Chicago lawyer David Truitt helped co-found Olive-Harvey College and spent almost 14 years as president of the Friends of the Chicago Public Library.
Among Truitt’s greatest passions, however, were nautical organizations, and he helped found the Chicago Marine Heritage Society and was a founding board member of what now is known as the Chicago Maritime Museum.
Known to many as “Captain Dave,” Truitt also was a key part of Chicago’s “Christmas Ship,” which brings Christmas trees to families in need.
“He picked unique causes that other people didn’t think about,” said Bob Bied, a longtime friend and fellow Chicago Yacht Club Foundation board member. “He also liked to fix things, and sometimes that meant organizationally, sometimes that meant money and sometimes that meant bringing in new blood on boards.”
Truitt, 90, died of natural causes on Aug. 27 at his Streeterville home, said his son, Craig. He had lived in Streeterville for about 25 years and previously had resided in Hyde Park.
Born David Mitchell Truitt in Chicago, Truitt attended what later was known as the Harvard St. George School in Chicago and then the University of Chicago Laboratory School before earning a bachelor’s degree from Miami University of Ohio. After serving in the Army, he worked in Washington, D.C., for the U.S. Department of Defense.
Returning to the Chicago area, Truitt earned a law degree in 1962 from what is now Chicago-Kent College of Law.
As a lawyer, Truitt defined himself as a “corporate disaster management type,” his son said. “He worked with organizations that were in trouble, that had challenges,” his son said. “He was a problem-solver who thought outside the box.”
A South Sider who early in his adult life resided in the Morgan Park neighborhood, Truitt was part of a group of local leaders who championed the 1970 creation of Olive-Harvey College in the Southeast Side Pullman neighborhood, formed by merging two community colleges. Truitt was president of the South East Community Organization and also was chairman of a group known as the South East College Priority Committee, which worked with City Colleges of Chicago to land a campus on the Southeast Side.
“They needed a college down there for underprivileged kids, and gangs ran rampant down there, so they picked a spot (for the college) that was neutral territory, between two gang territories,” his son said.
Truitt also was involved with the Blue Gargoyle Youth Service Center, a Hyde Park community group that had an adult literacy program. Through Blue Gargoyle, Truitt became involved with the Chicago Public Library, and spent almost 14 years as president of Friends of the Chicago Public Library.
In that role, Truitt was an early proponent of providing free, publicly available computers in all Chicago public libraries, and he advocated boosting library services in lower-income neighborhoods. As part of that role, Truitt twice was appointed to the White House Conference on Libraries and Information Services.
“He grew up in integrated neighborhoods on the South Side and had a front row seat to racial discrimination and injustice — particularly in postwar Chicago — and he also understood that education was one of the major keys to equality and recognized that opportunities and resources were not well distributed throughout the city,” said George Kisiel, a longtime friend and collaborator. “He bristled when he saw the effects of disinvestment in underserved communities and used his resources to help correct these situations. Olive-Harvey is one of the results. His work with the Chicago Public Library — a vital and important free public resource — is another example.”
Some of Truitt’s greatest philanthropic and civic contributions involved boats. A longtime boat owner and Chicago Yacht Club member, he was the founding chairman of the Chicago Marine Heritage Society. He also was a founding board member of the Chicago Maritime Society, which eventually became the Chicago Maritime Museum.
The Chicago Maritime Museum now has a permanent museum space in Bridgeport, and two of its recently launched exhibits had deep personal significance for Truitt, said Jerry Thomas, the museum’s vice chair and treasurer. One exhibit is about the late Bill Pinkney’s solo circumnavigation of the globe, and the other is about the Lady Elgin steamship, which sank in Lake Michigan off Highland Park’s shoreline in 1860.
“He was a key player in helping with our finances and strategic direction,” Thomas said. “Under his leadership and financial support, we have become financially independent, we have maintained a strong balance sheet, and we recently launched two exhibits that were near and dear to Dave.”
Truitt also was chairman of the USS Midway Memorial at Chicago’s Midway Airport, and he was part of a local committee that spent more than five years fundraising to bring an exhibit to the airport, including a salvaged single-engine bomber, known as an SBD Dauntless, that was fished out of Lake Michigan in 1991 and restored.
During World War II, Dauntless dive bombers “went out to attack the Japanese armada, the largest armada in the world, and the Japanese carriers … were sunk,” Truitt told the Tribune in 2004. “No other plane could do that.”
One of Truitt’s more colorful ventures revived the Chicago Christmas Ship, an annual charitable event that harked back to the Rouse Simmons schooner, which from 1887 until 1912 sailed to Chicago filled with thousands of Christmas trees intended for area families. Chicago’s boating community began reenacting the Christmas Ship through the use of the U.S. Coast Guard’s cutter the Mackinaw, which docks in Chicago each holiday season with more than 1,000 trees that the nonprofit Ada S. McKinley community organization then distributes to other community groups, which offer them to low-income individuals and families.
Truitt was chairman of the Chicago Marine Heritage Society and the Christmas Ship Committee, and in 2000 he marshaled volunteer groups, the Coast Guard and those overseeing Navy Pier to make the event happen, as a way to bring the wonder and joy of a decorated tree on Christmas morning to lower-income households.
“For many kids in Chicago, there won’t be a tree or anything to perform that kind of magic,” Truitt told the Tribune in 2000.
“Captain Dave had an amazing way to make things happen by believing in people and putting people together,” said Sari Breslin, a longtime friend and frequent collaborator. “Maritime history is preserved in Chicago because of Captain Dave Truitt.”
Beginning in 2009, Truitt provided research and financial support to help fund several documentaries on local subjects that appeared on WTTW-Ch. 11, including “USS Lagarto,” a 2009 documentary about a submarine that sank in the Gulf of Siam in 1945; “Heroes on Deck,” a 2016 film about World War II aircraft that ended up on the bottom of Lake Michigan; “Eastland: Chicago’s Deadliest Day,” which aired in 2019 and explored the 1915 S.S. Eastland tragedy; and “Lincoln Is Crying: The Grifters, Grafters and Governors of Illinois,” which aired in 2020 and detailed corruption by Illinois leaders.
Truitt owned an ancient schooner, the Charlotte Ann, which operated on Lake Michigan.
Truitt never retired from his law practice, his son said.
A marriage ended in divorce. In addition to Truitt’s son, survivors include another son, Kenneth; and a daughter, Nancy.
A celebration of life is scheduled for spring 2025.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
