Florence L. Gatti M.D.

Florence Long Gatti, M.D. passed away peacefully in her home the evening of October 31. She was 86. She and her husband William Gatti, M.D. (1938-2022) were married for 58 years and were blessed with five children: John, Bill, Suzanne (1968-1969), Joanne, and Lauren, and six grandchildren, Olivia, Elena, Tony, Lorenzo, Lucas, and Lina, who loved their "Gram" deeply.
Florence was born in 1939 on the South Side of Chicago to Mabel (née Dougherty) and John Long. She had one beloved younger brother, John, whose visits to the house were marked by peals of laughter and impressive quantities of Rolling Rock. Laughter was Florence's love language. She could find the humor in absolutely any situation. When going through challenging times, she often told her children, "If you can laugh, you can live." This ability to laugh in the face of any challenge was part of a deeper resilience: she refused to feel sorry for herself and never, ever complained.
Florence attended Mount Mary College in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where she majored in Biology and minored in French. Because the small women's college did not have a pre-med program, Sr. Thomasina, the brilliant nun who was Florence's Biology professor, offered intensive, one-on-one tutoring to prepare Florence to take the MCAT. She received an almost perfect score. She attended Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University of Chicago ('64), one of only six women, where she finished near the top of her class – and met her husband, Bill Gatti. When Bill, then the president of the medical school class, asked her to do something in her capacity as Secretary, she told him simply (and likely to his surprise), "You can do that yourself." It was a shocking moment when the blind date a classmate had set her up on revealed none other than Bill Gatti. Their courtship included Chicago jazz clubs (Ella!), trips to see Bill's family in New Jersey, and day trips to visit Florence's family on the South Side. Bill saved his money from his summers lifeguarding at the Jersey Shore to buy the engagement ring, and in November of 1964, they were married.
Florence worked as a Diagnostic Radiologist at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston for more than 20 years. During the early years of her career, she juggled her medical career with the raising of her four children. Somehow she managed to make dinner for her family of six every night and pack lunches for her children every day. After the children went to bed, Florence would often drink coffee and smoke her Benson and Hedges Menthol 100 cigarettes, yellow highlighter in hand, as she studied the most recent research articles in her professional journals. She was a brilliant diagnostician with a photographic memory. Florence's love of learning continued long after her retirement from medicine in 1995. For over ten years, she was a committed student at Northwestern's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), taking classes, relishing being an agent provocateur and sometimes creating the syllabi for her courses on literature and film (OLLI was student-led). "I go to Northwestern," she would say.
Florence was not only serious about her profession and intellectual life; she was also serious about her friendships. For years, she and Bill hosted epic parties at their house, first in Deerfield, then in Bannockburn where they lived since 1976. The house boomed with music and laughter as friends would raise full glasses, tell hilarious stories, and, on New Year's Eve, dance in the basement joined by their children and their children's friends to the songs on the juke box-Twisting the Night Away, Celebration, Hound Dog, and Bill's favorite, Africa by Toto. (Clean up started late on January 1). Time with friends extended beyond the Bannockburn house. She and Bill created countless memories with close friends, whether that was traveling together; celebrating Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the Fourth of July; the many trips to cheer on Notre Dame; or hosting her South Side and college friends for lunch at the house. She loved her children's friends, listening to them, asking them all sorts of questions and leaving a lasting impression that they smile (and often laugh) about to this day.
Florence was Chicago South Side, Irish Catholic to the core. She was hilarious, irreverent, and tell-it-like-it-is. She was brilliant and insightful. She was loving. She was an amazing mother, friend, and wife. She was one of a kind and we will miss her deeply.
In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts can be made via this link to support the education of young woman at Mount Mary who are following in Florence's footsteps 65 years later as they pursue pre-med or Biology as a major. You can also make checks out to Mount Mary University Please note "Health Sciences Premed - Florence Long Gatti, MD 1960" on the memo line of your check and mail to: Mount Mary University, NDH 154, 2900 N Menomonee River Parkway, Milwaukee, WI 53222.
A visitation is on Monday, November 10th from 4:00-8:00 p.m. at Kelley & Spalding Funeral Home, 1787 Deerfield Rd, Highland Park, IL. The funeral Mass will be held on Tuesday, November 11th at 10:00 a.m. at St. Patrick's 991 Waukegan Rd, Lake Forest, IL (in the old church) followed by the internment at St. Mary's Cemetery in Lake Forest.