Susan Catania

Susan Catania, 81, Feminist, Public Servant and Matriarch

December 10, 1941 - November 27, 2023

Susan Catania, a former Illinois state legislator and mother of seven daughters who challenged political, social and gender norms, advocating for communities and issues long ignored or shunned, died at her home in Eagle River, Wisconsin on Nov. 27. She was 81.

Catania's decade as a public servant in the 1970s and early 80s was unorthodox. She was white representing a nearly all-Black district on Chicago's Near South Side, a Republican in a city of big D Democrats, and a young mother at a time when very few women-and even fewer who had children-ran for public office. The youngest three of her seven daughters were born during her legislative tenure; she made headlines for bringing each infant with her to the House floor, nursing them in an adjacent bathroom.

As a legislator, Catania championed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), her signature issue, as well as access to abortion and the rights of the LGBTQ community. She supported gay rights, gun control and access to abortion, and was the first Illinois legislator to sponsor the Freedom of Information Act.

Catania sponsored legislation that led Illinois to designate a state holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., helped revise the state's public aid code and provided emergency state aid for Cook County and Provident hospitals. In the case of Provident, the first Black-owned and operated hospital in America, she joined with then-legislator and later Chicago Mayor Harold Washington in co-sponsoring a bill that saved it from shutting its doors permanently. In all, more than 50 of her bills became law.

"She was bold, unafraid, and relentless at a time when that was a lot harder for women in our chamber," said Rep. Kelly Cassidy, the only openly gay female legislator serving in the Illinois General Assembly.

As news of Catania's death spread, colleagues, neighbors and journalists who covered her career expressed on social media their admiration for her integrity and tenacity.

"I feel lucky to have known her!" said David Axelrod, former senior advisor to President Barack Obama, on X. Axelrod said he was "privileged" to cover Catania during his early career stint as a political reporter as she led "an epic battle for the Equal Rights Amendment and gave Phyllis Schlafly all she could handle."

Illinois State Comptroller Susana A. Mendoza lauded Catania on X for "blazing a great trail for women like me to follow."

On LinkedIn, Maudlyn Ihijerika, a longtime columnist for the Chicago Sun Times who grew up in the Near South Side neighborhood where Catania and her family lived, said she "was an inspiration to me and so many other young girls in our South Commons community� illuminating the possibilities in my formative years."

In an appreciation that Catania, known for her dry wit, would have enjoyed, the X account for the ERA Illinois Coalition tagged President Biden and advised, "in lieu of flowers, publish the Equal Rights Amendment."

Susan Kmetty was born on December 10, 1941, in Chicago. Her father, John Kmetty, had a business at 84th and Halsted making patterns and molds for heavy industrial equipment. Her mother, Helen Giffrow Kmetty, was a home economics teacher in the Chicago Public Schools. She attended Mother McAuley High School and St. Xavier College, where she earned a liberal arts degree with a chemistry focus, graduating in 1962.

After a year as a teaching assistant at Northwestern University she went to work as information director at a chemical research company located near the Lake Meadows apartment complex on Chicago's Near South Side in the district she would later be elected to serve. In 1963 she married Anthony Catania, whom she'd met at an intercollegiate Glee Club event, and the couple moved to the complex.

Her path to feminism and public service began after learning that a younger and less experienced male colleague was being paid twice her salary. After several trips to Springfield to testify on relevant legislation she decided to seek elective office. At that time, a special circumstance known as cumulative voting enabled her to skirt the Daley machine and run�and win�as a Republican. Her legislative service ran from 1973 to 1983.

You can read a personal appreciation, from which much of this obit is drawn, with more details about Susan's political journey by her daughter, journalist Sara Catania, at https://medium.com/@Catanify.

Upon leaving office, Catania served as a fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School at Harvard University. In subsequent decades, she survived breast cancer and bone cancer and went on to a second career, earning a masters degree in social work from the University of Chicago and working for the Illinois Department of Human Services until her retirement.

"It is hard to describe today the courage it took to be a feminist politician in that era, let alone in Illinois which was so central to the hopes for ERA," said Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma who covered Catania as a young journalist in Chicago. Shapiro said Catania will long be remembered for her "intelligence, her clear-eyed understanding of how politics works and her immovably decent center of gravity."

Catania was preceded in death by her mother and father, Helen and John Kmetty, and, in July of 2022, her husband of 58 years, Anthony Edward Catania.

She is survived by daughter Susan Wigsmoen and husband Dave Wigsmoen, daughter Rachel Catania and husband Levon Karayan, daughter Sara Catania and husband Mark Nollinger, daughter Melissa Catania, daughter Amy Catania and partner Benjamin Kent, daughter Annemarie Catania, and daughter Margaret Catania and husband Wesley Williams; and grandchildren Andrew Wigsmoen, Alex Wigsmoen, Sophia Karayan, Remy Karayan, Lincoln Karayan, Genevieve Nollinger, Lucas Nollinger, Elijah Catania, Grey Catania, Alice Catania, Francesca Catania, Inertia Catania and Aviva Catania.

As an only child, Susan was delighted to join her husband Tony's large Italian American family and she is also survived by many beloved members of her extended Catania family.

A private celebration of Susan's life will be held in January. Friends who would like to attend, please contact a family member.

In lieu of flowers please donate to the (volunteer) Eagle River Area Fire Department 715-479-8835, fairfight.com, or your local library.