People have said she was the wind under his wings, but even after her death he has remained aloft . . . a little slower, a little sadder, but still focused on children with chronic illnesses.

During his tenure as mayor, when demands of City Hall led him to neglect his own real estate business, Maloof always found time for "his" St. Jude children.

One Friday before Christmas a number of years ago, he was swamped at City Hall, besieged with complaints and worries about Peoria's faltering economic recovery. His real estate business had barely avoided bankruptcy. Yet his focus and his energies were always shared with St. Jude.

On that Friday, he left his City Hall office and drove to Holy Family School. It was the day before Christmas vacation, and a fourth-grade Christmas party was on Maloof's appointment calendar. One of his St. Jude patients was in that class.

He paused during an interview 11 years after that holiday gathering. The humming stopped, the smile disappeared, and he remembered that little girl, Margaret Clark.

"We lost her," he said simply. "That was Margaret's last Christmas. . . . But we are doing so much better now. Just 20 years ago, only 8 percent of children with cancer survived. Now it's over 80 percent survival."

That ability to focus on the goal has enabled Maloof to continue work on a cause that would emotionally hobble most people. He continues to inspire and draw others to the mission.

"He was one of the four original people working on this with Danny Thomas," said Peoria County Sheriff Mike McCoy, who was an organizer of the Memphis to Peoria run for St. Jude.

"What he has done is almost unequaled in the nation. Peoria is beloved throughout the country for our St. Jude support. I expect Jim will continue working on St. Jude until he takes his last breath."

Maloof remembers with sharp clarity how this lifetime mission with St. Jude began. It was 1957.

He was active in the Lebanese community and received a call from friends in Chicago inviting him and his wife up for a Saturday evening event to hear Danny Thomas speak about "some kind of vow he had made."

The vow was the struggling entertainer's pledge to St. Jude Thaddeus, patron saint of the impossible. If he could land a job and support his family, he would build a shrine to St. Jude.

When Thomas landed a job and was on the road to fame as an entertainer, he started work on fulfilling that pledge. He tapped into the Lebanese community for help, and the event in Chicago was among the first steps.

"When Danny Thomas and I made eye contact, it was like we had known each other for a long time," Maloof said. "It was a strange feeling."

That was the start of a friendship that would last until Thomas died in 1991.

"There was something magic about Danny Thomas. He could walk into a room and it would just literally light up," Maloof said. "When you really sat down with him and got to know him, I don't say you literally fell in love with him, but you believed in what he was doing.

"Trudy and I came back to Peoria believing that this man was going to help kids, and somehow, some way, we were going to do our part to help."

They planned a fund-raising project.

"It started out as a Lebanese-Syrian fund-raising project. Danny Thomas said it was sort of payback," Maloof recalled. "The United States allowed our folks to come here and become entrepreneurs, to make a living, educate our kids. It's our time now to pay back the United States by doing something for the children of this country."

Memphis was selected as the site of Thomas' proposed St. Jude clinic for childhood cancer patients because a Lebanese businessman/attorney there could help find suitable land and initial funding.

The city suggested 2 acres in a rundown area of town. That site was accepted, and the initial clinic was constructed there. Today, the medical complex covers 60 acres, and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is the No. 1 pediatric cancer institution of its kind in the world.

The hospital opened its doors in 1962. Terminally ill children, with their parents' permission, could receive new drug treatments. Results would be shared with the medical community to refine treatment protocols for other children. Progress was made. Survival rates improved.

Maloof never waned in his support, not even when his own son Mark died when he was 27 in 1975.

By then, St. Jude was woven into the fabric of the Maloof family.

"For my whole life, St. Jude was part of the family," said daughter Janice Maloof, 49. "Since I was born, those St. Jude meetings were at our house. My dad started the clinic in Peoria. He would go there every week and come home and tell us about everyone's progress. We grew up with those patients."

Yet even she questions how her father finds the strength to continue.

"My mother couldn't go to clinic like he did. It broke her up," she said. "But he is stronger than any of us. He has seen a lot of suffering. I don't know how he does it. God gave him the stamina. At his age he still works eight to 12 hours a day."

Maloof's oldest son, Michael, is now president of the real estate business, giving his father more time to devote to St. Jude. Maloof is also an active board member with Peoria ballet.

Marsha Swardenski worked closely with Maloof for seven years when she was executive director of St. Jude Midwest Affiliate.

"He has an intense emotional passion to make life better for children with cancer," she said. "He drew strength from that difficult emotional pain. Trudy was his partner for every moment along the way."

Peoria City Councilman Chuck Grayeb said, "Mrs. Maloof was truly Jim's wings during all his years of tireless work for St. Jude. He didn't talk about it often with the council, but believe me, we all knew he had saved a lot of lives."

Now that he sees the incredible progress made in fighting childhood cancer, Maloof feels more urgency in his fund-raising efforts. St. Jude is now one of the most trusted charities in the United States, he said.

"They anticipate within the next 20 years, they will have a complete 100 percent cure for most or some of these cancers," he said.

"It's like a quarterback taking his football team from the 20-yard line down to the 10-yard line of the opponent, and those last 10 yards are the most difficult to get a touchdown."

Maloof and his wife were teammates in the game, getting the ball to the last 10-yard line before she died. Now, even after her death, he is determined to be part of the team that makes the final touchdown.