Mary Ann Smith was the North Side 48th Ward’s alderman for 22 years and built a reputation for beautification efforts while also highlighting the ward’s diversity and working to make it safer.
“In terms of the way she managed the ward, she was always watching out for the people who needed to be watched out for,” said former state Sen. Heather Steans, a longtime friend.
Smith, 77, died of complications from Parkinson’s disease on July 31 at Swedish Hospital, said her son Matthew. She was a resident of the Andersonville neighborhood.
Born Mary Ann Scherer in Chicago, Smith grew up on the Northwest Side and graduated from Regina Dominican High School in Wilmette. She attended the now-defunct College of Saint Teresa in Winona, Minnesota, from 1964 until 1967 and in 1985 received a bachelor’s degree from Mundelein College in Chicago.
Smith worked in the art department of Encyclopedia Britannica and then at the Lake Michigan Federation, a nonprofit group formed in 1970 aimed at providing citizens with a way to monitor what was discharged into the lake. She later started a public relations firm, and one of her accomplishments was increasing the visibility of Jewelers Row on Wabash Avenue in the Loop, her son said.
Smith teamed up with Kathy Osterman, who later became the 48th Ward’s alderman, to form a citizen watchdog group known as Operation Lake Watch, aimed at trying to clean up the lake and its beaches.
“It was a citizens initiative to test waters on the beaches for coliform and other forms of bacteria, because the beaches were being closed but only after people became sick from them,” said former Edgewater Historical Society President Bob Remer. “They got all these fishermen in Montrose Harbor to do water samples, and they embarrassed the city so much — they found all these outflows being dumped into the lake from ChicagoFest on Navy Pier and from McCormick Place.”
In 1987, Smith was a volunteer with Osterman’s 48th Ward aldermanic campaign. Osterman won an 11-person race to replace Ald. Marion Volini and hired Smith to be her office assistant. Two years later, Osterman left to head Mayor Richard M. Daley’s office of special events, and Daley appointed Smith as the ward’s new alderman
Reelected to a full term in 1991, Smith spent 22 years in office focusing on rebuilding her ward’s schools, upgrading its parks, improving public transit, protecting senior citizens and the mentally ill, scrutinizing local development and emphasizing public safety — including making intersections safer, installing speed bumps, bike lanes and a traffic circle.
Smith’s family said she helped bring more than $90 million worth of investment into her ward’s schools, including at Pierce Elementary School, George B. Swift School and Senn High School. She also chaired the City Council Committee on Parks and was vice chair of the City Council Subcommittee on the Chicago Lakefront.
“She made a lasting impact on our schools and our parks, rebuilding our schools and rebuilding the parks so that young families can have a wonderful place in Chicago to live and raise their family,” said Kathy Osterman’s son, former Ald. Harry Osterman.
Smith made environmental sustainability a priority, with a focus on alternative energy and flood control. She championed the nation’s first water-permeable alley, which was installed in her ward in 2001, and also was a big backer of rain gardens, which prevent water from entering the city’s storm sewer system.
Smith also promoted historic preservation in her ward, and was the driving force behind efforts to create several historic districts in her ward that are recognized by the National Park Service’s National Register for Historic Places.
Remer, who had been collaborating with Smith on a book about the Edgewater community area, said Smith was a strong supporter of bricolage murals and mosaics that were placed on the walls of underpasses in her ward, including on Foster Avenue. Smith told the Tribune in 2009 that she came up with the idea for a bricolage to celebrate Chicago’s Native American community after being inspired by American Indian art on a trip to Alaska and also after the success of another mosaic in 2007 on Bryn Mawr Avenue.
Friends and colleagues said Smith involved as many people as possible in the decision-making process.
“Mary Ann was very much a big-picture thinker who had a very strong intuitive sense about how to translate those ideas into the day-to-day work of providing constituent service,” former state Sen. Carol Ronen said. “She created a vibrant 48th Ward (and) fostered the development of block clubs and nurtured them. Most important, she listened to them — it wasn’t unusual to hear her ask, ‘What does the block club think about this?’”
One of Smith’s forms of outreach in her ward was a “mobile alderman’s office,” in which she would situate herself with a table, chairs, some flags and some staffers at an outdoor locale on certain evenings in her ward. The effort provided her with the opportunity to hear all manner of constituent complaints and concerns, large and small.
“There’s a rule of thumb when you’re an alderman: your ward always comes first,” Smith told the Tribune in 1990. “I mean if you’ve got any brains — your ward always comes first.”
Harry Osterman, who succeeded Smith as alderman and stepped down from the City Council last year, said Smith’s legacy as an alderman is one of kindness, sincerity and a real love of community.
“We represent a very diverse part of Chicago, with lots of different people from different walks of life,” he said. “It’s a wonderful mosaic and Mary Ann nurtured that in her leadership as kind of like a mom. And whatever she did, it was done with a deep sincerity and authenticity.”
After choosing not to seek reelection to the City Council in 2011, Smith consulted on environmental issues, including spending two years working to form a nonprofit group to provide environmental education for children and youth in the Cook County Forest Preserve system.
Smith’s husband of 47 years, longtime John Marshall Law School professor Ronald C. Smith, died in 2018. In addition to her son, Smith is survived by another son, Michael.
A funeral service is set for noon on Friday, Aug. 23, at Saint Ita Church, 5500 N. Broadway St., Chicago. A celebration of life service will take place from 2 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 26, at Palm Court at Loyola University Chicago, 1020 W. Sheridan Road, Chicago.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
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