Chicago Sun-Times: All posts by Thomas Frisbie2024-03-03T09:04:35.379-06:00https://chicago.suntimes.com/authors/thomas-frisbie/rss2024-03-03T09:04:35.379-06:002024-03-03T09:04:44.727-06:00Dennis Downes, artist, author and expert on trail marker trees, dies at 72
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<img class="Image" alt="Dennis M. Downes with a replica of his bronze trailmarker tree sculpture at his studio in Antioch." srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/5e0cdf0/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1452x815+0+97/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F1e%2F85%2Fd603c36d4fb0b14f22c85491d456%2Fxdownes-sub.jpeg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/4c795cc/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1452x815+0+97/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F1e%2F85%2Fd603c36d4fb0b14f22c85491d456%2Fxdownes-sub.jpeg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>Dennis Downes of Antioch talks about his bronze sculpture called “Trail Marker Tree” in his home in 2014.</p></figcaption><span class="line"></span><div class="Figure-credit"><p>Sun-Times file</p></div></div>
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<p></p><p>When Dennis Downes was 12, he was inspired by the sight of a “trail marker tree,” which Native Americans are believed to have used to designate trails and other points of interest.</p><p>That led to his lifelong pastimes as a national expert on trail marker trees, as an author and as an artist whose work included the George Wellington “Cap’n” Streeter sculpture in Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood.</p><p>“He dedicated his life to researching Native American history and Native American trail marker trees,” said Liz Fox, who worked for Mr. Downes for many years and edited his 2011 book, “Native American Trail Marker Trees: Marking Paths Through the Wilderness.”</p><p>Mr. Downes died Sunday at his home in Antioch after an eight-year battle with colon cancer and a stroke in January. He was 72.</p><p>Trail marker trees were created by bending the tip of a sapling. As the tree continued to grow, the trunk would resume growing upright, creating a distinctive zigzag shape. Downes pored over historical accounts, old photos and other data to separate true trail marker trees from those misshapen by natural forces.</p><p>“His research and artwork became intertwined,” Fox said. “He had so much passion, and he was really one of a kind.”</p><p>Much of Mr. Downes’ art, often completed at his studio in Antioch, was inspired by numerous trips to ancient and natural sites in the United States and Canada, Fox said. He used natural items, such as walnuts he collected, to create his own paint and made his own frames, which themselves were works of art, she said.</p><p>In 2018, Antioch installed in the village’s downtown a 6-foot-tall bronze sculpture of a trail marker tree created by Mr. Downes.</p><p>For 20 years, interrupted only by the pandemic, Mr. Downes presented a solo art show in Glenview at the nature preserve called The Grove, for which he did research that helped the site qualify as a National Historic Landmark in 1976, Fox said. Part of the proceeds were given to The Grove to help continue its preservation. A 16-foot-tall steel-and-resin sculpture of a trail maker tree created by Mr. Downes is on permanent display at The Grove.</p><p>“As the story goes, many decades earlier in Dennis’ life, he actually resided in the area that became The Grove before it was turned into a landmark,” said his sister Maryann Downes-Coste.</p><p>Because of his research on trail marker trees and other historical information he brought to light about Native Americans, the Ojibwe gave him the name Mayaagaabaw, which translates to “he stands foremost among others,” Downes-Coste said.</p><p>Mr. Downes also was the founder of and served as president of the <a class="Link" href="https://www.greatlakestrailtreesociety.org/" target="_blank" >Great Lakes Trail Marker Tree Society</a>.</p><p>“People would contact him and tell him when they thought they had spotted a trail marker tree, and he would go and check it out,” said Hilda Williams, who worked with Mr. Downes.</p><p>A favorite saying of Mr. Downes was, “Don’t be afraid of doing something, be afraid of never doing anything,” Downes-Coste said.</p><p>“He always did everything with dignity and purpose,” she added.</p><p>Mr. Downes grew up in Northbrook in a home that backed up to a forest preserve, and he attended Glenbrook North High School. He also took classes at Southern Illinois University.</p><p>In his later years, he and his wife, Gail Spreen, built a cabin on a 157-acre island they bought in Canada. Sometimes, Mr. Downes straddled atop logs and paddled them across the lake to use for his cabin, Fox said.</p><p>He is also survived by three brothers, Patrick, Harold and Lou; nine nephews and nieces; and 14 great nieces and nephews.</p><p>Services were held Saturday (March 2) in Highland Park.<br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/obituaries/2024/02/27/dennis-downes-artist-author-expert-trail-marker-trees-died-72Thomas Frisbie2023-08-04T05:30:00-05:002023-08-06T10:08:54-05:00Randy Garrett, who helped overturn wrongful convictions in Jeanine Nicarico killing, dead at 64
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<img class="Image" alt="Randy Garrett in Florida after his work on helping to overturn wrongful conviction cases in Illinois." srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/12e5cce/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1600x898+0+0/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FlDldEM4iozA03kMY4fQ9_CdyU7I%3D%2F0x0%3A1600x900%2F1600x900%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28989x448%3A990x449%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F24823435%2FRandy_Garrett.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/0de51d8/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1600x898+0+0/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FlDldEM4iozA03kMY4fQ9_CdyU7I%3D%2F0x0%3A1600x900%2F1600x900%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28989x448%3A990x449%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F24823435%2FRandy_Garrett.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>Randy Garrett in Florida after his work on helping to overturn wrongful conviction cases in Illinois.</p></figcaption><span class="line"></span><div class="Figure-credit"><p>Provided</p></div></div>
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<p></p><p>As someone who became a knowledgeable legal investigator after witnessing a miscarriage of justice, Randy Garrett unearthed information that helped overturn the death row convictions of two men in the 1983 killing of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville and led to charges being dropped against a third man.</p><p>Several defense lawyers credited the encyclopedic knowledge Mr. Garrett acquired about the case with helping ultimately to bring the truth to light. Three Aurora men had been charged: Stephen Buckley, Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez.</p><p>“Randy’s dedication to justice for Cruz, Hernandez and Buckley was something to behold,” said Rob Warden, former executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at the Northwestern University School of Law. “Once he saw what was happening, he couldn’t let go. It was inspirational.” </p><p>Mr. Garrett died Monday in Florida of congestive heart failure. He was 64. </p><p>In 1985, he was a member of a Villa Park group called Stop Child Abduction Now when he attended the first of five trials in the girl’s killing. </p><p>The prosecutor’s “opening statement caught my attention,” Mr. Garrett told the Chicago Sun-Times in 1995. “It seemed like they didn’t know what actually happened. They had no idea how many people were involved. They didn’t know the motive. They didn’t know where the car went or where the murder weapon went. They didn’t know why witnesses saw only one person. … And they didn’t know who actually murdered her.”</p><p>Information he unearthed from interviewing a large number of witnesses helped lead to charges being dropped against Buckley and to Cruz and Hernandez being freed from death row. </p><p>Another man, Brian Dugan, eventually confessed to committing the crime and is serving a life sentence.</p><p>“Randy’s picture belongs in the dictionary next to the term ‘dogged journalist,’ ” said author and lawyer Scott Turow, who handled Hernandez’s second appeal and got him a new trial. “He was tireless and inexorable in his commitment to unearth the truth. And he led the brigade of determined journalists who played an essential role in freeing Alex Hernandez and Rolando Cruz.”</p><p>Before the third trial for Cruz — whose first two trials ended in conviction — Mr. Garrett noticed that prosecutors had switched the day of a critical phone call prosecutors said was by a sheriff’s officer. That led to testimony by another sheriff’s officer, who supposedly had received the call, that he actually was out of town and that the call could not have been made. </p><p>On hearing that, the judge cut the trial short and acquitted Cruz on the spot. </p><p>Subsequently, charges against Hernandez, who had two convictions overturned and was facing a third trial, were dropped. </p><p>Buckley’s case was dropped earlier, before what would have been his second trial, after a hung jury in his first.</p><p>“He did all that work out of the goodness of his heart, without ever expecting a dime for it,” John Hanlon, then an assistant defender in the Illinois appellate defender’s office, said of Mr. Garrett in a Sun-Times interview in 1995. Hanlon helped win new trials for Cruz and Hernandez in 1988.</p><p>Mr. Garrett continued to research the case and later co-authored a 1998 book about it, “Victims of Justice” (Avon), with Sun-Times reporter Thomas Frisbie. An expanded 2005 edition, ‘’Victims of Justice Revisited,” was published by Northwestern University Press. </p><p>He also wrote about legal matters for the Chicago Lawyer and Naperville Sun and did legal research on other cases. </p><p>“Randy was an author, investigator and a wonderful soul who devoted many hours seeking justice for the sake of justice itself,” said Gary Johnson, who was a defense lawyer for Buckley and later Kane County state’s attorney. “I know there are at least three innocent men who owe their freedom and reputations to Randy.”</p><p>As a child, Mr. Garrett had a quick mind for mathematics and sports statistics and played in junior chess competitions. At about 10, he played against a grandmaster, who, as a test, intentionally started replaying a historical chess match, according to Mark Garrett, Mr. Garrett’s brother. He said Mr. Garrett recognized the game and won by following the original victor’s moves. </p><p>Mr. Garrett also was an ardent reader.</p><p>”Books were his life,” Mark Garrett said. “He had a collection of thousands of books.”</p><p>Mr. Garrett grew up in Villa Park, where he attended Willowbrook High School. He later attended classes at the former George Williams College in Downers Grove, now a campus of Aurora University. After college, he worked nights as a mental health counselor at Good Samaritan and then Elmhurst hospitals. </p><p>In 1995, he moved to Florida, where he worked for the hospital Broward Health North until retiring.</p><p>Mr. Garrett is also survived by his sister Cindy Panfil, four nieces and two nephews.</p><p>A celebration of life service is being planned. <br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/obituaries/2023/8/4/23815748/randy-garrett-jeanine-nicarico-rolando-cruz-alejandro-hernandez-stephen-buckley-naperville-obituaryThomas Frisbie2022-11-02T12:36:01.35-05:002022-11-02T19:48:46-05:00Susan Kelly Power, icon of Chicago’s Native American community, dies at 97
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<img class="Image" alt="Susan Kelly Power" srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/a8ef720/2147483647/strip/true/crop/604x339+0+152/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FCUKABQd6wUBrRB5HpSeAbe3bocY%3D%2F0x0%3A604x910%2F604x910%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28311x321%3A312x322%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F24156122%2F313417624_10162253145292222_5162400770678748773_n.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/8dc4708/2147483647/strip/true/crop/604x339+0+152/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FCUKABQd6wUBrRB5HpSeAbe3bocY%3D%2F0x0%3A604x910%2F604x910%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28311x321%3A312x322%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F24156122%2F313417624_10162253145292222_5162400770678748773_n.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>Susan Kelly Power helped found what is now the American Indian Center of Chicago in 1953. The organization helped newcomers to the city find jobs and housing.</p></figcaption><span class="line"></span><div class="Figure-credit"><p>Warren Perlstein</p></div></div>
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<p></p><p>When Native American families came to Chicago in the 1950s and in subsequent decades, Susan Kelly Power, a Yanktonai Dakota, was there to help them.</p><p>Ms. Power helped found what is now the American Indian Center of Chicago in a basement in 1953, where she and others helped link up newcomers to homes and jobs. The center continued to grow and is now at 3401 W. Ainslie St. It was the first Indian center in the United States.</p><p>“She made sure any Native American who needed help would be able to make it on their own,” said Sharon Skolnick, who met Ms. Power while working as a volunteer at the center. “Susan knew how to be very persuasive and was able to give Native Americans opportunities.”</p><div class="RelatedList Enhancement" data-module data-align-center>
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<p>Hilda Williams, whose father, Scott T. Williams, also known as Chief Thundercloud, helped found the center with Ms. Power, said Ms. Power remained an icon in Chicago’s Native American community for decades. </p><p>“Everyone who came to the Indian center knew her very well,” Williams said.</p><p>Ms. Power died of complications of Alzheimer’s disease Saturday at Symphony of South Shore, a senior facility. She was 97.</p><p>Ms. Power was born in 1925 in Fort Yates, North Dakota, on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.</p><p>“She was proud of her Yanktonai Dakota heritage and of being descended from a line of hereditary chiefs, including her great-grandfather, Chief Mahto Nunpa,” her daughter, Mona Susan Power, wrote in an email. </p><p>“Her mother, Josephine Gates Kelly, was a revered leader who ultimately became chairperson of the tribe in 1946. [Ms. Power] greatly admired her mother, and sought to follow in her footsteps, eventually becoming an activist leader herself.”</p><p>Ms. Power held a variety of jobs during her lifetime, doing factory work when she was young, and in later years proofreading law journals for the University of Chicago Law School, working at the Museum of Science & Industry, the Salvation Army, and the Census Bureau. Her favorite job was at A.C. McClurg’s Book Distributing Co., her daughter said. </p><p>“Susan was a voracious reader who loved nothing better than being in the heart of the book world, meeting authors, enjoying advance access to forthcoming titles. She regularly visited libraries and used bookstores throughout the city, gradually putting together her own impressive collection of books on Native American history,” Mona Susan Power said. </p><p>Ms. Power also was involved in the activities of other Native organizations, including the Indian Council Fire and the National Congress of American Indians, where she was the youngest member upon their founding in 1944, Mona Susan Power said. </p><p>In the early 1970s Ms. Power became a pivotal activist in the Chicago Indian Village movement, which protested poor living conditions and inadequate job opportunities available to Native people lured into cities, her daughter said. </p><p>“She had a strong voice, and when something wasn’t right, she did not hesitate to speak up about it,” said Cyndee Fox-Starr, whose parents were friends of Ms. Power. </p><p>That was important at a time when families moving to Chicago hesitated to speak up on their own because they feared consequences, Fox-Starr said.</p><p>“She continued to have that voice within the community right until three or four years ago, when her health declined,” Fox-Starr said.</p><p>As a result of disappointment in the outcome of some of her activist endeavors, [Ms. Power] “became interested in learning about the law and earned a paralegal certificate at age 70,” Mona Susan Power said. “She often supported and represented community members needing legal advice, always without payment.” </p><p>Ms. Power won a leadership award from the American Indian Center and the 2012 Unsung Heroines Award from Cook County, presented to her by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, among other awards. </p><p>On a visit to her daughter, who attended Harvard in the 1980s, Ms. Power noted that there wasn’t any plaque or monument in Harvard Yard indicating where Harvard’s Indian College once stood. After she made phone calls and wrote letters, she was invited to join a committee organized by the Harvard University Native American Program, and a plaque was put in place in 1997, Mona Susan Power said. </p><p>Ms. Power was one of the speakers at the plaque’s unveiling.</p><p>Ms. Power was preceded in death by her husband, Carleton G. Power, who died in 1973. In addition to her daughter, she is survived by a stepson, Douglas Power; his wife, Jeanann Glassford Power; stepdaughter Marjorie Mbilinyi; and five grandchildren. </p><p>A “Celebration of Life” will be held on Jan. 22 on what would have been Ms. Power’s 98th birthday at the St. Kateri Center of Chicago, 3938 N. Leavitt St.</p><p></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/obituaries/2022/10/31/23433052/susan-kelly-power-american-indian-center-obituaryThomas Frisbie2022-10-24T12:00:43.594-05:002022-10-24T12:00:45-05:00Winfield author imagined ‘storytelling through a child’s eyes’
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<img class="Image" alt="Jennifer Bartoli-Kalina" srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/190493e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/810x455+0+63/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FtKxa0RtasXM_xSb9cmkUOvKu2No%3D%2F0x0%3A810x1080%2F810x1080%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28332x290%3A333x291%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F24134657%2FJennifer_Bartoli_Kalina.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/7925d63/2147483647/strip/true/crop/810x455+0+63/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FtKxa0RtasXM_xSb9cmkUOvKu2No%3D%2F0x0%3A810x1080%2F810x1080%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28332x290%3A333x291%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F24134657%2FJennifer_Bartoli_Kalina.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>Jennifer Bartoli-Kalina</p></figcaption><span class="line"></span><div class="Figure-credit"><p>Provided</p></div></div>
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<p></p><p>In 2013, children’s book author Jennifer Bartoli-Kalina recalled how, at an authors’ meeting, “I sat next to Alzina Stone Dale, who was rocking in an antique chair before a blazing fire and telling us of a biography she had written about a so-called obscure English author. Ignorant, I kept quiet and went home to meet G.K. Chesterton in an old poetry collection.”</p><p>Ms. Bartoli-Kalina went on to become the local group leader of the Midwest Chesterton Society, whose members discuss and read books, mostly those by Chesterton, who also was a writer, philosopher and literary and art critic. The local group meets at Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore in Forest Park. </p><p>Ms. Bartoli-Kalina, also a former board member of the Society of Midland Authors, died of cancer on Oct. 18 at Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield. She was 77.</p><p>She had started feeling ill about five weeks before she died, her husband, Daniel Kalina, said. </p><p>Ms. Bartoli-Kalina, a longtime resident of west suburban Winfield, was the author of “Snow on Bear’s Nose: A Story of a Japanese Moon Bear Cub” (Albert Whitman & Co., Jan. 1, 1977); “The Story of the Grateful Crane” (Albert Whitman & Co., Jan 1, 1977); “Nonna” (Harvey House, Jan. 1, 1975), and “In a Meadow, Two Hares Hide” (Gakken Co Ltd., 1978).</p><p>Her family recalled she was a passionate reader and enjoyed travel, theater, music, cooking and gardening. </p><p>Ms. Bartoli-Kalina was born on May 13, 1945, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She grew up on Chicago’s North Shore, in Michigan and in Australia. She graduated from the University of Michigan and was an active member of the former Children’s Reading Round Table. She also was a Benedictine Oblate of St. Procopius in Lisle.</p><p>She got her love of writing and literature from her father, who was an English professor at the University of Michigan, her daughter, Amelia Hanrahan, said. </p><p>Hanrahan also recalled when she was taking a reading comprehension test in grade school, one of the selections she unexpectedly had to read and answer questions about was from her mother’s book “Nonna.” Hanrahan said she aced that part of the test, partly because her mother often read to her and her brother, Pietro, from her books.</p><p>Ms. Bartoli-Kalina was a successful children’s writer because she “embraced imagination and frivolity, and it was easy for her to imagine storytelling through a child’s eyes,” Hanrahan said. “Much of her writing could be characterized as very precise and pastoral and maternal — not quite feminist but a persistent theme nonetheless.” </p><p>Children’s book author Charlotte Herman of Lincolnwood said, “I met Jennifer at a Children’s Reading Round Table dinner in the early 1970s. She was super friendly, warm, and soft-spoken. We became instant friends. After that first dinner, we attended most of the CRRT and Society of Midland Authors events together. </p><p>“We celebrated Jennifer’s two books that came out around that time: ‘Snow on Bear’s Nose,’ and ‘Nonna,’ a tender story about the death of a grandmother. Jennifer also wrote poetry. She had the heart of a poet, the soul of a poet.</p><p>“One day Jennifer decided that we should write a book together. So we came up with ‘The Beginner’s Guide to Social Climbing.’ We actually wrote a few chapters and received positive feedback from a publisher. But we never got to finish the book, because whenever we got together, we had tea and cookies and laughed ourselves silly over what we were writing.” </p><p>Ms. Bartoli-Kalina was preceded in death by her first husband, Peter Bartoli. She is also survived by a sister, Alison Mutter, and six grandchildren.</p><p>Services have been held. <br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/obituaries/2022/10/24/23419699/jennifer-bartoli-kalina-childrens-book-author-winfield-amelia-hjanrahanThomas Frisbie2022-06-12T22:15:45.215-05:002022-06-13T07:12:03-05:00Jim Ryan, two-term Illinois attorney general, former GOP governor nominee, dead at 76
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<img class="Image" alt="Republican gubernatorial candidate for Illinois attorney general Jim Ryan waves to the crowd while walking through the 2001 Illinois State Fair." srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/1f4532b/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1992x1118+0+0/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2Feku8I3PHQa1AkOG9Hu-T-7fzRzI%3D%2F0x0%3A1992x1504%2F1992x1504%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28816x471%3A817x472%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F23622483%2FSTATE_FAIR_POLITICS.JPG 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/c155a11/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1992x1118+0+0/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2Feku8I3PHQa1AkOG9Hu-T-7fzRzI%3D%2F0x0%3A1992x1504%2F1992x1504%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28816x471%3A817x472%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F23622483%2FSTATE_FAIR_POLITICS.JPG 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>Republican gubernatorial candidate for Illinois attorney general Jim Ryan waves to the crowd while walking through the 2001 Illinois State Fair.</p></figcaption><span class="line"></span><div class="Figure-credit"><p>Seth Perlman/AP</p></div></div>
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<p></p><p>When then-Gov. Jim Thompson tried to recruit Jim Ryan to run for Illinois attorney general in 1985 just a year after Mr. Ryan had been elected DuPage County state’s attorney, Mr. Ryan said no, feeling he wasn’t ready yet. The cautious decision set Mr. Ryan apart in a political landscape of often brash and ambitious personalities.</p><p>James E. Ryan, a two-term Illinois attorney general from 1995-2003 who twice ran unsuccessfully for governor, died Sunday “after several lengthy illnesses,” according to a family statement published in the <a class="Link" href="https://dupagepolicyjournal.com/stories/627396987-jim-ryan-1946-2022" target="_blank" >DuPage Policy Journal</a>. He was 76. </p><p>“Former Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan passed away peacefully at home on June 12, 2022, at the age of 76 after several lengthy illnesses,” according to the published statement. </p><p>“Ryan’s considerable accomplishments as a public official and earlier as a Golden Gloves boxing champion were dwarfed by the inspirational power of his perseverance and strength through faith in the midst of a string of devastating personal tragedies and challenges,” according to the statement. </p><p>Current Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul paid tribute to Mr. Ryan on Sunday evening.</p><p>“Jim Ryan dedicated much of his career to public safety, first as DuPage County state’s attorney and then as Illinois Attorney General, and I strive to follow his example,” Raoul said in a statement. “Jim’s leadership as Attorney General and commitment to protecting all residents of Illinois is something that I have done my best to mirror since taking office.”</p><p>Mr. Ryan was a popular fresh face in Republican politics when he was encouraged to leave his law firm, Ryan & Darrah, and run for DuPage County state’s attorney in 1984. He beat incumbent Republican Michael Fitzsimmons by 13,000 votes in the Republican primary election and coasted to victory in the November general election. </p><p>Mr. Ryan, an Elmhurst resident, remained DuPage County state’s attorney from 1984 to 1994, when he successfully ran for attorney general. </p><p>In 2002, Mr. Ryan passed up a possible third term as attorney general and ran for governor, losing to Democrat Rod Blagojevich. </p><p>Mr. Ryan ran for governor again in 2010, but lost in a six-way Republican primary to state Sen. Bill Brady. His later political career was encumbered by other prominent Illinois politicians with the last name of Ryan who weighed down the name with negative political baggage. </p><p>A candidate named Jack Ryan had quit the 2004 Senate race after revelations that he had visited sex clubs with his then-wife. Former Gov. George Ryan was convicted on federal charges in 2006, and a 2009 poll showed 19% of the respondents thought Jim Ryan was the former governor. Another candidate, former Arlington Heights mayor James T. Ryan, had dropped out of the 1986 Illinois attorney general race over allegations he had violent outbursts.</p><p>Mr. Ryan also battled health issues. He was diagnosed in 1996 with Stage 2 non-Hodgkin lymphoma and began chemotherapy. The disease returned in 2002 when he was the Republican nominee for governor.</p><p>Throughout his career, Mr. Ryan was respected as a consensus builder who brought stakeholders to the table. Though some complained he ruled by committee and acted slowly — Illinois under Ryan was just the 17th state to join a 1990s lawsuit to recover damages from the tobacco industry — his supporters called him deliberative and thoughtful.</p><p>In 1997, then-Chicago Sun-Times political columnist Steve Neal wrote Mr. Ryan had raised the profile of the attorney general’s office, in part by going after toxic dumpers, polluters, online fraud and gangs. As attorney general, Mr. Ryan also helped create the Illinois Violence Prevention Initiative.</p><p>But Mr. Ryan was criticized for his handling as state’s attorney of the 1983 murder case of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville, which he had inherited from Fitzsimmons. In that case, three men were wrongfully charged and, on Mr. Ryan’s watch, two — Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez — were sentenced to death. After the Cruz’s and Hernandez’s convictions were overturned, Mr. Ryan’s office retried them. All three men ultimately were freed, but Cruz and Hernandez did not leave prison until after Mr. Ryan had left the office.</p><p>Critics argued Mr. Ryan should have dropped the charges as it became increasingly clear that another man, Brian Dugan, had committed the crime while acting alone. Dugan eventually pleaded guilty to the murder and is serving a life term. In 2009, Mr. Ryan apologized for “failing to achieve a just outcome” in the case.</p><p>Mr. Ryan was born in Chicago. Later, his father Edward Ryan, a builder of modest homes, moved the family to DuPage County. As a teenager, Mr. Ryan was a Golden Gloves boxer in West Side gyms.</p><p>He attended St. Procopius Academy, now named Benet Academy, and then St. Procopius College, now named Benedictine University, where he received a bachelor of arts degree in political science in 1968. He obtained his law degree in 1971 from Chicago-Kent College of Law.</p><p>Starting in 1976, Mr. Ryan was an assistant DuPage County state’s attorney, and later moved up to the job as first assistant state’s attorney. He then went into private practice with John Darrah, later a federal judge, for eight years before leaving to run for state’s attorney.</p><p>After losing the 2002 gubernatorial race, Mr. Ryan returned to Benedictine University in west suburban Lisle, where he taught political science and criminal justice courses. He joined the Chicago office of Gardner, Carton & Douglas in 2003 and later was of counsel at the Naperville law firm, Jim Ryan & Associates. </p><p>In 2005, Mr. Ryan established the Center for Civic Leadership at Benedictine University in partnership with the university’s board of trustees and the political science faculty.</p><p>“From the time I met him until his death, Jimmy always was striving to do the right thing and to help people,” said his wife, Marie, in the family statement. “That was who he was, and he was very successful at it.”</p><p>In addition to his wife, Mr. Ryan is survived by four of his six children, John (Stacie) Ryan, Jim (Heather) Ryan, Matthew (Melissa) Ryan and Amy Ryan. “His youngest daughter, Anne Marie, died at age 12 in 1997 of an undiagnosed brain tumor, and Patrick, 24, died in 2007,” according to the family statement.<br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/obituaries/2022/6/12/23164155/jim-ryan-illinois-attorney-general-dupage-states-attorney-obituaryThomas Frisbie2022-05-30T17:05:57.377-05:002022-05-31T16:32:01-05:00Longtime Sun-Times library assistant Zigis ‘Ziggy’ Ulmanis dies at 83
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>Zigis “Ziggy” Ulmanis searches through the Sun-Times library in the pre-internet days.</p></figcaption><span class="line"></span><div class="Figure-credit"><p>Sun-Times Library</p></div></div>
</figure>
<p>When Zigis “Ziggy” Ulmanis worked in the Sun-Times Library in the days before the internet, he never liked to mark “NG” on a slip of paper requesting information, which meant “no good,” or that he couldn’t find a newspaper clipping or photo a reporter or editor had requested.</p><p>Mr. Ulmanis also was known in the newspaper’s newsroom for bringing whatever research results he found right to reporters’ desks instead of expecting them to return to the library to pick them up.</p><p>“He had a respect for reporters,” said his wife of 60 years, Charlotte Ulmanis. “He knew they were trying to do their stories, and he didn’t want them to have to stop.”</p><p>Mr. Ulmanis died May 21 at age 83 at Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove of metastasized cancer. He had been battling bladder cancer since 1984.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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<div class="CarouselSlide-infoTitle"><span class="CarouselSlide-infoDescription">Zigis “Ziggy” Ulmanis as a boy (in white shirt at left) in a displaced persons camp in Germany after the Soviet Union invaded Latvia in 1940.</span>
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<div class="CarouselSlide-infoTitle"><span class="CarouselSlide-infoDescription">Zigis “Ziggy” Ulmanis</span>
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<img class="Image" alt="Charlotte and Zigis “Ziggy” Ulmanis were married in 1961." srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/15f92f1/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2093x1383+0+31/resize/840x555!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FG3PZb4bp-q99uTpY2O2KZ_50aLQ%3D%2F0x0%3A2093x1444%2F2093x1444%2Ffilters%3Afocal%281047x722%3A1048x723%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F23599635%2Fchar_and_ziggy_wedding.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/978a086/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2093x1383+0+31/resize/1680x1110!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FG3PZb4bp-q99uTpY2O2KZ_50aLQ%3D%2F0x0%3A2093x1444%2F2093x1444%2Ffilters%3Afocal%281047x722%3A1048x723%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F23599635%2Fchar_and_ziggy_wedding.jpg 2x" width="840" height="555"
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<img class="Image" alt="Charlotte and Zigis “Ziggy” Ulmanis were married in 1961." srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/c34cb5e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1444x1444+325+0/resize/300x300!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FG3PZb4bp-q99uTpY2O2KZ_50aLQ%3D%2F0x0%3A2093x1444%2F2093x1444%2Ffilters%3Afocal%281047x722%3A1048x723%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F23599635%2Fchar_and_ziggy_wedding.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/f764cc7/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1444x1444+325+0/resize/600x600!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FG3PZb4bp-q99uTpY2O2KZ_50aLQ%3D%2F0x0%3A2093x1444%2F2093x1444%2Ffilters%3Afocal%281047x722%3A1048x723%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F23599635%2Fchar_and_ziggy_wedding.jpg 2x" width="300" height="300"
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</div><p>Mr. Ulmanis, christened Zigismunts, a name he changed to Zigis after he came to the United States, was born in 1938 in Riga, Latvia. After the Soviet Union invaded Latvia in 1940, Mr. Ulmanis, his mother, his older brother and younger sister fled to Germany, separated from his father, who remained in Latvia.</p><p>First they sailed on a ship across the Baltic Sea as bombs landed around them, and then they rode in a wagon, under which they slept at night. They eventually wound up in a displaced persons camp near Nuremberg, Germany, where they stayed until after World War II.</p><p>Sponsored by an American family, Mr. Ulmanis’ family came to the United States when Mr. Ulmanis was 11 or 12 and moved to Fennville, Michigan, where they lived in a garage and picked produce, including cauliflower, which gave Mr. Ulmanis a lifelong distaste for the vegetable. When he was in his teens, they moved to several locations in Chicago before moving to the Lincoln Park neighborhood. In Chicago, Mr. Ulmanis got a job cleaning floors for 25 cents an hour.</p><p>As a hobby, he took up weightlifting, starting out by lifting pipes in his basement, and he placed third in a 1958-59 statewide junior weightlifting competition. Charlotte Ulmanis recalled he made $25 an hour posing for magazines while she was making $1 working at the soda fountain in a Walgreens.</p><p>“He was a quiet person, and he had a lot of friends,” recalled Mr. Ulmanis’ sister, Sarmite Patterson. “He was a very nice and very warm person.”</p><p>Mr. Ulmanis attended Lincoln Park High School, then known as Waller High School, where a friend introduced the couple to each other. He later attended Wright Junior College, now known as Wilbur Wright College.</p><p>In 1959, the Sun-Times hired him as a copy boy, and a year later the newspaper hired Charlotte Ulmanis as a “copy boy” as well. The couple were married in 1961. Mr. Ulmanis was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1961, but his hitch ended one month before his unit was sent to Vietnam. He returned to the Sun-Times and subsequently went to work in the newspaper’s library. Charlotte Ulmanis went on to become a longtime editorial assistant in the Editorial Page department.</p><p>At times, Mr. Ulmanis and others who fled Latvia would gather to talk about the experiences they’d had decades ago in Europe, which often led to crying by some of those present, Charlotte Ulmanis said. Mr. Ulmanis could never abide waiting in restaurants because of his memories of waiting in line for a soup bowl in a DP camp, she said. He also remained uncomfortable during thunderstorms because of the sounds of artillery fire he heard while in the camp, she said.</p><p>During his career in the library, Mr. Ulmanis witnessed the transformation of information retrieval from packets of yellowing newspaper clips and manila folders stuffed with photographs to online data sources. The couple volunteered to retire in 2002 at a time when the newspaper announced it would make layoffs.</p><p>Mr. Ulmanis had a lifelong interest in history. He read history magazines and followed the events in Ukraine in the last weeks of his life.</p><p>Burial will be private.<br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/obituaries/2022/5/30/23137263/zelis-ziggy-ulmanis-sun-times-library-assistant-dies-83-latvia-lincoln-park-obituaryThomas Frisbie2022-02-03T10:45:00-06:002022-02-04T07:10:25-06:00Shirley Haas, Chicago Tribune, Daily News writer, reporter, Fiery Clock Face bookstore owner in Andersonville, dead at 97
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<img class="Image" alt="Shirley Haas in 2012." srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/462dd55/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4256x2389+0+222/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FyM6_j-9NoXL4tu775tKD7fIE7WM%3D%2F0x0%3A4256x2832%2F4256x2832%2Ffilters%3Afocal%282128x1416%3A2129x1417%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F23213375%2Fsuper_CST_020512_1.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/02d21f7/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4256x2389+0+222/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FyM6_j-9NoXL4tu775tKD7fIE7WM%3D%2F0x0%3A4256x2832%2F4256x2832%2Ffilters%3Afocal%282128x1416%3A2129x1417%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F23213375%2Fsuper_CST_020512_1.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>Shirley Haas in 2012.</p></figcaption><span class="line"></span><div class="Figure-credit"><p>Sun-Times file</p></div></div>
</figure>
<p>Whenever Shirley Haas walked into a room, even long after she retired, people gathered around to be regaled with colorful stories of Chicago’s political, literary and journalistic past.</p><p>“Shirley was a vibrant and colorful personality and a gifted Chicago reporter from the heyday of Chicago journalism with great stories to tell,” said author Richard Lindberg. “She never slowed down, she loved books and the company of authors, and her Fiery Clock Face bookstore in Andersonville was a gathering spot for bibliophiles. Shirley’s annual New Year’s Eve party was an ‘A-list’ event and a rollicking good time for all of us who valued her friendship and her tremendous <i>esprit de corps.”</i></p><p>Ms. Haas died peacefully on Jan. 19 at her Lincoln Park home after complications from a stroke in October. She was 97.</p><p>Ms. Haas grew up on the South Side. Her father Loftus P. Lowry was an Irish immigrant and Chicago police lieutenant. Her mother Catherine was the daughter of Armand Lilien, an early Chicago labor organizer. She attended Calumet Park High School and got a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and the humanities from the University of Chicago.</p><p>After graduation, she covered crime, police and the courts for the City News Bureau of Chicago before moving to the Chicago Tribune, where she covered crime, courts and community and women-related stories. She covered the 1956 Republican National Convention in San Francisco for the Tribune.</p><p>“I remember Shirley as very feisty, a woman who would not put up with any nonsense,” said Beverly Friend, a professor at Oakton Community College. “In her early journalistic career, she and my late sister-in-law Selma Hayman were ambulance-chasers who ‘always got their story.’ Many years later, she became an officer of the Friends of Literature, noted for its monthly literary lectures in the Walnut Room of Marshall Field’s and their very elaborate annual Shakespeare’s birthday banquets at the Bismark Hotel bestowing awards.”</p><p>In the late 1950s, Shirley married Joseph Haas, a reporter and book editor for the Chicago Daily News. The couple had two children.</p><p>In the 1960s, Ms. Haas wrote a weekly children’s book column that ran in the Daily News’ Panorama section under her maiden name Shirley Lowry.</p><p>After her husband died from a heart attack at a downtown swimming pool, Ms. Haas worked in former Mayor Richard J. Daley’s press office, for the City Office for Senior Citizens as director of community education, as the Chicago Public Library’s chief of public information and as a public relations staffer for the Chicago Health Department.</p><p>She also was an editor for Rand McNally when the company had a textbook division and published books for children, said Joanne Koch, an author, playwright and screenwriter who is the director of the graduate writing program at National Louis University. </p><p>In 1987, Ms. Haas co-founded the Fiery Clock Face at 5311 N. Clark St., which was open until 1995. The shop got its name from a traditional Celtic fiddle tune that was a family favorite.</p><p>“I fondly remember the bookstore she owned with her sister,” said Robert Remer, publisher and editor-in-chief of the former Chicago Books in Review and a former Chicago Public Library deputy commissioner. “I was a Saturday morning regular. She and her sister collected a lot of books on Chicago history, and they always had unique bookends and book-themed knickknacks for sale. They helped boost my interest in Chicago literature, which eventually led to Chicago Books in Review<i>.”</i></p><p>Ms. Haas was a longtime member of the Society of Midland Authors, and in 1995 the organization awarded her its “Lifetime Achievement Award.” </p><p>“Shirley brought not only her experience as a great children’s writer to the Midland Authors but her years as a book editor as well,” said author Jim Schwab, a former Midland Authors president. “This combination provided her with both interesting insights into the authors’ world and a wealth of anecdotes and inside wisdom.”</p><p>In 2012, Ms. Haas was featured in a Chicago Sun-Times story headlined “Why are some 80-plus-year-old seniors as sharp as people 30 years younger?”</p><p>Ms. Haas, who at 87 participated in exercise and memoir-writing classes and weekly conversations led by a University of Chicago professor about such topics as Hemingway and French New Wave cinema, told the Sun-Times then: “I like martinis. But I only have one before dinner if I go out to dinner.”</p><p>Even at that age, Ms. Haas vacationed every summer at her Canadian summer home, which lacked running water and electricity. She had to take a boat to get there.</p><p>“My motto is keep moving,” she said.</p><p>She is survived by her son Jaime, her daughter Wendy Jocelyn, two grandsons and three step-granddaughters. A celebration of life will be held at 10 a.m. April 23 at Fourth Presbyterian Church, 126 E. Chestnut St., Chicago.<br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/obituaries/2022/2/3/22914692/shirley-haas-fiery-clock-face-bookstore-writer-reporter-chicago-daily-news-tribuneThomas Frisbie2021-02-03T21:37:34.002-06:002021-02-25T09:37:57-06:00Author Harry Mark Petrakis, ‘one of the greatest,’ dies at 97
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>Harry Mark Petrakis at the former Parthenon restaurant in Chicago’s Greektown in 2009.</p></figcaption><span class="line"></span><div class="Figure-credit"><p>Sun-Times Library</p></div></div>
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<p>When Harry Mark Petrakis began his writing career imagining characters he later admitted knowing little about, he earned nothing for 10 years but rejection notes. But when he turned his eye to his community of immigrants in Chicago’s Greektown and wrote a short story about an old Greek hot dog vendor, he finally sold a story in 1956 to the Atlantic magazine.</p><p>The story, “Pericles on 31<sup>st</sup> Street,” launched a long career that made him one of Chicago’s best-known authors.</p><p>Mr. Petrakis, author of 24 books, most of them fiction, and numerous short stories, died Tuesday at his longtime home near Chesterton, Indiana, of what relatives said was old age. He was 97.</p><p>“He passed away imperceptibly, like the flutter of a sparrow’s wing, seemingly without struggle, with my brother and his wife by his bedside,” his son Mark Petrakis said.</p><p>Mr. Petrakis “was a major figure, certainly in 20<sup>th</sup> century Chicago literature,” said author Stuart Dybek. “He was part of a movement that was national at the time, with Chicago in the forefront, in which America claimed its identity through its ethnic writers.” </p><p>Mr. Petrakis, the son of a Greek Orthodox priest, was born in 1923 in St. Louis and grew up on Chicago’s South Side with five siblings in what he described as “a series of dingy, desolate, city apartments which seemed to me built to prevent any light or warmth from entering the cold, shadowed rooms.”</p><p>At age 11, he missed two years of school with tuberculosis and couldn’t even go out to play. He filled his time reading hundreds of books. He later said the authors of those classics gave him a joy of reading and a “compass for his life” that made him a writer.</p><p>His first novel, “Lion at My Heart,” was published in 1959 after Mr. Petrakis had scraped by financially for years. When the first copy arrived at his home, the Petrakis family marched through the house, as Mr. Petrakis’ older sons, then children, banged metal pots and Mr. Petrakis held the book above his head. His best-known book, the best-selling 1966 novel “A Dream of Kings,” was made into a 1969 movie starring Anthony Quinn.</p><p>Mr. Petrakis continued to polish his craft over his lifetime, working, as he said in a 2009 Chicago Sun-Times interview, “to hone and shape [his writing] and fashion it so that it strikes harmoniously on the ear.” He won the annual short story O. Henry Award and the Chicago Public Library’s Carl Sandburg Award. He twice was a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction. He taught as a visiting lecturer and as a writer-in-residence in various universities, and held the Nikos Kazantzakis Chair in Modern Greek Studies at San Francisco State University. He was awarded honorary degrees from the American College of Greece, the University of Illinois, Roosevelt University, Hellenic College, Governors State University and Indiana University Northwest.</p><p>“Harry was among the most exuberant writers to walk the streets of Chicago,” said Henry Kisor, a retired book editor of the Sun-Times and author of 10 books. “He belongs right up there with Studs Terkel, Nelson Algren, Gwendolyn Brooks, Carl Sandburg, Sandra Cisneros and others who showed how ordinary Chicagoans could be extraordinary Americans. He really should have been better known, although he was hardly a neglected author.”</p><p>“I view Harry Mark Petrakis as one of the greatest Chicago writers throughout our history,” said Dick Simpson, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and president of the Society of Midland Authors, of which Mr. Petrakis was a longtime member. “He gave a unique voice to the Greek community and to the entire human community.”</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>Harry Mark Petrakis (from left) Gwendolyn Brooks and Saul Bellow hand former Mayor Richard J. Daley pens to sign a proclamation in 1965.</p></figcaption><span class="line"></span><div class="Figure-credit"><p>Sun-Times Library</p></div></div>
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</div><p>In his later years, Mr. Petrakis turned to writing occasional essays about his recollections for the Sun-Times’ Opinion section, many of them set in the 1930s and 1940s. Among his topics were a woman with a disfigured face who finally found her true love; young men waiting to see when they would be called to war; a passionate racetrack bettor; a story-telling high-school ROTC commander; his thoughts of suicide when he mistakenly believed he had ALS; his youthful gambling addition, and his various early jobs, including hauling 400-pound blocks of ice and owning a small diner called “Art’s Lunch” (a name he didn’t change because he couldn’t afford a new sign). His final Sun-Times essay appeared in October.</p><p>“He wrote such vivid, life-affirming stories. Every story felt like a celebration — of belonging, of being alive,” said Sun-Times Editorial Page Editor Tom McNamee.</p><p>In one of his essays, Mr. Petrakis recalled lively family discussions in a cramped Depression-era apartment over meals of rice pilaf, a slice of bread and a glass of milk. “Only when I, the last of the 10 who sat at that table still alive, only after death finally claims me, will those buoyant and contentious voices fall silent, settling to rest beside me for eternity,” he wrote.</p><p>Mr. Petrakis’ wife of 73 years, Diana Petrakis, died in 2018. Besides Mark Petrakis, he is also survived by sons John and Dean Petrakis, four grandchildren and a great grandchild.</p><p>A small private church service is planned.<br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/2/3/22265261/harry-mark-petrakis-author-stuart-dybek-obituaryThomas Frisbie2020-07-24T07:55:38-05:002020-07-25T11:17:13-05:00Award-winning Illinois author Robert Hellenga dies at 78
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<img class="Image" alt="Robert Hellenga accepts the 2015 Society of Midland Authors adult fiction award at the Cliff Dwllers Club in Chicago." srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/e596de5/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1115x626+33+0/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FLZqAcm3yAEK6O_M3ne2krClitFI%3D%2F16x0%3A1198x626%2F1182x626%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28516x241%3A517x242%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F20106472%2FRobert_Hellenga.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/e5fe5d0/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1115x626+33+0/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FLZqAcm3yAEK6O_M3ne2krClitFI%3D%2F16x0%3A1198x626%2F1182x626%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28516x241%3A517x242%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F20106472%2FRobert_Hellenga.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>Robert Hellenga accepts the 2015 Society of Midland Authors adult fiction award at the Cliff Dwllers Club in Chicago.</p></figcaption><span class="line"></span><div class="Figure-credit"><p>Thomas Frisbie/Sun-Times</p></div></div>
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<p>Highly regarded novelist, essayist and professor and short story writer Robert Hellenga knew when it was time to gamble as an author. In 2015, he explained how he did that in his novel “The Confessions of Frances Godwin.”</p><p>“The biggest risk I took in writing [the book] was introducing God as an active character and allowing him to bully Frances in Latin,” said Mr. Hellenga, who co-directed the Associated Colleges of the Midwest Seminar in the Humanities at Chicago’s Newberry Library in 1973 and 1974. </p><p>The gamble paid off. The novel won the Society of Midland Authors 2015 award for adult fiction at a ceremony at the Cliff Dwellers Club in Chicago. </p><p>Glen Ellyn author Tony Romano, who served as a judge in the awards, said, “What really stuck with us with this book was the character, Frances Godwin. You wanted to spend time with her. She’s sarcastic, she’s shrewd, tough, irreverent, even when speaking to God. ... We come to know her on many levels.” </p><p>Mr. Hellenga, author of eight novels, died July 18 at his Galesburg home of neuroendocrine cancer. He was 78. </p><p>Evanston author Lynn Sloan said, “Bob was witty, wise, and warm, and he acted as if every moment mattered. Toward the end, he sent me a note that read: ‘I don’t want you to worry about me. I’ve just put together an anthology titled: ‘Prognosis for Survival – Not Good: Poems to Interrogate on Your Deathbed.’ ”</p><p>Mr. Hellenga’s wife of 56 years, Virginia Hellenga, said he read all of the roughly 150 books submitted to him in a book awards contest this spring for which he was a judge. </p><p>“There was no saying: ‘I am going to take it easy now [because of illness],’ ” she said. </p><p>Mr. Hellenga’s first novel, “The Sixteen Pleasures,” was rejected 39 times before Soho Press published it in 1994. The book earned wide praise. Later, Mr. Hellenga also received awards for his fiction from the Illinois Arts Council and from the National Endowment for the Arts. </p><p>His other novels were “Snakewoman of Little Egypt,” which Kirkus Reviews and the Washington Post rated among the best fiction books of 2010; “Blues Lessons,” a finalist for a Midland Authors book award in 2002; “Philosophy Made Simple” (2006); “Fall of a Sparrow” (2007), which the Los Angeles Times listed among the best fiction of 1998; “The Italian Lover” (2007), and “Love, Death, & Rare Books” (2020), which is set partly in Hyde Park. </p><p>He also wrote a 2016 novella combined with a collection of short stories titled “The Truth About Death and Other Stories.” </p><p>Booklist wrote that “[A]ll of Hellenga’s novels revel in the details of their protagonists’ occupations.” A 2010 Chicago Sun-Times book review said Mr. Hellenga had “a crafty, mesmerizing style, a melange of the mundane and the magical.” </p><p>“Books informed his whole life,” his daughter Heather Hellenga said. </p><p>Mr. Hellenga, the George Appleton Lawrence Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of English and Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Knox College in Galesburg, was born in Milwaukee. He grew up both in that city, where he spent his summers, and in Three Oaks, Michigan. He graduated with honors from the University of Michigan, where he married Virginia Hellenga, and did graduate work at the Queen’s University of Belfast, the University of North Carolina and Princeton University, where he earned his Ph.D. </p><p>In 1982 and 1983 he, his wife and three daughters spent 13 months in Florence, Italy, where he directed the Associated Colleges of the Midwest Florence programs. Italy became a recurring setting in his books. </p><p>He also was an avid cook and amateur guitar player.</p><p>Mr. Hellenga is also survived by an older brother, Ted Hellenga Jr., and daughters Rachel Hellenga and Caitrine Hellenga, and three grandchildren. A memorial service will be planned when it is again safe to gather in person. <br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2020/7/24/21334273/robert-hellenga-author-chicago-galesburg-knox-college-obituaryThomas Frisbie2020-06-12T09:20:00-05:002020-07-09T13:50:32-05:00Stella Pevsner dead: Longtime Chicago children’s author kept writing into her 90s
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<img class="Image" alt="Children’s author Stella Pevsner wrote 18 books." srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/6dbbfbf/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2655x1490+0+90/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2F8dQmiRNbYqBmkNo-IZEuhB2Owp4%3D%2F0x0%3A2655x1671%2F2655x1671%2Ffilters%3Afocal%281328x836%3A1329x837%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F20032176%2FStella_Pevsner___300dpi.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/6152e44/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2655x1490+0+90/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2F8dQmiRNbYqBmkNo-IZEuhB2Owp4%3D%2F0x0%3A2655x1671%2F2655x1671%2Ffilters%3Afocal%281328x836%3A1329x837%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F20032176%2FStella_Pevsner___300dpi.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>Children’s author Stella Pevsner wrote 18 books.</p></figcaption><span class="line"></span><div class="Figure-credit"><p>Provided</p></div></div>
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<p>When Stella Pevsner reflected on the 18 children’s books she had written over her long career, she realized her later books always seemed to feature a girl around 10 years old — sassy but charming in her own way. </p><p>When she mentioned that to her son Charles, he said, “Well, in one guise or another, they’re really all you.” </p><p>Ms. Pevsner, an award-winning author who’d been a longtime Chicago area resident, died peacefully Thursday at her home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at 98. </p><p>Colleagues recalled her as a writer dedicated to her craft who also had an impish sense of humor.</p><p>“She was an elegant woman and a great writer,” said teacher and Chicago author Craig Sautter. “She had a great spirit and a great sense of humor. She had some really important books.”</p><p>Ms. Pevsner, a former president of the Society of Midland Authors, began writing children’s books after a career in advertising and freelance writing because her son Stuart said his favorite author, Beverly Cleary, “didn’t write fast enough.” So Ms. Pevsner said she would write books for him.</p><p>She went on to win numerous awards and was named the Illinois children’s book author of the year in 1987. </p><p>“She was a pioneer in children’s writing, and I have heard many children’s authors say she favorably influenced their work,” said author Richard Lindberg. “She radiated positivity and will be deeply missed by all whose lives she deeply touched.”</p><p>Among her best-known works were “And You Give Me a Pain, Elaine,” for which she won a Golden Kite Award from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, “And a Smart Kid Like You,” “Would My Fortune Cookie Lie,” which won the Midland Authors’ 1987 Children’s Fiction award, “Cute is a Four Letter Word,” for which she won the 1980 Carl Sandburg Award from the Friends of the Chicago Public Library, and “How Could You Do It, Diane?”</p><p>“If you’re really a writer, you write,” Ms. Pevsner said in a 2018 interview with Literary License, the Midland Authors’ newsletter. “All the time. … You’ll probably meet people who say to you, ‘Someday, I’d like to write a novel.’ Just smile. You know they never will.”</p><p>Born Oct. 4, 1921, in downstate Lincoln, Ms. Pevsner attended classes at Illinois State University for two years.</p><p>In 1953, she married Leo Pevsner, a violinist-turned-surgeon. They raised four children in Palatine. </p><p>Her first book, “Break a Leg!” was published in 1969.</p><p>Charles Pevsner said his favorite of Ms. Pevsner’s books was the ghost story “Footsteps on the Stairs,” in part because the writing was the cleverest — and also because the main character was modeled on him. </p><p>After she moved to Chicago, Ms. Pevsner was well known for hosting impromptu gatherings of authors in her condo overlooking Rush Street.</p><p>Ms. Pevsner continued to write books into her 90s, though she needed help reading and editing because her eyesight was failing. She dictated her last book, “Bubblegum Angel,” published in 2018.</p><p>“The great thing about being a writer is the fact that I’m never lonely,” she once said. “How can I be, with all these characters romping around in my mind?”</p><p>Ms. Pevsner also is survived by a daughter, Marian Meyer. A fourth child, Barbara Pevsner, died in 1984. </p><p>A memorial service in Albuquerque will be held sometime in the fall or winter, when it’s appropriate to ask people to travel.<br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2020/6/12/21288683/stella-pevsner-childrens-author-books-obituaryThomas Frisbie