Family, friends and fans remember Drury
Joanne O'Leary never met John Drury.
Her only connection came through daily news broadcasts she came to trust over the years from the former Chicago ABC 7 anchorman.
Yet the Chicago woman felt compelled Friday to take a break from holiday shopping along Michigan Avenue to step into Holy Name Cathedral in downtown Chicago to say a prayer for Drury, who died Sunday after a long battle with Lou Gehrig's Disease.
"He always struck me as honest and truthful," O'Leary said, sitting next to two American Girl shopping bags by her pew. "I can't really come up with all the adjectives others said about him. But I watched him for many years."
O'Leary joined dozens of members of the Chicago broadcast journalism community, Drury's family and friends, as well as a few of members of his loyal television audience, to say a final goodbye to the man who spent years dedicated to helping others make sense of the news.
Roughly 300 people attended the hourlong service, conducted by Bishop Timothy Lyne.
While Lyne on more than one occasion poked fun at Drury's colleagues and their profession, he was quick to celebrate Drury's lasting legacy in the Chicago area.
"One of the things that struck me about John was that he was clearly a compassionate newsman," Lyne said. "Not only did he read the news, but he knew what he was reading and what it meant."
Drury, a Wheaton resident who started his career in 1955 at a television station in Milwaukee, worked for several Chicago stations before landing a job as a news anchor for ABC 7's 10 p.m. newscast in 1984. He reigned atop the 10 p.m. ratings until his retirement in 2002.
During his decades-long career, Drury won several awards for anchoring and investigative reporting.
In 2003, Drury was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. He wasted no time in making his personal struggle public and lending his name to causes dedicated to fighting the disease, which eventually robbed him of the ability to speak.
In 2005, Drury auctioned his vast collection of Erector sets and Mysto Magic sets to raise funds for research. And at Friday's services, in the rear of the church, there were donation envelopes and informational material for the Les Turner ALS Foundation.
"John wanted to get the story out about ALS, said Frank Mathie, an ABC colleague who helped document Drury's struggles. "He let us tape him as he lay dying from the disease. ... One of the first things he lost was the power to laugh. He slowly lost his voice, too. But he's got that back now, doesn't he?"