With a pen, a softball mitt, a gavel. By way of generosity, sacrifice. With a smile, a form phrase. Chicago was made higher by so many individuals who sadly left us in 2024 however who every left their distinctive mark on town not directly, and whose life was celebrated by means of the remembrances of buddies and households in Solar-Instances obituaries.
Listed below are among the people we recalled this 12 months:
Ben Stern, 102. A Holocaust survivor who couldn’t abide the recommendation of his Skokie temple rabbi who urged folks in 1977 to attract their blinds if a bunch of neo-Nazis have been to march by means of the north suburb. “Not right here. Not now. Not in America,” responded Stern, who helped collect greater than 750,000 signatures to ban the proposed Nazi rally and appeared on Phil Donahue’s discuss present. The march, after authorized challenges, came about in 1978, however threatened with 1000’s of counter protesters, it was moved to the Loop. About 25 neo-Nazis held a rally that drew about 3,000 counter-protesters who threw bottles, eggs, rocks and sticks and, held again by police, shouted, “Demise, loss of life, loss of life to the Nazis!” (Feb. 28)
Jack Higgins, 69. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Solar-Instances cartoonist as soon as wrote of his job: “Political cartoons are supposed to take the mighty and the pompous and minimize them all the way down to a extra manageable measurement. Afflict the snug and luxury the .” In 1989, he received the Pulitzer for a group of cartoons that included a drawing of vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle taking part in golf whereas Vietnamese youngsters flee from a napalm assault, with Quayle asking the kids, “Thoughts if I play by means of?” (Feb. 10)
Richard Phelan, 86. As Prepare dinner County Board president from 1990 to 1994, Phelan restored abortion providers on the county hospital system regardless of his Roman Catholic religion — however he fell brief in his bid to maneuver as much as the governor’s mansion. After a profession as a trial lawyer, Phelan was thrust into the limelight in 1988 when he was appointed as particular exterior counsel to probe then-Speaker of the Home Jim Wright of Texas. (March 26)
Mark Frighetto, 69. Top-of-the-line defensive brief facilities who ever performed within the metropolis’s elite echelons of 16-inch softball, Frighetto pretended to be a gunslinger after making a tough play to get below the pores and skin of his opponents. “If he was in your workforce, you really liked him, and when you performed towards him, you hated him,” stated pal Hugh Carmichael. “When he was on the sphere there was nothing else, no waving at your girlfriend,” recalled his spouse, Nancie Frighetto. “His trunk was infested with softballs, mud all over the place, it was a situation of marriage to count on softball mud within the washer,” she stated. (Might 21)
Elaine Pierce, 69. Whereas dealing with terminal most cancers, Pierce, opened her Oak Park house to 13 South American migrants final summer season, together with three youngsters. “I get kissed and hugged six occasions a day now,” Pierce, a member of First United Church of Oak Park, stated final 12 months of the love she acquired as her visitors would head to work or to search for a job or the children left for varsity. She took on the accountability with out help from town or state and with out asking for hire or assist with utilities, masking many bills herself. (Might 26)
Marian Lois Shields Robinson, 86. From a small condo on Chicago’s South Aspect, she raised her daughter, Michelle Obama, and later went to stay within the White Home when her son-in-law Barack Obama grew to become president. Michelle Obama credited her mom and her late father, Fraser, for instilling in her values and self-discipline whereas rising up at 7436 S. Euclid Ave. After residing within the White Home, she moved again to Chicago. An exhibit within the Obama Presidential Middle Museum, now below building in Jackson Park, shall be named in her honor. (Might 31)
Chuck “The Voice” Roberts, 66. He sermonized right into a mic in 1986 concerning the virtues of home music however had no concept his phrases would change into a credo of kinds for the underground dance style. Bootlegged samples of the monitor unfold across the globe, however hardly anybody knew whose voice it was. He contributed to only the one monitor — “My Home” — on the lone album the Chicago group, Rhythm Controll, ever made. He later toiled for years as a bread maker however lastly obtained his due when he took the stage on the Chosen Few DJ competition in Jackson Park in 2017 and boomed the phrases stay for the primary time in 27 years. Shocked followers went bananas, video went viral, and Roberts obtained his second act in music. (June 6)
Harry D. Leinenweber, 87. The authorized large from Joliet served for many years in Chicago as a U.S. district decide. He was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to a seat within the Northern District of Illinois in 1985 after serving as a state lawmaker. Identified for being cool, level-headed and caring, however no pushover, he oversaw the trial of former R&B star R. Kelly in 2022 and a significant Illinois corruption trial involving 4 political insiders tied to ComEd in 2023. He remained on the bench till his loss of life. (June 11)
Ann Lurie, 79. Probably the most prolific and visual philanthropists in Chicago’s historical past, Lurie was a self-described hippie when she moved to Chicago from Florida in 1973 to work as a youngsters’s hospital intensive care nurse. She quickly met her second husband, Robert H. Lurie, a profitable industrial actual property businessman. The 2 had six youngsters earlier than he died from colon most cancers in 1990 on the age of 48. He left behind an property value $425 million. Lurie devoted herself to placing it to good use. By 2007, she had donated $277 million. The hospital she labored upon arriving in Chicago is now often known as Lurie Kids’s Hospital. (June 24)
Malcolm Woo, 79. Not lengthy after he grew to become one of many first Chinese language American officers on the Chicago police drive in 1969, Woo was tapped for undercover work as a result of he had a novel capacity to mix in. “There’s photos again when he was doing undercover work, and he had lengthy hair, a mustache, a beard, so that you don’t know if he was Chinese language, Mexican, Center Jap,” stated his spouse Tina Woo. Woo, who co-founded the Asian American Legislation Enforcement Affiliation, spent the final decade of his profession on Mayor Richard M. Daley’s safety element. (July 8)
Mary Ann Smith, 77. As a member of town council from 1989 to 2011, she led a renaissance within the forty eighth Ward, which incorporates components of Edgewater and Uptown. From overseeing the creation of town’s first site visitors circles, velocity humps and bike lanes to planting dozens of recent bushes alongside Broadway Avenue, she was all-in on environmentally-friendly beautification and making her ward extra livable. Smith at all times had two or three canine and two or three cats and promoted canine strolling as an important a part of group security. (July 31)
Jim Crowley, 59. The previous Chicago Police Officer suffered traumatic mind accidents in 1987 on the age of twenty-two when a drunken driver hit the squad automotive he was driving in. For the reason that accident — which killed fellow police Officer William Morrison — Crowley used a wheelchair and wanted assist with each side of his life. In 2019, his sister Beth Carter, made it her mission to convey Crowley house to Chicago to have a good time Christmas and be with buddies. He’d been residing in a bunch house in San Marcos, Texas, the place he acquired specialised care. (Aug. 22)
Tyrone Fahner, 81. As Illinois lawyer basic, he led a activity drive investigating the 1982 Tylenol murders, by which seven folks have been killed within the Chicago space after ingesting cyanide-laced Tylenol. Fahner additionally labored as a federal prosecutor and have become a pacesetter of the regulation agency Mayer Brown. “Ty was an expensive good friend and probably the most admired attorneys in Illinois current historical past,” stated former Illinois U.S. Legal professional Dan Okay. Webb. (Sept. 16)
Tony Durpetti, 80. The gregarious proprietor of Gene & Georgetti — town’s oldest steakhouse ended up working the identical restaurant the place, as a child, he earned suggestions as a self-appointed doorman till one of many house owners, Gene Michelotti, shooed him away. How might the pissed off proprietor have realized he was chasing away his future son-in-law? There have been no arduous emotions. “My father-in-law was a genius who constructed a novel American establishment. Every single day I thank God that I haven’t screwed it up but,” Durpetti favored to say. (Sept. 26)
Bob Love, 81. Merely put, he was a Chicago Bulls legend. “Simply salt of the earth, man. So humble, beloved life. I by no means noticed him not smiling,” recalled three-time NBA champion-turned-Bulls broadcaster Invoice Wennington, who labored with Love as a Bulls ambassador. Love got here to the Bulls early within the 1968-69 season and immediately made an affect by averaging 21 factors per recreation. Throughout his tenure with the franchise, he averaged 21.3 factors and 6.8 rebounds and was a three-time All-Star. (Nov. 18)
You may learn all of our 2024 obituaries at chicago.suntimes.com/obituaries.
