They were all on the cusp of something–one just months from a career in nursing, another a final paper away from ending law school’s rigorous first year. One was a social worker who’d just bought a house with her fiance, another a football player who’d overcome dyslexia and was eyeing a career in the pros.
The 12 people who died Sunday morning when a porch collapsed during a party in Lincoln Park were riding out the days when youthful meandering gives way to real life, to starting careers, building families and making an impact on the world.
“Everyone was doing something exciting,” said Claire Sufrin, who was at the party but left before the night turned tragic. “These people were just starting their lives and doing really neat things.”
In a terrifying moment amid the sound of screams and the snap of splintering wood, Margaret Haynie’s life came to an end, less than a week past her 25th birthday. Her career in commercial lending at Bank One was just beginning, she’d moved in with her college boyfriend only a year ago and had plans to return home to Evansville, Ind., on the 4th of July.
“She was a fabulous student. She had a really great career going,” said her father, Ken Haynie Jr. “It’s just a tragic waste of unlimited potential for just quite a young lady.”
Eileen Lupton, 22, died before having a chance to reach her potential as a recent graduate from Villanova University’s nursing program. Lupton had moved back into her family’s home in Lake Forest to prepare for her board exams.
She planned to move to downtown Chicago with two childhood friends and start a job as a pediatric nurse at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Lincoln Park.
It was a job she had been well-suited for since high school, said longtime friend Katie Purpura. Instilling confidence was what Lupton did best.
“She was like a vault,” Purpura said. “She would always keep your secrets. And she was always giving advice for everything–boys, jobs, school.”
Accomplished law student
Sunday’s tragedy means that Henry Wischerath Sr., a 55-year-old accountant in Buffalo, N.Y., will never again get a phone call from his son, a 24-year-old University of Chicago law school student who talked to his dad every day.
Henry Wischerath Jr. graduated summa cum laude from Boston University and was pursuing a law degree with the hope of someday becoming a teacher. He spoke with his dad Saturday night, said he’d spent all day in the library working on his final paper of the year and planned to return to Buffalo on Wednesday. He didn’t mention that he was going to a party that night.
Sam Farmer, 21, on the other hand, had told his family in Winnetka where he was going, and he opted to take the train into the city rather than drive.
“The idea was to go to a party and be safe,” said Marion Gladstein, a friend of the family.
Farmer had just completed his sophomore year at the University of Arizona in Tucson. A 2001 graduate of New Trier High School, he joined several other graduates of the North Shore school at the party.
One of them was his best friend Shea Fitzgerald, a 19-year-old football player for Northern Illinois University.
Fitzgerald was a stand-out wrestler and football player at New Trier. A learning disability threatened his academic eligibility when colleges were recruiting him, but he overcame a form of dyslexia, earned a full scholarship at Northern Illinois and hoped to play at the pro level.
Neighbors said Fitzgerald was a favorite of local children. He worked as a camp counselor for several summers and was popular with the kids, one neighbor said.
New Trier officials said Farmer and Fitzgerald were best friends, and that Farmer attended almost every one of Fitzgerald’s athletic events in high school. The two friends died together Sunday morning.
“This goes deep into the fabric of the community,” said Fitzgerald’s aunt, Marybeth Rosenthal.
Family knew
A family friend said any time Farmer was around a hint of danger, he would call his parents to say he was all right. The family heard about the accident early Sunday, but they hadn’t heard from their son.
“When they weren’t able to get in touch with him on the cell phone, they knew,” said Edward Prevost, the rector at the Farmer family’s church, Christ Church in Winnetka.
Ben Bradford lost his fiance, Julie Sorkin, 25.
Speaking outside his family’s home in Glencoe, Bradford wouldn’t discuss the collapse. He would only speak about the woman who in December would have become his wife.
She had just completed her master’s degree in social work at the University of Chicago and had recently landed a job with the Special Education District of Lake County, he said. She would have been a social worker for children with special needs.
“She was just amazing, the way she interacted with kids,” Bradford said. “They’d literally run to her. Six-month-old babies would just flirt with her.”
Bradford and Sorkin graduated from New Trier in 1996, and they had set their wedding date for Dec. 20 in Skokie. On Saturday, hours before the party, the couple signed a contract to buy a house in Wrigleyville.
“She wanted to decorate the whole thing with Pottery Barn,” Bradford said, chuckling at the memory. “She was just the happiest, sweetest person you’ve ever met.”
People at the Chicago real estate firm Draper and Kramer had just met John Jackson, 22, a new hire who started in the company’s research department last week. With only five days under his belt, Jackson had already made an impression on his boss.
“He had the stuff,” said McKim Barnes, the company’s vice president for research and analysis. “There was a lot of competition for this position. He won because of his writing quality as well as his background.”
Barnes said Jackson had a degree from Georgetown University and enthusiasm that was contagious.
He said the native of Kansas City, Mo., was living with his sister in Chicago while he searched for a place to live.
“This is a terrible blow,” Barnes said. “This is a loss of a really talented individual with great training and great potential. I’m devastated.”
While family and friends of some of the victims could not be found or declined to comment, it’s clear a thread of success ran through all their lives.
Katherine Sheriff, 23, graduated from Duke University in 2001 with a degree in political science, said Keith Lawrence, director of the university’s news service. She was a registered member of Duke’s young alumni club in Chicago.
A neighbor said she was a happy person who had recently taken a new job.
Robert Koranda, 23, graduated from Naperville North High School in 1998, starred as a linebacker on the football team and went on to play for Princeton University. He played one year there, but a recurring shoulder injury forced him to quit the team, said Larry McKeon, head football coach at Naperville North.
McKeon said Koranda remained a student at Princeton and graduated. He described him as a leader and “a great young man.”
“He was bright, very intelligent, very outgoing and helped younger kids,” McKeon said. “He was very approachable. I think that’s what people liked about him the most. You could come to him and it didn’t matter if you were 14 or 44, he spoke to you the same way.”
Neil McCauley, a recently retired athletic director from Naperville North, said Koranda had just gotten a job at a bank in downtown Chicago and was excited to get his career under way.
“When you lose young men like this that are the leaders in our community with great futures, it’s a great loss to everyone,” McKeon said. “He touched so many people.”
Kelly McKinnell, 26, used her eyes and a gift for photography to affect those around her. Lynne Wellen, coordinator of the adult education program at the Latin School of Chicago, said McKinnell graduated from the Latin School in 1995.
She came back in 2001 to teach digital photography in the adult education program and was applying to schools to get a graduate degree in photography.
“She was a wonderful young woman. She really was. And she was a terrific teacher,” Wellen said. “Very full of life, very upbeat. An exceedingly positive young woman.”
`She’s my only child’
McKinnell’s mother, Jean Ware of Barrington, said her daughter had just mailed her application to the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Saturday morning.
“She’s an only child … she’s my only child,” Ware said. “You just get numb.”
Muhammed Hameeduddin, 24, graduated magna cum laude from Hope College in Holland, Mich., in 2001 with a major in economics and mathematics, said Tom Renner, director of public relations for the college. Hameeduddin was on the dean’s list all eight semesters and was active in several student professional clubs, including the business and economics club and the mathematics club, Renner said.
According to school records, Hameeduddin came to the school as an international student from Karachi, Pakistan. Hameeduddin was working as an actuary for Watson Wyatt Worldwide’s Chicago office, Renner said.
While loved ones remembered the victims, they also considered the shared grief of a group of people who had touched lives across the country.
“We’re just praying for all these families,” said Haynie, the father of victim Margaret Haynie. “We’re just relying on the Lord to get us through, just praying for comfort for others. It’s just a terrible tragedy.”
