Daily Herald manager Gerry Alger remembered for 'life of joy'
The relentless pancreatic cancer that claimed Gerry Alger's life Friday can't rob loved ones of the joy she provided up until her final moments.
"We had so much fun," says Melanie Andreani, her daughter.
Andreani left her career in San Francisco and returned to the family home in Palatine to help her mom, 56, and father Mel cope during the 18 months after the grim cancer diagnosis.
"The only decision that I was 100 percent sure of in my entire life was my decision to come home. I'm so grateful that I've been here."
Alger, a 30-year employee of Paddock Publications, the parent company of the Daily Herald, had worked her way up from typist at the Daily Herald to manager of content and production for a new company enterprise known as Town Square Publications.
"Gerry was the most compassionate person I've ever met," says Scott Ray, director of Town Square. "She put others before herself and routinely went out of her way to take time to listen to others, which made her an excellent manager. She was not only extremely committed to her job, but everything she did in life."
When Alger started working in the Daily Herald newsroom she'd spend her lunch breaks with her young daughter, remembers Diane Dungey, deputy managing editor. Later, as an adult living in another state, Andreani would speak with her mom daily.
Throughout Alger's chemo treatments and illness, tears competed with laughter for Andreani, 33, who made her mom a special scrapbook of memories for Christmas.
They also got matching mother-and-daughter tattoos on their wrists of a heart wrapped with an infinity sign.
"When I was a kid," Andreani recalls, "she'd say, 'Wherever you go, I'll always carry you. I'm always with you in my heart.'"
Alger, winner of the 2014 Stuart R. Paddock, Jr. Manager Award of Excellence, made countless friends at the Daily Herald and through her volunteer work at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, where she and her husband were leaders in groups dealing with addictions and building stronger marriages.
Friends are raising funds to help the Alger family through Gerry's Journey at https://www.gofundme.com/tb6h9vtj.
Born Jan. 24, 1959, in Chicago, Alger grew up in Palatine with her older brothers, Ted and Mike. A graduate of Sacred Heart of Mary High School in Rolling Meadows, she met her husband at his family's tavern in Crystal Lake, where her older brother tended bar. Mel and Gerry were married in 1981. She helped Mel run his Alger Decorating painting company before she was hired in 1985 as a typist at the Daily Herald.
In her early years at the Daily Herald, Alger tackled extra duties that no one else managed to accomplish, such as periodically getting her department to tidy up. Armed with a label-maker, a color-coordinated calendar and a feather duster, Alger was "an organizational marvel," remembers Lisa Miner, metro editor for the Daily Herald. Alger kept things neat, met deadlines and knew where to find anything, all without ruffling the feathers of co-workers. "She had a great sense of humor," Miner says.
"She always took any difficulty or challenge in her life and made it a positive and a learning experience for others," remembers Eileen Brown, the Daily Herald's director of strategic marketing.
"Whatever this journey will be, I want to do this well," Alger told her husband and daughter when she was diagnosed in June 2014.
"With my mom, there's just been so much laughter," Andreani says, noting how they decorated their home with "Joy" signs for the holidays. "I think the theme of Mom's life is joy."