MEMORIAL RESOLUTION FOR LILLIAN G. KING
WHEREAS, Lillian G. King, community activist and proud, doting mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, passed away on November 21, 2019; and
WHEREAS, The Chicago City Council has been informed of Lillian's passing by the Honorable Sophia D. King, Alderman of the 4th Ward and the Honorable Gregory I. Mitchell, Alderman of the 7th Ward; and
WHEREAS, Lillian Estella Gatewood was born in Louisville, Kentucky on January 14, 1932 to Miller Gatewood and Elnora Sterling; and
WHEREAS, Lillian was an only child, raised in Louisville by her mother, loving aunts and uncles, and her favorite person in the world, her maternal grandmother - "surrounded by love, support, opportunities, attention, and gifts"; and
WHEREAS, In 1951, Lillian left Louisville and moved to Hampton, Virginia to attend Hampton Institute, an historically black college; and
WHEREAS, Lillian was a gifted ballerina, a member of the Hampton dance troupe, and taught ballet to campus children; and
WHEREAS, At Hampton, Lillian met the love of her life, jazz and marching band musician Irving Maurice King, whom she married while they were both students at Hampton; and
WHEREAS, Lillian and Iriving had their first child, Karen Rose King, in 1952 before moving to New Haven, Connecticut in 1955 so Irving could attend Yale University Law School where he graduated with honors in 1958; and
WHEREAS, After Irving's graduation from Yale, Lillian and Irving moved their family to the South Side of Chicago, where they had two more children: Michael, born in 1959, and Alan, born in 1963, and where Irving worked a law firm that would eventually bear his name - Cotton, Watt, Jones & King; and
WHEREAS, Lillian and Irving's marriage was truly one for the ages; they were each other's best friends, did almost everything together, shared,many mutual passions, including music, the arts, and traveling the world; at the.time of Irving's death in 2011, the couple had been married just shy of 60 yea...
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