly 100 years before Dr. Ovitz began his practice.

After studying medicine at Northwestern, Ovitz entered the army and spent two years at the hospital at Camp Grant in Rockford. In 1941, he married Virginia Noyes and was about to be discharged when the U.S. entered World War II. Ovitz re-enlisted, reaching the rank of Major and earning a bronze star for his service in the South Pacific.

Returning home, Ovitz became actively involved in building a new hospital, which opened in 1949. The following year, he organized the Elm Street Clinic partnership. “We had a good medical group of about seven general practitioners,” he recalls. He and Virginia had three children before her death in 1954. In 1957 he married Jane Downs, and they added two more children to the Ovitz fold.

Dr. Ovitz has always been an active member of the Sycamore community, serving on the school board and Chamber of Commerce and working with the library, historical society, rotary and Federated Church. He has seen a lot of changes in the Sycamore area, especially in the practice of medicine.

“When I started, general practitioners took care of most people’s problems,” he says. “I did my own surgery and obstetrics. If a patient needed special care, the doctors knew where to send them. Nowadays, people find specialists from friends’ referrals or, worse, from television or the Internet.” He worries about the reliability of those referrals.

In the mid- ‘80s, the Sycamore Hospital was sold and became Kindred Hospital, a private facility. Hospital care was moved to the Kishwaukee Community Hospital. “I was the last doctor to practice out of the old hospital,” Ovitz says. He went into semi-retirement at that time, dropping his obstetrics and surgery practice.

“I formally retired in 1999, so I’m really a 20th-century physician. I had a good practice and enjoyed it right up to the time I quit.” He considers a moment, then laughs. “A lot of my patients wish that I was back.”

And his view of Sycamore? “This is a fine community,” he says. “It’s a good place to live.”

A good place to live. Some things never change.

• Yvonne Johnson
Yvonne Johnson knows the people of Sycamore well—she should, she taught most of them.

A lifelong DeKalb County resident, Johnson followed her brother and sister to Sycamore in 1945. She spent 51 years as a Sycamore teacher, working first in a one-room schoolhouse and later teaching grades three through six at varying times. Her students included many Sycamore notables, including both current mayors of Sycamore and DeKalb, as well as Kishwaukee Community Hospital administrator, Brad Copple.

Johnson carried her love of teaching beyond Sycamore, earning grants from the National Science Foundation and presenting workshops for science teachers across the country. She was a faculty coordinator for NASA and spent time at many space centers around the country. Even now in her “retirement,” she still teaches, working in the school’s Learning Center and tutoring students in math. Her belief in education led her to establish various scholarship funds, including the Renaissance Scholarship and the annual DeKalb County Excellence in Education Awards. For her contributions to the area, she has been featured in Who’s Who in American Teachers, as well as in Who’s Who in the Midwest.

One of her pet community projects is the library, where she served on the board from 1976-97. She was instrumental in the renovation that nearly tripled the building’s space, traveling all over the Midwest to research what other communities had done. The result is a stunning facility that blends the integrity of the original architecture with modern functionality. Johnson is especially proud of such unusual features as the library’s history room, a research facility containing records for all of DeKalb County.

“Once the new addition was completed, people said they never expected to find a library like this in such a small town,” she says.

In addition to the library, Yvonne was instrumental in the development of the new Kishwaukee Community Hospital, where her contribution earned her naming rights to several areas. She further fostered her dedication to education by helping develop a program where the hospital provides schools with funds for health-related library materials.

Johnson’s current focus is the new Midwest Museum of National History, of which she is Board President. A recent addition to the Sycamore scene, the museum has blossomed into a popular destination for school field trips, as well as offering such national speakers as naturalist Jack Hanna and Animal Planet’s Jeff Corwin.

She’s been good to the community, but as she puts it, “The community’s been good to me.”

Among other honors, she’s been awarded the Clifford Danielson Award, and the school district awarded her an honorary doctorate in education. A staunch church member, she is proud that she served as chair of the recent First Lutheran Church sesquicentennial.

“The best thing about Sycamore is the people,” she says. “They’re friendly, helpful, considerate, and they love their community.”

Understandably, they also love Yvonne Johnson.

• Joe Bussone
There’s a reason Joe Bussone is affectionately known as “Mr. Sycamore.” As he puts it, “Anyone looking for someone to help them taps me,” he laughs. “If they’ve got fundraisers to run, they come looking for Joe.”

Bussone came to the area in 1954 as a design engineer for General Electric in DeKalb. He and wife Evelyn settled in Sycamore, where he quickly got involved in civic activities. His fundraising expertise has benefited groups as diverse as the Boy Scouts and the Sycamore History Museum. He is very active in the DeKalb County Community Foundation and was instrumental in raising funds for the new Kishwaukee Community Hospital.

In addition to being a current board member of DeKalb County Community Foundation, Bussone is on the board of the Ben Gordon Mental Health Center. A World War II veteran, he has also assumed direction of the annual VFW Memorial Day program. As a member of the Sycamore Chamber of Commerce Ambassador Club, he helps encourage and welcome new businesses into the area. “I call the Ambassadors the Happy Face of the community,” he says.

What drives him to give all he has? He’ll tell you without hesitation it’s his love for his fellow human beings. He possesses a deep love for his religion and for St. Mary’s Church. It is his deep religious belief that fuels his love of others and compels him to share and give.

Bussone’s willingness to give of himself has brought him many awards and recognitions, including a nomination to the Senior Illinoisan Hall of Fame. He has received the Northern Illinois University Humanitarian Award, Clifford Danielson Outstanding Citizen Award and Oakcrest Retirement Center Good Samaritan Award and was named the National Society of Fund Raising Executives Outstanding Fundraising Volunteer in 2001. In 2002 he received the Kishwaukee Community Hospital Heritage Award. His work with Kiwanis earned him the “Tablet of Honor” and the Luis V. Amador M. D. Medallion.

Bussone considers his desire to give back a natural tendency learned from his father. “My parents were immigrants from Northern Italy, and my father loved this nation.”

Bussone considers his personal luck as a factor as well, especially citing Evelyn, his “bride” of 59 years: “God was good to me there, too.”

He also credits the city itself as deserving of his largesse and is a strong supporter of the city council, mayor, city manager and chamber of commerce. “I brag about them all the time,” he says.

Above all, he credits the love of God he sees in the community. “I see the love of God in the majority of people in Sycamore,” he says. “God has been very good for me, and I feel that by doing good for others in our very fine community, I am paying Him back.”