Chicago is said goodbye Monday to its first and only female mayor. Jane Byrne died Friday at the age of 81. Family, friends, politicians and regular Chicagoans attended her funeral at St. Vincent de Paul Church in Lincoln Park.
The morning began with a traditional visitation at 9 am sharp.
Jane Byrne lay peacefully inside an open casket. The sun snuck in through the ornate stained glass windows and made her golden hair shine.
For the most part, the mood was more jovial than somber. Old friends and colleagues greeted each other in more of the manner of a holiday party. Many sported Byrne’s old campaign buttons.
Angel Correa campaigned hard for Byrne back in the early 80s even as he clocked hours as a circulation manager at the Chicago Tribune
"And I’ll tell you one thing. I used to take her literature and actually stuff it in the Tribune papers - if they would have found that out I probably woulda got canned!" said Correa.
He later went on to serve as the deputy commissioner of neighborhoods for Mayor Byrne.
"Believe when I tell you - a very feisty lady, very bossy - but a very very good warm person with a good warm heart."
That feistiness was a constant theme throughout the funeral mass.
"I remember walking into her room one day, " said Monsignor Kenneth Velo. "She was peering out her window to the east, looking toward the lake."
Velo, Byrne’s longtime friend, celebrated the mass.
"She didn’t know I was there. I said Jane! She looked back and said “you scared the hell out of me!"'
Velo spoke in his homily both of Byrne’s accomplishments, her work on the museum campus and neighborhood festivals, and how welcoming she was to the gay community. He also spoke of her trials like the death of her first husband soon after the birth of their only child Kathy.
"Was she perfect? Are you? Am I? Did she have faults? sure? Don’t you? Don’t I? But she loved the city of Chicago. And she was proud that she was mayor of the city of Chicago," said Velo.
Velo says Byrne also proudly planned this mass. Her great-grand nieces read the petitions and prayers.
PRAYER: That the arts, festivals and beauty continue to flourish and inspire the citizens of Chicago and the world.
And her only grandson, Willy, read one of her favorite quotes from Senator Robert Kennedy.
"Each time a man stands for an ideal, or asks to improve the lot of others, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope."
But some of deepest emotion, reflection and admiration came from Byrne’s daughter, Kathy.
"My mother was dragon slaying, problem solving, 24/7 guardian angel."
Byrne said she often thinks about how life would have been if her dad had survived. She says her mom would have likely lived as a socialite on the North shore. But instead, Byrne says her mom fought for her independence. Back then, women weren’t allowed to have their own credit accounts.
And when her dad died, Byrne says her mom had to fight tooth and nail at Saks Fifth Avenue to get that credit back, a hurtful and humiliating experience that came to back to Byrne when she lived in Chicago’s housing projects.
"When my mom spoke to the mothers in Cabrini. And she heard how some of the merchants in the area refused their food stamps and called them names, called them names, called them worthless - did this in front of their children. My mother could share what they felt," said Kathy.
Byrne says her mother loved every minute of her time as mayor.
"She was a great lady. And I’ll never know anyone like her."
As Byrne’s family carried her casket into the brisk Chicago winds - another fitting - but unplanned - theme appeared.
Snow.
It was a snowfall in 1979 that swept Mayor Byrne into office. So it only seemed fitting that snowflakes fell softly on the Chicago flag that covered her coffin.