100-Year-Old Evergreen Park Legend Rita McCord Lived A Full Life

EVERGREEN PARK, IL — Rita McCord is being remembered as an Evergreen Park legend who lived her life whole through her 100th birthday. She died Feb. 4 in Homer Glen, where she and her late husband, James, had moved in 2005. A memorial mass is planned for Saturday, June 24, at Most Holy Redeemer Church in Evergreen Park, where Rita and James had been long-time parishioners.

Rita was born June 18, in Philadelphia, Penn., to Gertrude and Bernard Gross, the second of six siblings that included three sisters (Helen, Maxine and Millie) and three brothers (Ed, Matt and Mickey). When she was 2 years old, her family relocated to Chicago. Rita graduated from Mercy High School in 1940, where she won an oratory contest for delivering a speech about the “Place of Religion in the World Today.” She was offered a scholarship, but declined it so she could work to send her younger brother to college instead.

Growing up on the South Side during the Roaring Twenties, Rita and her family lived across the street from the notorious Chicago crime boss, Al Capone. She enjoyed telling stories about Capone’s son, Sonny, pulling her around the neighborhood in a wagon. Rita’s parents rented their front lawn to the local press so they could keep track of Scarface's comings and goings.

Rita with her six siblings and parents, Max and Gertrude Gross.

She was one of the first female ticketing agents for TWA, unable to meet the height requirement for stewardesses in the dawn of jet air travel, because she couldn’t reach the plane’s overhead compartments. A TWA colleague brought her future husband to meet her at the ticketing counter.

Rita and James married Sept. 18, 1948. They settled in Evergreen Park where they raised three sons – James Jr., Ray Scott (Chip) and Mark – all Brother Rice High School graduates.

“She was so smart and able to help us with just about anything we needed help with, school work, projects, organizing our sports. She was on top of everything,” her son, Jim McCord, recalled. “I do remember Halloween as the only day of the year that she picked us up so we could go out trick- or-treating. She had a beautiful handmade costume, a beaded long dress, that was quite remarkable. We went as cowboys.”

Rita as a child. She grew up across the street from Al Capone.

Rita was an active, 50-year parishioner at Most Holy Redeemer, serving as a Eucharistic minister bringing communion to people who could not make it to church. She was also a master knitter, so renowned for her talent that Marshall Field’s asked her to knit high-end fashions. Rita’s sweaters and vests were legendary among her family, using the finest yarns. Her elegant knits were part of her everyday attire. Even when macular degeneration robbed her of much of her sight, she kept knitting by feel, her family said.

“She had a black belt in knitting,” her son said. “She taught a group of deaf children how to knit, and extended family members.”

Summers meant family road trips with the boys captured in home movies across the United States. In their later years, Rita and James would globe trot to visit family in such faraway places as Jamaica, Italy, France, Mexico, and Panama.

Rita was a master knitter, a hobby she enjoyed for 80 years.

“Rita was always a joy for me,” her granddaughter, Nora, said. “We lived overseas in different countries. It was always so special when she came to visit.”

A child of the Depression, Rita was incredibly thrifty. She poured through her coupons and loved a good bargain. She triumphed when she was able to buy a pair of Cole Haan shoes marked down from $126 to $36.

“This petite woman would jump into her red Cadillac DeVille, and drive that fancy old boat to Marshalls in Chicago Ridge,” Nora McCord said. “She found the nicest outfits, and was always so put together and pretty. Always part of the fun was knowing that it was discounted.”

McCord loved Christmas and decorated her home with treasures she had purchased from her travels. Another memory that stands out for McCord is a special bench in Duffy Park, which her grandmother referred to as her “story bench.”

“She’d make up stories and encourage us to make up stories,” her granddaughter said. "There was a feeling of ritualism sitting there and swinging our legs off the bench.”

In addition to being a master knitter, Rita was also an "orchid whisperer." Another skill she passed on to her grandchildren was picking out fruit. She was amazing at it, her granddaughter said.

“She taught us how to thump watermelon and cantaloupe,” Nora recalled. “We can lovingly say she wasn’t the greatest of all cooks, but she could make potato and chicken salad that would knock your socks off.”

In 2005, Rita and James moved to Marian Village in Homer Glen, where they lived out their final years together. Despite moving, Rita loved driving by her old house on Hamlin Avenue in Evergreen Park.

“As a kid, I remember seeing a chestnut on her dresser. It was always there,” Nora McCord said. “As an adult, I asked her about its significance. She said, ‘because you gave it to me.’”

Last year on a perfect summer day she celebrated her 100th birthday with her sons and their wives – whom she treated more like daughters than daughters-in-law – and her eight grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

Rita McCord was one of the first female TWA ticket agents.

“My kids are 5 and 7,” said another granddaughter, Julie McCord, who initially contacted Patch about her remarkable grandmother. “We really had a lovely time with Rita two weeks before she died. My daughter was teaching her a routine from dance school.”

In recent years, Rita busied herself writing and compiling her memories in a keepsake StoryWorth book: She outlived all her high school friends, who, like her, were more interested in their studies than chasing boys. She shot marbles as a kid. A secretary at the Cook County Loss Adjustment Bureau taught Rita to knit on her lunch hour. Television was a modern marvel when it first appeared in the 1950s.

“I was in my early 20s, then, and I could hardly believe it ,” Rita wrote. “And today, I'm so grateful that I can see my family, relatives and friends from all over the world at the touch of a button.”

Rita’s mind remained sharp until the end. In her final hours before leaving this world and transitioning to the next, everyone at Marian Village, including the custodian, came by to hold her hand.

“She was so excited to turn 100. She got COVID three weeks before her birthday and was determined to recover,” Julie McCord said. “She told us, ‘I might be the first to make it to 100. Now I want everyone else to make it to 100, too.’”

A celebration of life and memorial mass is planned for 10:30 a.m. Saturday, June 24, at Most Holy Redeemer Church, 9525 S. Lawndale, Evergreen Park. Arrangements are by Richard J. Modell Funeral Home in Homer Glen, where you can read her granddaughter Nora’s loving tribute to grandmother.

In lieu of flowers, donations to St. Jude Children's Hospital or NAMI Chicago in memory of Rita McCord are greatly appreciated.