Ex-Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne laid to rest
A hearse carrying the body of Chicago's first and only female mayor took a circuitous route Monday, driving down iconic avenues and by well-known city landmarks before arriving at a cemetery where she would be laid to rest.
A city of Chicago flag draped Jane Byrne's coffin earlier in the day at a funeral Mass at a North Side church, where current Mayor Rahm Emanuel was among those paying respects. Byrne died Friday at age 81.
Standing over her casket, Emanuel said Byrne's long list of accomplishments as mayor from 1979 to 1983 included bringing in new festivals and becoming the first Chicago mayor to openly embrace the gay community.
"Today, every Chicagoan gives thanks to Jane Byrne," he said. "We are a better city because of her."
Byrne, a Democrat, overcame former Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley's powerful political machine in 1979 to register a historic and improbable win.
Her daughter, Kathy Byrne, told those gathered at the service at St. Vincent de Paul Church that her mother never took her good fortune in becoming mayor for granted.
"She loved every minute as mayor," the daughter said.
Byrne could connect with wives of fallen police officers because she had lost her first husband to a plane crash in 1959, Kathy Byrne said.
"She knew exactly what to say and what to do ... what that wife needed to do," she said.
She said her mother could be "a dragon-slaying, problem-solving ... guardian angel" in a crisis but eschewed those who wallowed in their misfortune.
"My mother did not tolerate whining, self-pitying (or) making mountains out of molehills," she said.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who also paid her respects Monday, credited Byrne with paving the way for other women to enter politics.
"She took on the guys and she won," Madigan told reporters outside the church.
As pallbearers carried Byrne's coffin out of the church, a band of bagpipers played in her honor.
Before the funeral procession left for the cemetery, Kathy Byrne told reporters that the renaming of a major Chicago interchange and park after Jane Byrne earlier this year helped renew public interest in her legacy. And it all delighted the former mayor, she said.
"The last few months of her life were very, very happy," the daughter said.