The three intrepid friends set out early Wednesday, knowing they had to take two buses to get to Bridgeport’s Nativity of Our Lord Church to pay their final respects to Eleanor “Sis” Daley.
When you add it up, Connie Scarpardine, 84, Genevieve Zmuda, 83 and Josephine Shepke, 82, have spent more than 200 years in Chicago. That alone should tell you why there was no way they were going to let a little cold weather or time-consuming public transportation get in the way of their journey.
The trio bundled up–Genevieve and cane-wielding Connie wore plastic hairdo protectors and Josephine had a scarf tied snugly beneath her chin–grabbed their pocketbooks, their canvas shopping totes and arrived before lunchtime.
Timing it perfectly, they had no wait at all as they slowly made their way up the church steps to say goodbye to Chicago’s matriarch, the wife of one mayor and mother of another, who died Sunday, less than one month before her 96th birthday.
To say that the visitation for Mrs. Daley was all about family does not do justice to the 12-hour-long visitation.
All six of Mrs. Daley’s surviving children, led by Mayor Richard M. Daley, stayed by the closed casket for hours on end, greeting every mourner with a hug or a handshake.
Many of Mrs. Daley’s living grandchildren (there are 21 in all) lined the center aisle to do likewise. And in the pews, the great-grandchildren–some unmistakably reflecting the Daley gene pool in their sweet Irish faces–squirmed in their mothers’ and dads’ arms.
Those here for a farewell to Mrs. Daley ranged from the familiar face of former Cook County Board President George Dunne, who turns 90 Thursday, to the youngest great-grandchild, Mrs. Daley’s namesake Eleanor, who was exactly 5 months old on Wednesday and kept kicking off her black patent leather Mary Janes.
When one mourner extolled Mayor Richard M. Daley for his wonderful family, he replied proudly, “That’s what it’s all about.”
“She was a really splendid lady,” Daley repeated to well-wishers, a wide smile on his face, as he stood near the glossy casket, which was placed in front of the marble rail where the late Mayor Richard J. Daley had made his First Holy Communion close to a century ago.
Credit to motherhood
“This is a woman who raised this huge family and they still all like each other. Doesn’t every mother in the world marvel at the strength of character it took to achieve that?” asked former Circuit Court Clerk Aurelia Pucinski, mother of three and a member of a prominent Chicago political family.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich emerged from the church also reflecting on the subject of family. Being at the visitation was “just another reminder that nobody loves you like a mother does,” he said as he praised the legacy of good works and good kinship that Mrs. Daley leaves behind
The long day of public mourning and cheerful celebration began a little before 10 a.m. when the casket was accompanied to the church steps by Mrs. Daley’s granddaughters, including Mayor Daley’s daughters Lally and Nora, who is expecting the first grandchild for Daley and wife Maggie next month.
There, Mrs. Daley’s grandsons, including the mayor’s curly-haired son Patrick, carried the casket adorned with a simple silver crucifix into the church.
By the time the doors of the yellow brick church opened a few minutes past 10, an enormous spray of pink flowers was atop the casket and a line of about 140 had formed for half a block down South Union Avenue.
On the chilly sunlit sidewalk, minks and the mighty mixed with Daley friends and neighbors, in work pants and parkas. CTA drivers and crossing guards, aldermen and congressmen, hairdressers and bingo-loving retirees were among the early arrivals.
All waited their turn to extend condolences, sign in at one of eight remembrance books placed on stands just inside the church doors and leave with a prayer card showing an ebullient Sis in a pink-striped dress, posing with her robust husband, a white rose in his lapel.
Throughout the day, florist trucks from across the city pulled up at Nativity of Our Lord, at the corner of 37th and Union. The parish church is a mere 2 1/2 blocks from the brick bungalow as 3536 S. Lowe Ave. where Mayor and Mrs. Daley had raised seven children and Sis Daley died of an apparent stroke, surrounded by family.
Irish, Chicago flags
The flowers included a remarkable 4-foot-long “Chicago” spelled out in pale yellow chrysanthemums and the entwined Irish and Chicago flags, also fashioned out of mums. Although the family had requested no flowers, unions, friends, officials and businesses sent them anyhow, jamming all available wall space in the two side aisles and turning thc church basement into a vast floral gallery as well.
Many of the people who came to the visitation had also attended a similar visitation at the same parish church, on Dec. 21, 1976, after the first Mayor Daley died. Many recalled Mrs. Daley’s quiet dignity as she stayed at her husband’s casket late into the night to thank the mourners for coming.
Mary Lou Vaccaro, who has lived in Bridgeport for all of her 74 years and attended visitations for both Daleys, seemed surprised by the question of why she was there.
Many of those who lived nearby and came to the church Wednesday said that showing respect for a longtime neighbor was as routine, and as expected, as going to Sunday mass and having a brisket for Sunday dinner.
“She was a wonderful lady,” said Ketty Silva, 62, a hair salon owner, born in the Dominican Republic, who has lived in Chicago for 40 years. “I love the family because they’re wonderful,” she said of the Daleys, past and present. She was first in line, arriving from her Northwest Side home three hours before the church doors opened.
Mary Ann Gilbert, 70, wearing her suburban Riverside crossing guard jacket, had attended school in Bridgeport and said, “We know the family through politics, just friends, neighbors. … I paid my respects to Mayor Daley and I’m paying my respects to his wife.”
As Gilbert, the former Mary Ann Duszynski spoke, an impromptu, joyful mini-reunion of South Side Irish was under way on the sidewalk nearby. Ave Maria Green, 72 , and her dentist husband, John, 75, embraced the Kennys, John, 75, and Rosemary, 72, soon joined by Terry McEldowney. More hugs all around as McEldowney introduced himself to someone he didn’t know as one of the creators of the song, “The South Side Irish,” which John Kenny then proceeded to sing.
Parish identities
All in this group, when asked where they were from, identified themselves by their parish–St. Columbanus, St. Catherine of Alexandria, St. Cajetan–and each had so many ties with so many Daleys that it was a little hard to keep it all straight.
Throughout the day and into the evening, from across the city and suburbs, there was a steady trickle into the church to remember and pray for Mrs. Daley. And many of those said they would be back in the same place Thursday for the 10 a.m. funeral mass. Burial in the family plot at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Worth is private.
