Joanne Mackey, 73, worked for county; heart of family

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Joanne Mackey

Updated: October 29, 2011 12:35AM

Joanne Mackey was the kind of grandmother who not only arranged for Santa to drop by her condo for a Christmas visit, but Mrs. Claus, too.

She was the central clearinghouse for all the family news. Her four adult children called her every day, and then she’d pass along their dispatches to the others. Mrs. Mackey made sure they knew about each baby’s new tooth or a terrific report card or a good ballgame.

She was the kind of wife who spent an hour a day talking with her husband — really talking. When the kids were young, every night after the 10 o’clock news, she and her husband Dick would recap their day. They’d discuss the children, and how their classes and baseball teams were going, and whether they were happy.

Even as her health declined, she was still the mom-manager, tying up loose ends to make things easier for her kids.

For her wake, she told them, “You’ve got to get the big room at Cooney’s” funeral home.

For her funeral, she asked for singer Catherine O’Connell to croon a lullaby of a hymn, “Our Lady of Knock,” about the Blessed Mother’s Fatima-like appearance in Ireland.

Mrs. Mackey, the fulcrum at the center of her family, died of cancer Friday at her Park Ridge home. She was 73.

She grew up on the South Side and attended Lourdes High School. Her father, a native of Ballysheedy in County Limerick, Ireland, was influential in the stationary engineers’ union, said her daughter, Colleen Wilcox, and when Joanne finished high school, “Her father said ‘Go downtown and you have a job.’ ” She was hired at the Cook County Zoning Board of Appeals.

When she finished high school, the family moved to the Portage Park neighborhood. She met her husband-to-be at the old Holiday Ballroom.

“Who are you going home with tonight, besides me?” he asked.

“The smartest thing I ever did,” he always said, “was marry your mom.”

They raised their family in St. Robert Bellarmine’s parish. A stay-at-home mom, Mrs. Mackey volunteered for the school board. She was the kind of parent that Catholic educators cherish: “If you called and said [one of the kids] has to improve something, she’d be on his case,” said her friend, Sister Bridget Murphy, former principal at the school.

“There were no cell phones, but they always kept track of us,” said her son Daniel. “They took the time to really know our friends.”

“Mom and dad spent a lot of our younger years up at Dunham Park” near Lawrence and Narragansett, Colleen said. “All of us were big softball and baseball players. Dad loved to coach and my mom was there to cheer us.”

At St. Patrick’s Day, Mrs. Mackey would make 15 loaves of Irish soda bread and give them away to friends. “She’d bring Harrington’s corned beef to work for St. Patrick’s Day,” Dan said.

She also helped keep an estimated 70 North and South Side cousins in touch with each other. A decade ago they traveled to Ireland for a Sheahan family reunion.

Once the kids were grown, Mrs. Mackey went to work for the sheriff’s office, then headed by her cousin, Michael Sheahan. She did community outreach, including teaching seniors how to protect themselves from consumer scams, and safeguarding their medication and emergency information, her daughter said.

“She was very gregarious and a person who could get along with anyone,” Sheahan said.

“I can’t recall her ever not smiling,” said Sheriff Thomas J. Dart, “just really one of the most gracious people I’ve ever met.”

She had a white French poodle named Pepe. “That dog followed her around and would sit perched on the table at the picture window until she came home from work,” Daniel said. After her husband died, Mrs. Mackey moved into a condo building that housed a number of widows. “They all looked out for each other,” said her son Michael, an investor in the Chicago Sun-Times.

She loved nothing better than taking her grandchildren out for pancakes, or for trips to the Choo-Choo Restaurant.

And she always kept Dove ice cream bars in the freezer to share with them.

Other survivors include her son, Richard; her sister, Kathleen Ryan; her brother, Jim, and eight grandchildren.

Visitation will be from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. today at Cooney’s Funeral Home, 625 Busse Hwy., Park Ridge. A funeral mass will be at 10 a.m. Monday at St. Paul of the Cross Church, 320 S. Washington, Park Ridge. Burial is to follow at Queen of Heaven Cemetery, Hillside.