She wore the title “president” like she wore chic clothes-boldly.
That, more than anything, is what many of the 2,000 people who filled the pews of Pilgrim Baptist Church Wednesday recalled about Jacqueline Barbara Vaughn.
As lasting an impact as the late Chicago Teachers Union leader had on the city’s education policies, it seems, she had an equally ingrained impact on its people.
During Vaughn’s “homegoing” service, a decidedly upbeat occasion that few people referred to as a funeral, there were the usual fond remembrances of her strict dedication as a mother, teacher, role model and union leader, along with promises to advance her goals.
But amid the host of state and city leaders and longtime admirers gathered at the church at 3301 S. Indiana Ave., a select few recalled the Vaughn they knew as friend.
They remembered “Jacqu e,” the world-traveler child advocate, who in her own youth was a spelling whiz and preferred loose curls to ponytails; Jacqu e, a lover of fine food who added life to a party with her electric slide dance and stiff competition to a fashion show; Jacqu e, the staunch Southern Baptist who often would have to sneak a seat in the Pilgrim church balcony to avoid interrupting services with her celebrity; Jacqu e, the perennial optimist who lived life with such fiery enthusiasm it seemed to burn in her handshake and wrap around you with her bearlike hugs.
Jacqu e loved to laugh, her friends said. In jovial moments away from the searchlight attention of the press, she would find fun in kidding about her “tough” public image and branding friends-and foes-with on-the-money nicknames.
More than anything though, the memory that echoed through the voluminous church was Vaughn’s unswerving determination as a labor leader devoted to increasing respect for teachers and upgrading education for children.
State Sen. Emil Jones, who attended Schoop Elementary School with Vaughn, remembered how she was fond of saying, “Whatever you are, a teacher had something to do with it.”
Several attendees recalled her strength in the face of a debilitating illness. Referring to Vaughn’s long bout with breast cancer before her death Saturday at the age of 58, her minister, Rev. Floyd Davis, called it a “mousy illness,” compared to Vaughn’s lionheartedness.
“When Jacqu e was negotiating with her team, they were tough,” Mayor Richard Daley said. “But they were fair. They were articulate, and they knew who they spoke for.”
“She should always be remembered, talked about, prayed about in the city of Chicago,” he said.
From the governor to the mayor to the teachers and reporters who took off from work, it seemed everybody remembered That Look, the bone-chilling gaze Vaughn would fix on you like a rifle scope when there seemed to be some part of her steely opinions you didn’t understand.
“(That) look could pulverize a block of concrete,” said Don Johnson, president of the Illinois State Federation of Labor, of which Vaughn was a longtime member.
“When I think of Jacqu e Vaughn I think of two words, dignity and respect,” said Robert Healey, former CTU president and a close friend. “Everything about her was dignified.”
Several remembered that Vaughn was a proud woman too. A few weeks ago, Rev. Addie Wyatt said, she saw Jacqu e at a meeting and commented, “Oh, you are a beautiful, courageous queen.” Wyatt said Vaughn smiled, then shot back, “and I intend to remain that way.” “That’s how I remember Jacqu e,” Wyatt said.
At times during the 3-hour service, which rocked with peals of applause and moving gospel songs, attendees spoke as if Jacqu e were there.
When, in the midst of the morning gloom, a panel of sunlight suddenly brightened the church, a woman in the balcony turned to her companion and said, “Jacqu e’s here.” When in the mad rush to set up TV cameras, someone bumped the church sound system causing a loud noise, another woman said, “Jacqu e didn’t like that.” And at the reception held in the community hall across the street while Vaughn’s body was carried to Oakwood Cemetery, 1035 E. 67th St., many observed, “Jacqu e would love this. She didn’t believe in anyone being hungry.”
The day before Vaughn’s funeral, more than 10,000 people had flowed through the church to see her body. The impact Vaughn had on the whole of Chicago was reflectd in the parade of uniforms-police officers, nurses, janitors, many of whom said they had so often seen Vaughn on TV rallying for education fairness, they felt like she had been a guest in their homes.
“The person I see there, I can’t even relate to,” said Evelyn Bourn, a retired insurance agent, after viewing Vaughn’s body in a mahogany coffin draped in pink and white flowers. “She had such fight in her. She’s gone, but she won’t be forgotten.”
“I don’t know why there are the sad faces. That sister has `job well-done’ written all over her face,” said Aaron Rowe, who came as an admirer of Vaughn’s strength. “I’m not going to mourn or grieve. She’s in a better place.”
That’s the message that came across in the anonymous poem that appeared at the back of the program:
“Do not stand at my grave and forever weep. I am not there, I do not sleep. I am in the thousand winds that blow. I am the diamond glints on snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain. I am the gentle autumn’s rain. . . . Do not stand at my grave and forever cry, I am not there, I did not die.”
