Eleanor "Sis" Daley

Who was Eleanor "Sis" Daley?

Eleanor "Sis" Daley, born Eleanor Guilfoyle, was the wife of former Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley and the mother of former mayor Richard M. Daley.

Born in the south side Chicago neighborhood of Canaryville in 1907 as Eleanor Guilfoyle to a large Irish family, she met Richard J. Daley at a local ball game. Her brother, Floyd, who was a friend of Daley's, introduced the couple. Their first date was attending a Chicago White Sox game. "Sis" was a graduate of Saint Mary High School and was a secretary at a local paint company. After a six-year long courtship, during which her future husband finished law school, they married on June 17, 1936. The Daleys lived in a modest brick bungalow at 3536 South Lowe Street, close to where both had grown up. They had three daughters and four sons, in that order. Their eldest son, Richard M. Daley, was mayor of Chicago from 1989 through 2011. The youngest son, William M. Daley, served as U.S. Secretary of Commerce from 1997-2000. Another son, John P. Daley, is a member of the Cook County Board of Commissioners.

"Sis" Daley was a quiet woman who seldom spoke out on political matters. One exception was her criticism of Boss, the 1971 Mike Royko biography of Mayor Daley portraying the mayor in an unfavorable light. Always fiercely protective of her husband and family, her criticism of the book led to one local retailer leaving the book off its shelves. In 1972, developers had obtained the city's tentative approval of a proposal to tear down the old Chicago Public Library downtown and replace it with a modern office tower. Asked her view of the proposal by a Chicago Tribune reporter, Sis Daley observed that she had used the library as a child, and said of the demolition, "I don't think that would be nice." Soon thereafter, a city commission unanimously voted down the project.