Mourners on Friday remembered a woman who worked tirelessly at her synagogue and a gentle man who loved art in the first formal services to be held for the seven people killed by the gunman who opened fire on a July Fourth parade.
Synagogue members at North Shore Congregation Israel near the Chicago suburb of Highland Park described 63-year-old Jacquelyn Sundheim as a dedicated member of their community who co-ordinated events and taught preschool classes, smiling all along and constantly checking on other staff members.
"We are horrified," Rabbi Wendi Geffen said. "We are enraged, sickened, aggrieved, inconsolable for the terror that has befallen us and robbed us of Jacki."
But Geffen and other speakers urged the people filling the synagogue to focus on Sundheim's life – her commitment to her husband, Bruce, and daughter, Leah, the pleasure she took in knitting and her attention to detail when planning bat or bar mitzvahs, weddings or funerals.
Her daughter had another request: to use the pain, fear and rage caused by her mother's death to make the world better, in small thoughts and actions.
"I want you to laugh," she said, holding back tears. "I want you to each and every day put a little more joy and kindness into this world. Do not let this sadness, this fear, rage turn you bitter towards our world. The world is darker without my mom in it, and it's up to us now to fill it with a little extra laughter."
Mourners also filled the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston to support the family of 88-year-old Stephen Straus, who was eulogized as a funny father and grandfather who loved reading and art and still rode the train five days a week to the downtown Chicago office where he worked as a financial adviser.
Son Jonathan described Straus as "truly to his core, just a sweet, generous person" while his other son, Peter, thanked his dad for instilling a love of the "zany" including Mel Brooks.
Jonathan Straus said learning of his father's death from a doctor at a hospital "was the worst moment of my life."
"Thinking about what a good, giving, loving person he was, it makes the cruelty and the horror of his death that much harder to take," he said. "When I see pictures of him ... it really just sweeps over me, what we've lost, who I lost, my best friend ever."
Friends and family of 78-year-old Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza plan to remember him Friday afternoon. Services for 69-year-old Eduardo Uvaldo are scheduled for Saturday.
Funeral details for the remaining victims have not been made public. Authorities have identified them as 35-year-old Irina McCarthy and 37-year-old Kevin McCarthy, who were attending the parade with their 2-year-old son, and 64-year-old Katherine Goldstein, a mother of two.
The accused gunman, Robert E. Crimo III, has been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder. Prosecutors expect to bring more charges representing the more than 30 people were wounded in the assault.
Investigators have said the suspect, who lived in neighbouring Highwood, legally purchased five weapons and planned the attack for weeks before he climbed to the roof of a business along the parade route and opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle.
Investigators reported that Crimo fled the parade by blending in with the fleeing crowd, then drove to the Madison, Wisconsin, area, where he contemplated a second attack. He returned to the Highland Park area, and his car was spotted by police.
Questions remain about whether Crimo should have been able to legally purchase firearms in Illinois. Illinois State Police officials have defended the approval of his gun license in December 2019, months after police received reports that he had made suicidal and violent threats.
Luis Armando Albino was six years old in 1951 when he was abducted while playing at an Oakland, Calif., park. Now, more than seven decades later, Albino has been found thanks to help from an online ancestry test, old photos and newspaper clippings.
The prime minister's official itinerary says the interview will be shot during his trip to New York, where he is meeting with other world leaders ahead of the 78th gathering of the United Nations General Assembly.
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The Royal Canadian Mint has introduced its latest Gold Maple Leaf bullion coin – made entirely from gold sourced from a single mine in northern Ontario
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The City of Calgary ended water restrictions for the city at a Sunday morning update.
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North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson avoided directly weighing in during a gubernatorial campaign event Saturday on a CNN report outlining evidence that he made disturbing posts on a pornography website's message board more than a decade ago.
An explosion in a coal mine in eastern Iran killed at least 33 workers and injured 17 others, officials said Sunday, marking one of the worst mining disasters in the country's history as others remained missing hours after the blast.
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At least two students at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania have been suspended from the swim team after a report that a racial slur was scratched onto a student's body, officials said.
The prime minister's official itinerary says the interview will be shot during his trip to New York, where he is meeting with other world leaders ahead of the 78th gathering of the United Nations General Assembly.
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The owner of the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant said Friday that it plans to restart the reactor under a 20-year agreement that calls for tech giant Microsoft to buy the power to supply its data centers with carbon-free energy.
Lebanese authorities on Thursday banned walkie-talkies and pagers from being taken on flights from Beirut airport, the National News Agency reported, after thousands of such devices exploded during a deadly attack on Hezbollah this week.
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Â鶹´«Ã½ Montreal at Six for Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024 with anchor Matt Gilmour.
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The most popular hockey podcasters on the planet brought some major attention to the Forest City this weekend with the annual Chiclets Cup.
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A Victoria woman is now $1 million richer after winning a Maxmillions prize on a recent Lotto Max Draw.
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