Harvey Sass may have inherited Elmer & Son Locksmiths in Steger, but the idea to convert some of the space in the 1970s into a museum of locksmithing memorabilia was all his own.

“Some of this stuff has been laying around here for the last 60 or 80 years,” Sass told the Daily Southtown in July 2023. “We’ve been in business for 82 years and some of the stuff never sold or was sitting in the corner.”

“People donated to us and I bought a few at flea markets or auctions, and we got all different types of items. We had it all kind of jimble-jumbled, so we laid it out to make it more interesting.”

Sass, 86, died Sept. 1 in Matteson, according to a Panozzo Brothers Funeral Home obituary . His love for locks and related items allowed him to amass more than 900 items his Locksmith Museum and

See Full Page