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Rep. La Shawn K. Ford proposed legislation to open access to pharmacies,
Vol. 35 No. 6
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February 10, 2021
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austinweeklynews.com
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Also serving Garfield Park
@AustinWeeklyChi
@AustinWeeklyNews
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N employment New l network to open, PAGE 3
Mourners remember beloved funeral home owner
West Sider Gladys Edwards Wallace, 84, helped her husband Vernon build Wallace Broadview Funeral Home into a vital community institution By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
Gladys Edwards Wallace, the owner of Wallace Broadview Funeral Home, 2020 W. Roosevelt Rd. in west suburban Broadview, died on Jan. 22. She was 84 years old. Wallace owned Wallace Broadview Funeral Home along with her late husband of 48 years, Vernon L. Wallace, who founded the funeral home. He died in 2012. The couple built the business through a partnership forged in mutual respect, trust and loyalty, mourners recalled in the days since Gladys Wallace’s death and during her funeral, held Feb. 6, at Freedom Baptist Church, 4541 Harrison St. in suburban Hillside. During an interview with Sharon McDonald, which was played during a Facebook live-stream of her memorial, Gladys recalled her and her husband’s path to launching their well-respected business. Born in Alberta, Ala., Gladys moved to the West Side with her family, when she was 7 years old. “My father and I came to Chicago on the train, and my mother and brother came two months See GLADYS WALLACE on page 8
COLIN BOYLE/Block Club Chicago
REMEMBERING RHODA: Rhoda Jean Hatch died of COVID-19 on April 1, 2020. Her sister, Jennie Hatch, nephew, Rev. Marshall Hatch Jr., and brother, Rev. Marshall Hatch Sr., posed for portraits inside the New Mount Pilgrim MB Church in Garfield Park on Jan. 18, 2021.
She was the ‘keeper of our sacred family stories’
Rhoda Jean Hatch, who died of coronavirus at 73, was the oldest of eight siblings and first in her family to go to college. An educator, she was also her family’s historian By PASCAL SABINO Block Club Chicago
When the matriarch of the Hatch family had a heart attack during the terrifying blizzard of 1967, there was so much snow the ambulance couldn’t get down the road to their home in East Garfield Park.
It was Rhoda Jean Hatch who stepped up to fill the void left by her mother after that day. She was just 21, but as the oldest of eight, the role fell naturally to her. “She would give you the shirt off your back, literally,” said her sister, Jennie Hatch. “It’s not a morning that goes by that I don’t think about her.”
Rhoda Hatch died of coronavirus April 4. She was 73. She is survived by her son, Joel Wesley Hatch. Her other son, Wesley Marshall Hatch, died in 1992. Even as she balanced her duty to look after her family, Hatch was a trailblazer See RHODA HATCH on page 9