Mayor Richard Daley’s wife, Maggie, has been diagnosed with breast cancer, the mayor’s office said Friday.
“During the coming months, she will be undergoing treatment at Northwestern Memorial Hospital,” according to a brief announcement. “Updates on her health will be given as the physicians and the family deem appropriate. The family would like today’s statement to be their only public comment on this very private matter at this time.”
Maggie Daley, who turns 59 next month, underwent testing last week and received the diagnosis on Monday, according to sources close to the family.
“It’s pretty serious, but they are real optimistic,” said one friend who asked not to be identified. “We can just say lots of prayers and be really good friends.”
“Although I do not know any of the details of her illness, I know that she is a person of great strength and deep faith,” said Lois Weisberg, the city’s cultural affairs commissioner and a personal friend. “Both qualities will serve her well as she faces this challenge.”
Maggie Daley “has looked after everybody else, and I happen to be one of the people,” Weisberg said. “In the littlest thing, she is there to help. She is probably the most wonderful bedside person you could have.”
When Kathy Osterman, the city’s former director of special events was terminally ill with stomach cancer in 1992, “Maggie was with her all the time, was with her when she died,” Weisberg said. “She was so good for her . . . Now, I think she will have strength for herself.”
The mayor’s office released no information on symptoms Maggie Daley may have exhibited that led to the testing, the type of cancer detected, its extent, or the type of treatment she will receive.
Visiting Ireland
The diagnosis did not prevent the Daleys from leaving Thursday for a trip to Dublin, where the mayor was to speak to college graduate students from around the world under the auspices of the Academy of Achievement. On Saturday, he was scheduled to receive an award from the organization.
Traveling with the Daleys were Patrick Ryan, chairman of Aon Corp., and his wife, Shirley, both friends of the couple.
Maggie Daley was with other members of the Daley clan at the University of Illinois at Chicago last month when the family was honored for donating papers of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley to the school’s library. Last Saturday, the Daleys attended the graduation from St. Ignatius High School of their youngest child, Elizabeth.
Friends who have been in her company recently said that Maggie Daley has shown no signs of ill health.
The mayor was said to have taken the news of his wife’s cancer particularly hard.
Without knowing it at the time, reporters may have gotten a glimpse of emotion related to her health earlier this week.
Before taking the podium at speaking engagements, Daley typically chats with other public officials or reporters attending the event. But on Tuesday, before beginning a news conference at McCormick Place, he walked out a door of the exhibition hall by himself and stood on an adjoining deck, staring out at the trees south of the building.
After returning about 10 minutes later, his eyes appeared red and moist.
The Daleys show few signs of affection in public, but “they are very strong and they are very close,” according to one friend.
Last week, the mayor gave a private tongue-lashing to a television news reporter who had broadcast a story on a free party at Navy Pier hosted by Illinois Senate President James “Pate” Philip (R-Wood Dale), mentioning Republican rumors that Maggie Daley had enjoyed similar perks.
Daley gave a heated defense of his wife in a City Hall hallway.
Maggie Daley is active on a number of civic fronts. She is chairwoman of the student arts program Gallery 37, chairwoman of the Chicago Cultural Center Foundation and serves on the boards of the Terra Foundation for the Arts, the Golden Apple Foundation and Children at the Crossroads Foundation.
She is the paid president of Pathways Awareness Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that works on behalf of disabled children.
Despite her public role, the mayor’s wife tries to maintain a low profile and rarely gives interviews.
A private person
“She is very private,” Weisberg said. “She doesn’t want anyone to know anything about her private life. It is hard for her to be the mayor’s wife. She has her own life and her own career.”
Friends find her to be “very warm and loving and very funny,” Weisberg said. “She has a huge sense of humor.”
Some close friends were called with the news of her cancer earlier this week, sources close to the family said.
Besides Elizabeth, the Daleys have two children, Nora Conroy, 28, and Patrick, 26. Another son, Kevin, died of complications of spina bifida in 1981 at the age of 33 months.
Maggie Daley, the youngest of seven children, is a Pittsburgh native. She met her husband at a Christmas party when she was an account executive with Xerox Learning Systems. They were married 18 months later.
Mrs. Daley’s oncologist is Dr. Steven Rosen, director of Northwestern Memorial’s Robert H. Lurie Cancer Center. Her family physician is Dr. Steven DeAngeles, according to a hospital spokeswoman.
