Chicago's indigent memorial service

A lunchtime congregation stood in for the families of people buried by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office at the 35th annual Interfaith Memorial Service for Indigent Persons, October 27 at the First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple.

The Medical Examiner’s Office provided dignified final disposition for 988 people from the beginning of 2000 through the week of the ceremony, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said in opening remarks. COVID-19 was responsible for 89 of those deaths. Because of the pandemic, last year’s ceremony was postponed.

“We do not know the stories or the challenges of the people we are honoring today. But we do know that each of their lives had meaning,” Preckwinkle said.

“As their neighbors, we become their family – and we are entrusted to see them off in a respectful and dignified manner,” she added. “Cook County, through the Medical Examiner’s office, takes our responsibility of being good stewards very seriously.”

Keynote speaker Betty A. Bogg, executive director of Connections for the Homeless in Evanston, thanked the congregation for attending the service. They would make the peoples’ deaths meaningful, she said, through their actions to end homelessness.

Executive Director of Connections for the Homeless Betty Bogg

Suzanne Hanney photo

Connections was founded in 1984, just when homelessness was emerging in its present form, due to social policies that eliminated safety nets Bogg said. An interfaith group similar to those at the service banded together to demand that the City of Evanston allow them to create a homeless shelter. When they were turned down, they held a candlelight march and an all-night prayer vigil. The city ultimately addressed zoning issues that led to Hilda's Place, run by Connections at 1458 Chicago Ave.

“They understood that if any of us is to thrive, all of us must thrive,” Bogg said. “One cannot thrive without an affordable and safe place to live. With that act of faith and determination and civil disobedience, Connections was born.”

Connections specialized in eviction prevention, shelter and housing, Bogg said. “If you were evicted today, you wouldn’t find a place by afternoon; that’s where the shelter comes in.”

During the pandemic, Connection's response increased fivefold. The agency prevented 1500 people from becoming homeless last year and sheltered 300 people – 70 of them children, Bogg said. It doubled the number of its apartments, from 100 to 200; and quadrupled its numbers in hotels, to 80.

Muslim, Buddhist and Christian speakers repeated the theme of community. “They were not afforded the dignity of burial by loved ones, so we remember them today,” said Tariq I. El-Amin, resident imam and chairman of the board of Masjid Al-Taqwa.

“As we go through life, we are never alone. We are all interconnected,” said Ms. Asayo Horibe of the Buddhist Council of the Midwest. “We would not be here but for the efforts of others in this world. We have been born, we have a mother and a father. There’s the nurse and the doctor and the aide.”

The Rev. Brian E. Smith recalled his great-grandfather looking at him and telling him “’Before you were born, you lived in the mind of God.’

“We gather today to recognize that every name we call out carried a divine spark from the mind of God,” said Smith, who is director of advancement and strategic partnerships at Chicago Theological Seminary.

The reading of more than 520 names of people buried by the county, listed alphabetically by first names, took eight readers more than 20 minutes and comprised 7½ pages of the printed program for the noontime service.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle

Suzanne Hanney photo

The homeless memorial service was founded by W. Earl Lewis (1949-1999), who was a doorman working in Chicago when he read about the burial of indigent people in mass graves. He worked between 1984 and 1986 with the Cook County Coroner’s Office and the United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple to raise public awareness. The first service was May 1, 1986. The annual service was intended to “give the community an opportunity to act as a ‘surrogate family’ to individuals who died poor and without family or friends to claim their bodies or mark their passing,”