Two months after Highland Park parade attack, families of two killed find comfort at unofficial memorial

Monday marked two months and a day since the Highland Park July 4 parade massacre, and among those gathering at the unofficial memorial that has taken root on Central Avenue were family members of two of the seven killed — Nicolas Toledo and Eduardo Uvaldo.

Photo by Lynn Sweet

There were also at least 48 people wounded by the gunman, shooting from the roof of a store into the parade route — among them other members of the Toledo and Uvaldo families.

There are also countless others in Highland Park, Highwood and the surrounding communities — not at this Monday remembrance — who remain traumatized because of the attack.

This public art installation, just east of the Metra tracks, features photos of the deceased: Katherine Goldstein, Irina McCarthy, Kevin McCarthy, Jacki Sundheim and Stephen Straus, all of Highland Park; Toledo of Morelos, Mexico; and Uvaldo, from Waukegan.

The city of Highland Park announced Aug. 31 it wants to “scale back” temporary memorials such as this one which “have helped many move through their grief, but are re-traumatizing for others to experience.”

For those who choose to visit — such as Karina Mendez, Uvaldo’s daughter, and Alejo Toledo, the son of Nicolas Toledo — it is a place to help grapple with the tragedy.

On Monday afternoon, those assembling to mark the day included Mendez; Alejo Toledo; Jordana Hozman, a University of Chicago sophomore who started a North Shore chapter of March for Our Lives three years ago; Eden Drury, a Highland Park High School senior who launched a local Students Demand Action group in June; state Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Deerfield; and Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill.

Drury got involved in the movement to end gun violence after the May mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, because no one “should worry about who is next. And then we were next.”

Photo by Lynn Sweet

Alejo Toledo lives in Waukegan and is a cook at Once Upon A Bagel in Highland Park, a short walk from the makeshift memorial, housed in an open-air shelter with a vaulted ceiling.

Its pillars are wrapped in orange string; thousands of cards with notes from visitors are attached.

Nicolas Toledo was 77, his son said, and gunned down while sitting on the north side of Central Avenue at Second Street, across the street from Port Clinton Square, where the deadly bullets did most of the killing and wounding.

“He got three shots,” his son said.

Gerado Toledo, Alejo’s brother, was hit in the arm and the leg and is recovering. Alejo Toledo said his brother occasionally visits this memorial, but he comes all the time.

“I come here almost every day, in the morning, 5:30 in the morning,” Alejo Toledo said, before he starts work. “You see, 5:30 in the morning, no one is here. Too early.”

Karina Mendez, a Waukegan resident, is dealing with three family members shot in the attack — her father, 69 when he was killed; her mother, Maria Uvaldo, who was hit in the forehead with a bullet fragment; and her 13-year-old nephew, who was hit in the arm, also with bullet fragments.

They were watching the parade near the Walker Bros. restaurant, sitting on round metal ribbed benches in the square — the epicenter of the attack. “My two sisters were on one and my mom was on the other one,” she said. Her father was sitting in a chair.

Her parents had celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in February.

How is her mother doing? “Getting through it,” Mendez said. “Taking it day by day.” These past two months have been “tough.”

Mendez said she has been coming to this memorial two or three times a week. “We go to the cemetery every Sunday, then we come here.”

Said Mendez, “Sometimes we come together, sometimes we come by ourselves. But I come here often. I feel at ease here, at peace.”

EXPLAINING TRAGEDY TO CHILDREN

Maggie Duplace Schmieder, a Highland Park resident, is a special education teacher at New Trier High School. She was at the parade with her two children and husband, sitting just east of the reviewing stand on Central. She was at the Monday event.

Schmieder wrote and illustrated a book for children, telling about what happened at the parade. It is titled “Hopeful Hearts in Highland Park,” and explains that horrific July 4 in a gentle way.

“There was danger,” Schmieder wrote for the very young reader.

“Someone hurting others.”

Her book ends with these words: “For Highland Park, the 4th will never be the same. But through healing and kindness, our freedom will be reclaimed.”