As Chicago’s director of protocol for nearly two decades, Rosalie Clark has greeted heads of state at the airport, conducted seminars on etiquette and escorted celebrities to the fifth floor of City Hall to visit with the mayor.
But the job wasn’t all glamor.
In November 1989, the first time Lech Walesa visited Chicago, for instance, Clark recalled that her boss, Special Events Director Kathy Osterman, insisted on holding a rally outside in the Daley Plaza, even though it was the middle of winter and bitter cold.
“She said, `The Gdansk shipyard is colder than any place in Chicago,” Clark said. The morning of the rally, however, Clark said she got word that Walesa had left his cold-weather gear behind in Poland.
“I stood at the door of Eddie Bauer’s until it opened,” Clark said. “I had to buy him a down jacket, a hat and some mittens.”
Her last-minute buying spree for Walesa is part of a thick scrapbook of memories that Clark took with her when she retired from city government last week, having served as Chicago’s “Duchess of Do’s and Don’t’s” since 1980.
As a going-away gag, her colleagues in the Mayor’s Office of Special Events prepared a magazine called “Rosalie Clark Leaving,” a parody of “Martha Stewart Living.”
Anne Rashford, an assistant to Clark for a dozen years, said her former boss exemplified “grace under pressure.”
“There were so many situations that were very delicate and sensitive, and she handled them all with such class and style and made everyone feel at home,” said Rashford, who now works at the Chicago Transit Authority.
One time, she recalled, Clark discovered that the caterer for a breakfast meeting in the mayor’s office couldn’t handle the task. Instead of panicking, Clark and Rashford threw on aprons and started cooking.
“It was very obvious that it was the only way out,” Rashford said. “We had to prepare the pancakes and the eggs. The cook and the server became the wait staff.”
James “Skinny” Sheahan, a former director of special events, said Clark’s impeccable planning and people skills allowed her to deal with huge egos and pull off major events.
“Rosalie Clark was the ultimate pro,” Sheahan said. “She could deal with truck drivers, and she could deal with heads of state.”
“I always say that everyone is replaceable,” he said. “She is not.”
Clark, who politely declines to give her age, was a full-time housewife back when then-Mayor Jane Byrne hired her for a job that was new to City Hall and somewhat incongruous in a city known for its tough, no-nonsense style.
Under the late Mayor Richard J. Daley, for instance, most public city functions, such as greeting dignitaries, were handled by Col. Jack Reilly, the crotchety retired Army officer colonel with an eye patch who was the city’s director of special events.
Clark brought a more refined touch to the job, and she has since taken classes in entertaining and flower arrangements from Martha Stewart to hone her talents.
A native of the South Side and the mother of five, Clark had experience hosting parties and campaigning on behalf of her husband, William Clark, a former state legislator, Illinois attorney general and State Supreme Court chief justice.
“I knew (Byrne) from that life,” Clark said. “When I came here, I figured I’d do it for a year or two.”
But instead, Clark stayed through Mayors Byrne, Harold Washington, Eugene Sawyer and Daley, acting as the city’s chief hostess for everyone from the Dalai Lama to Mr. T.
Officially, the director of protocol acts as the liaison to the city’s consulates, arranging for “red-carpet” arrivals for heads of states or dinners for overseas dignitaries.
One of the job’s biggest challenges, Rashford said, is ensuring that the city flies the correct flag when foreign dignitaries arrive, a task requiring close monitoring of political shifts and revolutions in other countries.
Clark also has hosted celebrities, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Harrison Ford and Tony Bennett, who want to meet the mayor.
The “courtesy visits” include a brief visit with the mayor and the standard Chicago gift: a key to the city and a coffee-table book of city pictures.
Asked if any celebrities have been turned down for “courtesy visits,” Clark showed some of the political skills she picked up while working at City Hall. She dodged the question.
“The mayor sees as many courtesy visits as possible,” she said.
Her favorite memories include meeting the “warm and outgoing” Bishop Desmond Tutu, watching South African President Nelson Mandela deliver a speech in a Bulls jacket and matching hat, and looking on as songwriter Sammy Cahn made up an impromptu ditty in Mayor Daley’s honor.
Clark also recalled the time when former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev suddenly announced he wanted to mingle with real Chicagoans at a local bar before he left the city. Clark frantically arranged for a visit to the Hard Rock Cafe and crossed her fingers.
“He sat down and had a beer and some nachos,” she said. “He had his picture taken with all the waitresses, and they gave him a Hard Rock T-shirt. You just had to pinch yourself to realize this was happening.”
