John Stroger, who rose through the ranks of local Democratic politics from assistant precinct captain to powerful ward boss to become the first African-American elected Cook County Board president, died Friday after a long illness.
Mr. Stroger was best known for his efforts to expand county-provided health services to the poor, exemplified by the hospital that bears his name. But his tenure also was marked by criticism that he was an old-style politician who put a priority on using government to help his friends and family members.
“Every Democratic official elected in the last 40 years throughout the state owed President Stroger because he could deliver,” said William Beavers, a longtime friend, political ally and current County Board member.
A week before the March 2006 primary, Mr. Stroger suffered a debilitating stroke. Though the extent of his illness was shrouded in secrecy and became the source of controversy, he won the primary but never recovered and never appeared in public again.
Months later, Mr. Stroger formally retired from the County Board presidency. Democratic Party leaders picked his son Todd, a Chicago alderman at the time, to replace him on the ballot, and Todd Stroger won election that fall.
Mr. Stroger, 78, died at 8 a.m., according to Todd Stroger’s office.
“Today, my family mourns the passing of my father, John H. Stroger Jr., loving husband, devoted father and outstanding public servant,” the younger Stroger said in a statement.
“He dedicated his life to his family and gave generously of himself as an elected official. His love for this county knew no bounds, and he will be deeply missed.”
Mr. Stroger died at Warren Barr Pavilion, a long-term care facility at 66 W. Oak St., said Gene Mullins, a family friend and spokesman. Mr. Stroger had shuttled between his home and the facility as his doctors and nurses advised, Mullins said.
He had been in stable condition “and he just suffered complications from the stroke,” Mullins said, declining to provide details. Another friend who last visited him several months ago said Mr. Stroger had to communicate with hand signals.
First elected to the County Board in 1970, Mr. Stroger for years championed the construction of a new public hospital to replace the aging and outdated Cook County Hospital. He made it the focus of his agenda after he was elected board president in 1994. At the urging of Rev. Jesse Jackson, the County Board voted to name the new West Side facility in Stroger’s honor before construction was completed in 2002.
“I have lost a personal friend, but this county has lost one of the most outstanding public servants who ever served,” said County Commissioner John Daley, a longtime ally. “From Day One, he said the poor need the same health care as people going to private hospitals.”
A change of plans
Born in Helena, Ark., to John and Ella Stroger, a tailor and a maid, respectively, Mr. Stroger earned a degree in business administration from Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans. He taught high school and coached basketball in Arkansas for a year before his mother informed him, in 1953, that his plans were about to change.
“I came home, and she told me she made arrangements for me to move to Chicago,” where opportunities were greater, Mr. Stroger recalled years later. “And I said, ‘I don’t want to go to Chicago, I’m going to have a good team next year.’ [She said], ‘You may have a good team, but you won’t have it here.’ “
Once here, Mr. Stroger quickly got involved in local Democratic politics by joining Ralph Metcalfe’s 3rd Ward organization as an assistant precinct captain.
Mr. Stroger left Metcalfe’s political organization and later became head of the 8th Ward Democratic organization. He took heat from critics who contended that his desire to maintain an army of political loyalists contributed to a bloated county bureaucracy, waste and constant pressure to increase taxes.
But his defenders — and there were many — contended that Mr. Stroger was a caring individual who took a special interest in helping people.
“When someone came to him, one of his questions would be, ‘How can I help?’ and if it was within his power to do it, you could count on it being done,” County Commissioner Jerry Butler said.
State Rep. Marlow Colvin (D-Chicago), a family friend, said Mr. Stroger should be remembered for the thousands of African-Americans he assisted.
“We’d be at a baseball game, and someone would come up and say, ‘Mr. President, I want to thank you for what you did for my son. You helped get him into law school,'” Colvin recalled. “Or, ‘You got my son at Merrill Lynch his first bond deal.’ When they’d leave, he’d say, ‘I don’t know that lady from Adam, but sometimes you help people because you have the capacity to do so.'”
Answering his critics
In the 2006 primary campaign, Mr. Stroger’s challenger, County Commissioner Forrest Claypool, said he knew he could downsize county government based, in part, on “anecdotal evidence and just the bloat that we see every year.”
Stroger usually let the criticism roll off his back.
Saying he had cut 2,800 job positions and saved taxpayers millions of dollars, Mr. Stroger declared, “My history as the president of the County Board and [before that] as the chairman of the Finance Committee, I wasn’t a big spender and a big taxer. And that only started occurring in language since Mr. Claypool came on the board.”
When arguments broke out with Claypool, Republican County Commissioner Tony Peraica and others who opposed him, “he would always say to them that this is not personal, and on top of it not being personal, if it isn’t about people, it’s not productive,” Butler said. “John Stroger was about people.”
He also had a sense of humor.
“His niece, he would always say, graduated magna cum laude from business school, and he graduated ‘Thank-you-Lawdy,'” Butler said, chuckling.
In 1968, Mayor Richard J. Daley supported Mr. Stroger’s bid to become the first African-American committeeman of the 8th Ward, which became an electoral powerhouse during his tenure. Two years later, Daley helped Mr. Stroger win his seat on the County Board.
Known for his loyalty, Mr. Stroger returned the Daley family the favor in 1983 and took the heat when he was the only black committeeman to support Daley’s son Richard M. Daley for mayor over Harold Washington.
Mr. Stroger was “one of the most dedicated public servants of our time” and someone who “left a mark on Chicago and Cook County that will be equaled by very few others,” the Daley said Friday.
“The political system he entered in the 1950s was not as open as it is now,” Daley said in a statement. “But with talent and integrity, John Stroger rose to the top and leaves a major legacy of achievement that all people can use as a model.”
In addition to his son Todd and his wife of nearly five decades, Yonnie, Mr. Stroger is survived by a daughter, Yonnie Lynn; and two grandchildren. Another son, Hans, died in 1982.
Stroger’s wake is scheduled for Tuesday from noon to 8 p.m. in St. Columbanus Catholic Church, 331 E. 71st St. A viewing will be held Wednesday from 9 to 11 a.m. in St. Felicitas Catholic Church, 1526 E. 84th St., and a funeral mass will be said at 11 a.m.
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John Stroger’s life and career
May 19, 1929: Born to John and Ella Stroger in Helena, Ark.
1952: Receives bachelor’s degree in business administration from Xavier University in New Orleans.
1953: Moves to Chicago. Joins Ralph Metcalfe’s 3rd Ward political organization and lands first government job as assistant auditor in city’s Municipal Court.
1959: Marries Yonnie.
1963: Todd Stroger is born, the youngest of John and Yonnie’s three children.
1965: Graduates from DePaul College of Law.
1968: Named 8th Ward Democratic committeeman.
1970: Elected to Cook County Board.
1980: Loses bid for Congress.
1982: Older son, Hans, dies after asthma attack.
1984: Appointed chairman of County Board’s Finance Committee.
1994: Elected as first African-American president of County Board.
1998: County Board approves construction of new hospital on the West Side long advocated by Stroger. Re-elected to second term.
2002: Stroger wins third term as president. New hospital bearing his name opens in December adjacent to old Cook County Hospital.
March 14, 2006: Suffers serious stroke one week before Democratic primary election.
March 21, 2006: Nominated for fourth term, winning 53.5 percent of the Democratic vote despite questions about his health.
June 28, 2006: Ald. Todd Stroger (8th) announces that John Stroger will withdraw from the November general election and wants Todd to replace him on the ballot.
June 29, 2006: Stroger spokesman then-Ald. William Beavers (7th) announces that John Stroger will resign as president, effective July 31.
Jan. 18, 2008: Stroger dies in Chicago at 78.
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