Brenda Renee Langstraat Bui, the president and CEO of the Chicago Public Library Foundation, and a woman described as a “quiet giant” and “a partner who loved to say ‘let’s make things happen,'” died last Friday at the age of 52.
Her death was announced by the Foundation in a statement on Monday, which said that she “passed away on Friday evening as a result of a tragic accident at her home.” A spokeswoman for the Cook County medical examiner’s office said the cause and manner of her death are pending.
Since then, the Chicago community has taken to social media to express support for Langstraat Bui’s legacy and her service to Chicago, from reading enrichment to the enrichment of Chicago’s parks.
“As a civic leader, she was supportive of so many organizations, providing her energy and ideas, as well as her enthusiasm for each of our efforts to make Chicago a stronger community,” said Phillip Bahar, former executive director of Chicago Humanities.
Langstraat Bui’s career in nonprofits began in 1998 when she worked as a development professional at the Chicago Humanities Festival and evolved to include stints as CEO of Working In The Schools, a nonprofit provider of mentoring and literacy enrichment, and the now-defunct Parkways Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Chicago Park District. In her time at both agencies, their budgets grew from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. Amid all her successes, she always kept a humility about her, her mother Karen Langstraat said.Langstraat Bui helmed the CPLF, a nonprofit established in 1986 as the fundraising partner of the Chicago Public Library, for more than seven years. In the role, she had a budget of $7 million last year and expanded the annual Chicago Public Library Foundation Awards, filming and broadcasting the event worldwide. During her leadership, the CPL’s programming grew to serve more than 440,000 Chicagoans at its 81 branches, according to CPLF marketing director Rica Bouso.
Langstraat Bui’s passion for lifelong learning was reflected in her support of the 81 Club initiative, a partnership with Chicago Public Schools that gives every student a library card, without fines and late fees being a barrier to access.
“Brenda Langstraat Bui was my partner in everything regarding the Chicago Public Library … the best partner imaginable,” said Chicago Public Library commissioner Chris Brown. “Brenda didn’t just champion reading; she lived it.”
“She and I have been to Ireland and Rome and Vietnam and Mexico,” said Ve Bui, Langstraat Bui’s husband. “Everywhere we went, she always wanted to visit and take a picture in front of the library in the country or city that we were in.”
Reading was how Langstraat Bui moved in the world. In one moment, she was talking with Deborah Doyle, president of United for Libraries, a division of the American Library Association, about the importance of the freedom to read. The next moment, she was volunteering as a literacy mentor with kindergartners through Working In The Schools. Langstraat Bui also served on the Lookingglass Theatre Company board and sat on the board of United for Libraries, a national board of advocates for public libraries. In the latter, she served with Skip Dye at Penguin Random House.
“She was the person who turned ‘what if’ into ‘why not’ and then into ‘let’s do it,” Dye said in an email to the Tribune. “She could see abundance where others saw limitation. She taught me/us that leadership could be generous, playful, and fearless all at once.”
Mary Dempsey, former commissioner of the Chicago Public Library, recognized her work ethic, as did friend, colleague and WITS CEO Tena Latona.”Good people find good people, and Brenda was good people that found every good person there was,” she said. “She was an absolute dream of a human.”“Many Chicagoans felt like their lives were reflected in the places that she touched,” said Tribune columnist Heidi Stevens.
“In the more than a quarter century I knew Brenda, I can’t think of a single memory of her that didn’t embody her trademark care, enthusiasm, loyalty, and deep care for Chicago and its literary community,” said author Gina Frangello.
Poet, author and Urban Gateways CEO Leslé Honoré composed a poem to memorialize her friend’s impact on the city (“You ever meet someone,” it reads in part, “Who faced the world’s / Darkness / Mined light like gold / Tossed it like pixie dust / on the City they loved.”). The poem, Ve Bui says, embodies and personifies what his wife did daily.
“Brenda met people as an associate, made them into a colleague, turned a colleague into a friend and turned friends into family, over and over and over again. She was everybody’s champion,” Honoré said.
Langstraat Bui was born on August 8, 1973, to Phil and Karen Langstraat. She was the middle child of three (Juleen Ritchie, the eldest, and Jana McGraw, the youngest) and raised in Indianola, Iowa. It was a home full of music. Her mother, a piano teacher with a degree in music education, saw that by the age of 4, Langstraat Bui was taking lessons.
“Brenda was always wanting to know more, to hear more,” Karen Langstraat said. In school, she was a flutist, cellist and sprinter. Her mother believed the foundation in music informed Brenda’s curiosity. As a toddler, her mom referred to her as “my little Brenda, the reader.” The two would spend time at the library, then read the chosen books together in a rocking chair. By the time Brenda entered kindergarten, she could read headlines in the newspaper. Langstraat Bui’s love of reading offered her an opportunity to skip first grade. Not wanting to leave her friends, she opted to stay with her buddies — one of whom immigrated from Vietnam and would become her husband after their 25th high school reunion. Their love story was immortalized in a 2022 New York Times article.
“Because she stayed in that grade and didn’t move up … and I flunked kindergarten, so if I hadn’t taken two years of kindergarten, we would not have been in the same class,” Bui said.
Nearing high school age, Karen Langstraat said it became apparent that her daughter would rather read than practice the piano. Langstraat Bui would go on to attend Wheaton College and the University of Illinois Chicago, focusing on literature and creative writing. A spiritual person, Langstraat Bui collected mala beads and read everything from Shakespeare to poetry to Mark Twain, Percival Everett and Amy Tan, Bui said.“That speaks to the foundation that Mama Langstraat built, which teaches interests to different types of things,” Bui said. “She asked questions and remembered everything and would pick up right where you left off when she sees you again — that speaks to her incredible ability with relationships, she knows everyone by heart. When you were with Brenda, you were the most important person in her life.”
Langstraat Bui is survived by her husband, siblings and parents, as well as seven nieces and nephews, her father-in-law Ban Bui; eight sisters-in-law, eight brothers-in-law and 42 Bui nephews and nieces.
Services will be held in Indianola at 1 p.m. Feb. 10 at the Indianola Community Church. A private burial will be in Oakwood Cemetery in Pella, Iowa. Memorials may be directed to CPLF, WITS or the Indianola Public Library. A Chicago celebration of life is also planned.
