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Notable deaths in the political, legal and business worlds in 2021

Posted December 27, 2021 12:00 am

Daily Herald report

Apollo 11 command module pilot Michael Collins takes a break during training for the moon mission, in Cape Kennedy, Fla. Collins, who piloted the ship from which Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left to make their historic first steps on the moon in 1969, died Wednesday, April 28, 2021, of cancer, his family said. He was 90. Associated Press/June 19, 1969

January

Jan 10: Nancy Walker Bush Ellis, philanthropist and sister to former President George H.W. Bush, age 94

Jan. 18: Joseph Scheidler, founder of Pro-Life Action League, 93

February

Feb. 2: Rennie Davis, one of the Chicago 7, age 80

Feb. 6: George Schulz, cabinet member to Nixon, Reagan, 100.

Feb. 7: Karen Lewis, former president of Chicago Teachers Union, 67

Feb. 17: Rush Limbaugh, right-wing radio host, 70

March

March 1: Vernon Jordan, civil rights leader, 85

March 9: Roger Mudd, broadcast journalist and “Meet the Press” host, 93

March 30: G. Gordon Liddy, Watergate operative, 90

April

April 9: Prince Philip, husband of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, age 99; former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, 93

April 14: financier and Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, 82

April 19: former Vice President Walter Mondale, 93

April 28: Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, 90

May

May 5: Jonathan Bush, younger brother of former President George H.W. Bush, 89

May 6: Paul Van Doren, co-founder of Vans shoe company, 90

May 7: Cruz Reynoso, civil rights lawyer and first Latino justice on California Surpreme Court, 90; Leigh Perkins, former president of Orvis, age 93

May 8: world-renowned architect Helmut Jahn, 81; Pete du Pont, former Delaware governor and GOP presidential candidate, 86; Spencer Silver, inventor of Post-it Notes, 80

May 18: Corinne Wood, first female lieutenant governor in Illinois, 66; Thomas P. Sullivan, federal prosecutor who started Operation Greylord corruption probe in Cook County, 91

May 25: former U.S. Sen. and Secretary of the Navy John Warner, 94

May 26: pioneering gay rights activist Kay Tobin Lahusen, 91

June

June 3: celebrity defense attorney F. Lee Bailey. 87

June 16: Merle Smith, first Black cadet to graduate from Coast Guard Academy, 76

June 17: Kenneth Kaunda, first president of Zambia, 97

June 23: John McAfee, security software pioneer and fugitive, 75

June 24: Benigno Aquino III, former president of the Philippines, 61

June 29: Donald Rumsfeld, former secretary of Defense and congressman, 88

July

July 15: civil rights pioneer Gloria Richardson, 99

July 20: “Rosie the Riveter” Phyllis Gould, 99

July 25: civil rights activist Robert Moses, 86

July 29: former U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, 87

August

Aug. 5: AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, 72

Aug. 13: James Hormel, the first openly gay U.S. ambassador, 88

Aug. 17: “Godfather of Sodoku” Maki Kaji, 69

Aug. 18: war correspondent Joe Galloway, 79

September

Sept. 2: civil rights lawyer George M. Strickler Jr., 80

Sept. 6: Former state Treasurer, Sen. Adlai Stevenson III, 90

Sept. 19: George Holliday, who videotaped 1991 Rodney King beating, 61

Sept. 26: filmmaker/journalist Myron Dewey, 49

October

Oct. 9: retired Army Gen. Raymond Odierno, who commanded coalition forces during Iraq War, 67; Abolhassan Banisadr, first president of Iran after 1979 revolution, 88

Oct. 13: civil rights activist Timuel Black, 102

Oct. 18: retired Army Gen. and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, 84

Oct. 26: former South Korea President Roh Tae-woo, 88

November

Nov. 9: former U.S. Sen. and head of Veterans Affairs Max Cleland, 79

Nov. 11: F.W. de Klerk, last apartheid president in South Africa, 85; former congressman Harris Fawell of Naperville, 92

Nov. 18: Peter Buck, co-founder of the Subway Sandwich chain, 90

Nov. 28: Phil Saviano, a clergy sex abuse survivor and whistleblower, 69

December

Dec. 5: Bob Dole, former U.S. senator and GOP presidential candidate, 98

Dec. 15: feminist writer and activist bell hooks, 69

Dec. 23: essayist and novelist Joan Didion, 87

Dec. 26: former Archbishop of Capetown Desmond Tutu, 90

President Barack Obama awarded Archbishop Desmond Tutu the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Tutu died Dec. 26. Marvin Joseph/Washington Post

"Rosie the Riveter" Phyllis Gould, 92, center, her sister Mary Ann Sousa, left, and Agnes Moore, 94, walk on the White House grounds in Washington. Gould, one of the millions of women who worked in defense plants in World War II and who later relentlessly fought to honor those "Rosie the Riverters," died on July 20, 2021, from complications of a stroke. Associated Press/March 31, 2014

Civil rights leader and political activist Timuel Black speaks in his Chicago apartment. Black, a retired sociology and anthropology professor with City Colleges of Chicago, a former Chicago Public Schools high school history teacher and a pioneer in the independent Black political movement who coined the phrase "plantation politics," died Wednesday, Oct. 13. Associated Press/Jan. 14, 2009

Former Secretary of State George Schultz arrives to watch Queen Elizabeth II take part in arrival ceremonies on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. Shultz, former President Ronald Reagan's longtime secretary of state, who spent most of the 1980s trying to improve relations with the Soviet Union and forging a course for peace in the Middle East, died Saturday, Feb. 6, 2021. He was 100. Associated Press/May 7, 2007

Author Joan Didion poses for a portrait, Monday, Sept. 26, 2005, in her New York apartment. Didion, the revered author and essayist whose provocative social commentary and detached, methodical literary voice made her a uniquely clear-eyed critic of a uniquely turbulent time, died Dec. 23. She was 87. Associated Press

Phil Saviano, a clergy sex abuse survivor and whistleblower who played a pivotal role in exposing decades of predatory assaults by Catholic priests, died Nov. 28. He was 69. Associated Press/Feb. 17, 2020

Famed defense attorney F. Lee Bailey poses in his office in Yarmouth, Maine. Bailey, the celebrity attorney who defended O.J. Simpson, Patricia Hearst and the alleged Boston Strangler, but whose legal career halted when he was disbarred in two states, died in June. Associated Press/May 22, 2014

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), left, Sen. Adlai Stevenson III (D-Ill.), and Illinois Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Daniel Walker, right, stand before an audience prior to Cook County's Democratic dinner. Stevenson died Sept. 6. Associated Press/1972

Raymond Odierno, a retired Army general who commanded American and coalition forces in Iraq at the height of the war and capped a 39-year career by serving as the Army's chief of staff, died Oct. 9. He was 67. Associated Press/Aug. 7, 2003

Former Vice President Walter Mondale died April 19. He was 93. Associated Press/Oct. 30, 2012

Bob Dole and his wife, Elizabeth, wave from the podium on the floor of the Republican National Convention in San Diego in 1996. The former GOP presidential nominee died Dec. 5. Associated Press

Radio host Rush Limbaugh reacts as first lady Melania Trump and his wife, Kathryn, applaud, as President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address. Limbaugh Feb. 17. Associated Prses/Feb. 4, 2020

Colin Powell, former Joint Chiefs chairman and secretary of state, died at age 84 on Oct. 18. Associated Press/May 5, 2006

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