RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, We, the members of the Chicago City Council, wish to extend our congratulations and warmest birthday wishes to Mary Patricia Mondala in honor of her 100th Birthday; and,
WHEREAS, This Chicago City Council has been informed of this special event by Alderman Matthew Martin; and
WHEREAS, Born September 8, 1919 in East Chicago Indiana, Mary is the much-beloved daughter of the late Mary B. and George Banjavic, immigrants from Croatia; and
WHEREAS, Mary graduated from Washington High School in East Chicago where she was voted "the girl most likely to succeed". She was voted and crowned "Miss American Legion" in 1939; and
WHEREAS, Mary began working for the Inland Steel Company where she met her future husband, Stanley J. Mondala, an All American football player and future Illinois State Senator. They married in June of 1940 and the marriage would last till Stanley's demise in 1973; and
WHEREAS, Three children were born of this union, Mary Victoria, Stanley Richard and James Stanley. She worked in the banking industry into her 80's and then began a second career as a volunteer at the Hines VA Hospital where she continued to volunteer into her 90's. A remarkable life when you consider she was born during the Influenza epidemic of 1919 and was 10 years old at the start of the Great Depression in 1929; and
WHEREAS, Her lifespan saw Lindberg's solo flight across the Atlantic, the rise of commercial aviation, World War II, the Atomic Age, the rise of the Soviet Union, Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam, space exploration and the walk on the moon. She has lived through the administrations of seventeen U.S. Presidents, nineteen Illinois Governors and sixteen Chicago Mayors, and
WHEREAS, All during this time with a "I Will and I Can spirit" that is the Hallmark of these older Chicagoans and Americans. We would appreciate a resolution recognizing her life, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED, That we, the Mayor and members of the City Council of the City of Chicago, ass...
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