‘The Cross Man’ was a carpenter trying to emulate the one in the Bible

There are some people who, once exposed to the bright light of their spirit, you never forget ’em.

Greg Zanis, “The Cross Man,” who died of cancer Monday at age 69, was one of those.

I’d met him in January 2018, in the midst of planning his Washington, D.C., gathering of families who’d lost loved ones to gun violence.

Like many, I’d wondered about the Aurora man who lovingly built and delivered crosses to victims’ families after mass shootings nationwide — Newtown, Orlando, Las Vegas, etc.

And after 770 of his crosses were carried down the Magnificent Mile in 2016 — memorializing the record 781 Chicago homicides — I had to meet him.

In a muddy lot donated to him in Englewood, we chatted while walking among 638 crosses honoring those victims that he stored there. His memory of each was astounding.

Before 2016, he’d already delivered 1,000 crosses over 20 years to grieving Chicago families, driving from Aurora in the dead of night to plop them down at scenes of crime.

He died with over 26,000 memorials to the murdered crafted — a calling he said he discerned from God after the 1996 murder of his father-in-law. After building crosses for his grief support group, it grew from there, his ministry going nationwide with the 1999 Colombine massacre.

He preferred McDonald’s for our lunch chat, and I can still hear his booming voice, as one hour turned into three.

Zanis’ story began with being transplanted to different cities as the child of a Greek Orthodox priest whose job was starting new churches.

Born in Spokane, Washington, he was 11 when his parents moved their five children to Chicago’s Austin neighborhood, where his father would pastor Assumption Greek Orthodox Church. By age 17, white flight had taken hold; the family moved to west suburban Geneva.

“At the time, our diocese was building a new parish, Lady Marian Temple, on Stony Island. We sold it to Louis Farrakhan,” Zanis said. “Everything changed overnight. We’d built this $2 million marble temple and sold it for half price — didn’t even dedicate it.”

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times file photo

He’d graduate from Geneva High, then Northern Illinois University — where he met wife Susan, a teacher who would later stop working to homeschool their five children — Maria, Chris, Catherine, Susy and Gregory, Jr. As for his religious leanings, it was a lifelong journey.

“When we got married, we tried the Greek Orthodox church. That didn’t work. Then we tried hers — Catholic, that didn’t work. We then went to a Baptist church for 13 years, before leaving for a non-denominational church,” said Zanis, adding that his parents cut him off when he left their church.

“I didn’t inherit a penny. But I did inherit the love of Jesus,” he said.

His father-in-law, who was his best friend, taught him carpentry, and Zanis worked 42 years for Fox Valley General Contractors, retiring in 2016.

His laughter as well as his tears while conversing, his deep commitment to sharing his love of God, stayed with me long after, and we kept in touch for awhile. But then you drift on.

One previously undivulged experience he shared was a secret vigil he’d attended at the Englewood home of singer/actress Jennifer Hudson on Nov. 4, 2008 — for her mother, brother and nephew, who were murdered on Oct. 24, 2008.

“The Hudson family had a private vigil at the same time Barack Obama was delivering his victory speech in Grant Park, because we knew everyone would be downtown. A lot of celebrities came, and we wanted privacy,” Zanis recounted. “The crosses are still there.”

He’d also planted crosses after the E2 Nightclub stampede in the South Loop, given to families of the 21 killed there Feb. 17, 2003. “There’s still no city marker there,” said Zanis.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times file photo

I asked how he remembered so many individual stories from so many mass tragedies. It was the 79 notebooks.

“I keep notebooks of every cross I’ve ever put up, the victim’s name, the family’s phone number, address. And I keep trivia,” he said. “If I talk to the family, I write it down, so that if I call them at the anniversary, I sound more like family, because this is the most important thing about what I’m doing with the crosses — remembering.”

“I usually call them after midnight on the date of the anniversary, always the first year. When the phone rings at 2 a.m. they’re not sleeping. They’re going to answer, because it’s what they’re thinking about.”

His crosses were crafted the same — 3 feet, 6 inches tall, 2 feet, 9 inches wide, a 1-foot heart at the center — everywhere except in Chicago.

“All the rest, the hearts are below the crossbar. Chicago’s are signature crosses,” he told me. “For Chicago’s — violence that continues as opposed to a mass shooting — the crossbar sandwiches the heart of the cross, like the heart is being hugged,” he said. “It’s symbolic.”

Indeed. Bidding rest in peace to the carpenter who impacted me with such ardent desire that his life work follow the carpenter in the Bible. The autobiography he strove to finish before he passed, “Greg Zanis: the Cross Man,” is now available through the Aurora Historical Society.