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1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2    WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of
3Representatives are saddened to learn of the death of former
4Illinois State Representative Susan Catania, who passed away
5on November 27, 2023; and
 
6    WHEREAS, Rep. Catania was born in Chicago to John and
7Helen (Giffrow) Kmetty on December 10, 1941; she attended
8Mother McAuley High School and graduated from St. Xavier
9College in 1962, where she earned a liberal arts degree with a
10chemistry focus; she married Anthony Edward Catania in 1963,
11and they had seven daughters; and
 
12    WHEREAS, Rep. Catania spent a year as a teaching assistant
13at Northwestern University; she then went to work as an
14information director at a chemical research company on
15Chicago's Near South Side; and
 
16    WHEREAS, Rep. Catania's path to feminism and public
17service began after learning that a younger and less
18experienced male colleague was being paid twice her salary;
19after several trips to Springfield to testify on relevant
20legislation, she decided to seek elective office; and
 
21    WHEREAS, Rep. Catania's legislative service ran from 1973

 

 

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1to 1983; she represented a nearly all-Black district on
2Chicago's Near South Side; she was a Republican in a city of
3Democrats and a young mother at a time when very few women, and
4even fewer who had children, ran for public office; and
 
5    WHEREAS, Rep. Catania championed the Equal Rights
6Amendment, her signature issue; she also supported gay rights,
7gun control, and access to abortion and was the first Illinois
8legislator to sponsor the Freedom of Information Act; and
 
9    WHEREAS, Rep. Catania sponsored legislation that led
10Illinois to a state holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr.;
11she helped revise the State's public aid code and provided
12emergency state aid for Cook County and Provident hospitals;
13in the case of Provident, the first Black-owned and operated
14hospital in America, she joined with then-legislator and later
15Chicago Mayor Harold Washington in co-sponsoring a bill that
16saved it from shutting its doors permanently; in all, more
17than 50 of her bills became law; and
 
18    WHEREAS, Rep. Catania served as a fellow at the Institute
19of Politics at the Kennedy School at Harvard University upon
20leaving office; in subsequent decades, she survived breast
21cancer and bone cancer and went on to a second career, earning
22a master's degree in social work from the University of
23Chicago and working for the Illinois Department of Human

 

 

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1Services until her retirement; and
 
2    WHEREAS, Rep. Catania will be remembered as a feminist,
3public servant, and matriarch who challenged political,
4social, and gender norms and advocated for communities and
5issues long ignored or shunned; and
 
6    WHEREAS, Rep. Catania was preceded in death by her parents
7and her husband of 58 years, Anthony; and
 
8    WHEREAS, Rep. Catania is survived by her daughters, Susan
9Wigsmoen and husband Dave Wigsmoen, Rachel Catania and husband
10Levon Karayan, Sara Catania and husband Mark Nollinger,
11Melissa Catania, Amy Catania and partner Benjamin Kent,
12Annemarie Catania, and Margaret Catania and husband Wesley
13Williams; her grandchildren, Andrew Wigsmoen, Alex Wigsmoen,
14Sophia Karayan, Remy Karayan, Lincoln Karayan, Genevieve
15Nollinger, Lucas Nollinger, Elijah Catania, Grey Catania,
16Alice Catania, Francesca Catania, Inertia Catania, and Aviva
17Catania; and numerous members of her extended Catania family;
18therefore, be it
 
19    RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE
20HUNDRED THIRD GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
21we mourn the passing of former Illinois State Representative
22Susan Catania and extend our sincere condolences to her

 

 

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1family, friends and all who knew and loved her; and be it
2further
 
3    RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
4presented to the family of Rep. Catania as an expression of our
5deepest sympathy.