Maria Whelan, 69, Formerly Of East Hampton, Dies

Maria Whelan, 69, who spent her entire professional career advocating for children and families, died of a heart attack in Chicago on June 10.

At the time of her death, Ms. Whelan was president and chief executive officer of Illinois Action for Children, a nonprofit agency in Chicago that works on the local and state level for funding for childcare, early childhood education, and other programs designed to help working families.

“Maria Whelan devoted her career to improving the lives of children, families, and communities,” said Governor J.P. Pritzker. “Her legacy will no doubt continue to shape Illinois’s education and human services landscape.”

“This is a tremendous loss for everyone associated with Illinois Action for Children and families across Illinois have lost one of their strongest and most passionate voices, and hers is a voice that cannot be replaced,” said Celena Roldan, the chairwoman of the agency’s board of directors.

“She was able to work with everyone, Republicans and Democrats,” said her husband, Jack Wuest. “It was tough work, but she got a lot of joy from seeing the results she was able to achieve.”

Family members said Ms. Whelan was a force of nature, who was not afraid of standing up to powerful interests at city hall and the statehouse to demand they provide the kind of services working families needed to better prepare their children for life. But they also described her as warmhearted and welcoming.

“Maria created community wherever she was and saw in every person someone worthy of respect, a good joke, and a great story,” her daughter, Ellen Rose Whelan-Wuest of Cornwall, Vermont, wrote in a tribute to her. “She worked tirelessly to expand opportunity and happiness for as many people as possible and the world is forever changed by her.”

Ms. Whelan, who was born on December 4, 1950, at Southampton Hospital, was raised in East Hampton — one of 12 children of Duane and Mary Whelan, members of the Catholic Worker movement, who settled in Northwest Woods in the 1950s. She was a member of the last graduating class of the Academy of the Sacred Heart of Mary in Sag Harbor in 1968.

She moved to Chicago after graduating from Clarke College in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1972, to attend graduate school at the University of Chicago.

After receiving a master’s degree in educational leadership, she started her professional career at the bottom — working as a janitor at St. Mary’s School, an alternative school on Chicago’s west side. While working at St. Mary’s, she met other like-minded educators who developed what would become the Carole Robertson Center for Learning, a childcare center named for one of the four girls killed in the terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963.

Ms. Whelan served as the center’s founding executive director from 1976 to 1989 when she was awarded the Community Service Fellowship from the Chicago Community Trust, which allowed her a year to study child development and family support systems both in the United States and abroad.

She later served as director of children’s services for the City of Chicago’s Department of Human Services under Mayor Richard M. Daley and as a senior program officer at the Chicago Community Trust before moving to Illinois Action for Children in 2001.

Besides her husband, whom she married on June 30, 1979, and daughter, Ms. Whelan is survived by two other daughters, Catherine Mary Merritt of Evanston, Illinois, and Maeve Margaret Whelan Wuest of Portland, Oregon, and three grandchildren.

She is also survived by nine brothers and sisters, Margaret Eaton of East Montpelier, Vermont; Susana Kelly of Highland Beach, Florida; Rebecca O’Herron of Newburgh, New York; David Whelan of Sag Harbor; Anne Mullins of Orland Park, Illinois; John Whelan of East Hampton; Martha Whelan-Robinson of Evansville, Indiana; Elizabeth Whelan Kotz of Bridgehampton; and Joseph Whelan of Bristol, Rhode Island.

She was predeceased by her parents and her brother Peter Whelan and sister Catherine M. Foley.

A funeral service for the family was held at the Donnellen Funeral Home in Chicago. Ms. Whelan’s ashes will be buried in Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago.

Mr. Wuest said memorial gatherings will be held in East Lyndon, Vermont, where the family shared a cottage with siblings, and in Chicago, once the coronavirus pandemic passes.

“We could fill Soldier Field,” he said, “and if we limited everyone to one Maria story, we could probably get through it in 48 hours.”