No matter if it were a dog, cat, or other kind of animal, Mary “Rita” Byrnes loved it. And whenever she heard of an animal with special needs taken in by the Animal Welfare League in Chicago Ridge, she never failed to send in support.
“She was always the first to send in a check, and it didn’t matter what type of animal it was,” said Linda Estrada, president and director of the Animal Welfare League. “If it had a special need, she went above and beyond. She did it because she knew the unconditional love that (animals) give.”
Byrnes, 83, of Chicago, died of lung cancer on March 15 at her nephew’s home in Burr Ridge.
Because of her continual support, Animal Welfare League volunteers lined up all the dogs housed in the shelter as her funeral motorcade drove by on March 23. Along the way, volunteers held a banner that read, “Thank you Rita from AWL.”
“I was moved beyond words,” said Michael Byrnes, her nephew and a member of the league’s board of directors and treasurer. “The organization meant so much to her. It was dear to her heart because she liked to help charities that helped others who couldn’t help themselves, such as animals and children. An adult can ask for help but a dog, cat or child cannot.”
Born in Chicago, Byrnes was the oldest daughter in a family of eight children.
While her parents worked during the height of the Depression, the task of helping to raise the younger children fell to Byrnes.
“I think that is why she never got married and never had children because she already did the kid thing,” her nephew said.
Byrnes had attended Sacred Heart Catholic High School before she transferred to Kelly High School. After her graduation, she took a manual labor position at Continental Can. She left to attend cosmetology school and went to work at Walgreens Drug Store at 59th Street and Pulaski Avenue. Eventually, she was moved to the Evergreen Plaza store across from the Drury Lane Theater.
Stars of the 1950s and 60s often dropped by for emergency makeup, hair products or simply to shop, her nephew said and sometimes they received her unsolicited advice.
“One time ‘Bye-Bye Birdie’ was playing at the theater and Tab Hunter came over. She told him he was using the wrong hair dye. That was typical her. She didn’t mean it to be bad. She was just sharing her advice,” her nephew said.
Byrnes was also a model for Walgreens and appeared in several full-page print ads, her nephew said.
“She was a very elegant lady. I would say she was a cross between Audrey Hepburn and Auntie Mame. She lived life to the fullest and with grace,” Byrnes said.
He recalled the time when he was 5 and she took him for a visit to downtown Chicago. The streets were filled with traffic due to a parade. The pair made it to Meigs Field where she chartered a helicopter to take them to Midway, which was six blocks from his home.
“And we were in the helicopter with a CEO of some company and he just kept staring at her trying to figure out who this lady was,” he said.
After she had left Walgreens, Byrnes worked as a dental assistant for a few years. She then became a manager of an orthodontics office before she joined St. Mary Nazareth Hospital where she managed the outpatient department. In the 1980s, she joined Blue Cross Blue Shield as a claims adjuster and retired in the late 1990s.
At Blue Cross, she mentored many of the employees, including Delia Quinain.
“She was a hybrid of a friend and a mentor,” Quinain said. “She was very straightforward and very honest. She was not an enabler. She was not a go-with-the-flow kind of person. She would tell you when you made a mistake. Some people may have been put off by her honesty, but her intent was never to be mean. She was extremely generous.”
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Byrnes lived most of her adult life in Lincoln Park. Her niece, Cheryl Neylon, remembers spending the night in her apartment across from Lincoln Park and watching her walk across the street to feed the homeless sleeping on park benches.
“She was always giving,” Neylon said. “She was this totally unique individual who was always dressed impeccably and who traveled the world before it was common for women to do something like that.”
Byrnes is survived by many nieces and nephews.
Patricia Trebe is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.