HR0732 103RD GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0732 LRB103 37443 MST 67565 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of Representatives are saddened to learn of the death of former Illinois State Representative Susan Catania, who passed away on November 27, 2023; and

WHEREAS, Rep. Catania was born in Chicago to John and Helen (Giffrow) Kmetty on December 10, 1941; she attended Mother McAuley High School and graduated from St. Xavier College in 1962, where she earned a liberal arts degree with a chemistry focus; she married Anthony Edward Catania in 1963, and they had seven daughters; and

WHEREAS, Rep. Catania spent a year as a teaching assistant at Northwestern University; she then went to work as an information director at a chemical research company on Chicago's Near South Side; and

WHEREAS, Rep. Catania's path to feminism and public service began after learning that a younger and less experienced male colleague was being paid twice her salary; after several trips to Springfield to testify on relevant legislation, she decided to seek elective office; and

WHEREAS, Rep. Catania's legislative service ran from 1973 to 1983; she represented a nearly all-Black district on Chicago's Near South Side; she was a Republican in a city of Democrats and a young mother at a time when very few women, and even fewer who had children, ran for public office; and

WHEREAS, Rep. Catania championed the Equal Rights Amendment, her signature issue; she also supported gay rights, gun control, and access to abortion and was the first Illinois legislator to sponsor the Freedom of Information Act; and

WHEREAS, Rep. Catania sponsored legislation that led Illinois to a state holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr.; she helped revise the State's public aid code and provided emergency state aid for Cook County and Provident hospitals; in the case of Provident, the first Black-owned and operated hospital in America, she joined with then-legislator and later Chicago Mayor Harold Washington in co-sponsoring a bill that saved it from shutting its doors permanently; in all, more than 50 of her bills became law; and

WHEREAS, Rep. Catania served as a fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School at Harvard University upon leaving office; in subsequent decades, she survived breast cancer and bone cancer and went on to a second career, earning a master's degree in social work from the University of Chicago and working for the Illinois Department of Human Services until her retirement; and

WHEREAS, Rep. Catania will be remembered as a feminist, public servant, and matriarch who challenged political, social, and gender norms and advocated for communities and issues long ignored or shunned; and

WHEREAS, Rep. Catania was preceded in death by her parents and her husband of 58 years, Anthony; and

WHEREAS, Rep. Catania is survived by her daughters, Susan Wigsmoen and husband Dave Wigsmoen, Rachel Catania and husband Levon Karayan, Sara Catania and husband Mark Nollinger, Melissa Catania, Amy Catania and partner Benjamin Kent, Annemarie Catania, and Margaret Catania and husband Wesley Williams; her grandchildren, Andrew Wigsmoen, Alex Wigsmoen, Sophia Karayan, Remy Karayan, Lincoln Karayan, Genevieve Nollinger, Lucas Nollinger, Elijah Catania, Grey Catania, Alice Catania, Francesca Catania, Inertia Catania, and Aviva Catania; and numerous members of her extended Catania family; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE HUNDRED THIRD GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we mourn the passing of former Illinois State Representative Susan Catania and extend our sincere condolences to her family, friends and all who knew and loved her; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to the family of Rep. Catania as an expression of our deepest sympathy.