As anyone who watched Wednesday night’s thrilling Game 7 of the World Series now knows, the last time the Chicago Cubs had won a championship before yesterday was in 1908, when Thomas Edison and Mark Twain were still alive and Babe Ruth and Al Capone were just children.

More than a century of suffering for generations of Cubs fans is now over.

Steve Bartman and billy goats all over the world can now exhale.

So can Mark Yoder, the President of the Greater West Chester Chamber of Commerce, and Susan Hamley, the Executive Director of the Chester County Conference and Visitors Bureau.

For the two Chicago natives, a lifetime of wait is now over.

“I grew up on the North Side, and remember my mom giving us $20, which would get me and my two younger brothers into the bleachers at Wrigley (Field) and a hot dog for each of us,” said Yoder. “I loved going to Cubs games and still cheer for all the Chicago teams, except the White Sox, and still consider myself a Chicagoan at heart.

“My family still lives in Chicago and has season tickets. So one day soon, we’ll take our three boys to Chicago, and cheer on our World Champion Chicago Cubs. That still hasn’t sunk in yet.”

“I’ve waited my entire life for this,” said Hamley, who attended St. Scholastica Academy in Chicago for high school and Northern Illinois for college. “I went to games with my family when I was little, and then started taking the bus with my friend to Wrigley for every home game in the summer when we were only 12 years old.

“My entire family bleeds blue. We were okay with saying, ‘Well, there’s always next year’ because that’s what Cubs fans do. But next year is now, this year. Holy mackerel! Mom is still crying, and Dad’s in shock.”

Yoder’s brother is a pilot who unfortunately had to fly from Hawaii to Guam last night. He was in the air for the whole game.

“He had ground control giving him updates, and called me every hour or so,” Yoder said. “We were talking at 2 AM last night, reliving our times at Wrigley and how much this win and this team means to us.”