Claudia A. Haddad-Shane, 60, a lifetime community activist, died Nov. 1, following a decade-long battle with complications due to a spinal-cord injury. She was a native Chicagoan, daughter of the late Eli and Rose Haddad. She attended St. Hyacinth Elementary School and graduated from Madonna High School in 1963. Claudia earned an Associates Degree from Wright College. In 1998 she retired as Director of Operations for CANDO.
Her career spanned many disciplines, from entrepreneur to the nonprofit sector. Claudia was awarded numerous patents and copyrights for her designs of glass collectibles, produced by her company, Koenigswasser. She held various positions at Recycled Paper Greetings; coordinated national job fairs for KCS; and found her niche in the nonprofit sector at CANDO ( Chicago Association of Neighborhood Development Organizations ) .
Family life was Claudia's touchstone. She strove to honor the diversity of her upbringing in a Lebanese-Polish household. She dreamed of being able to travel to the family land she inherited in Dlebta, Lebanon. Claudia often cited her greatest achievement in life as being a mother.
Claudia was active in volunteer work her entire life, dedicated to promoting solutions on a grassroots level. She truly encompassed the ideal of 'the personal is the political.' Her natural ability to 'work a room' was the foundation of her networking abilities. She was involved in Chicago politics as a block captain and volunteered in many aldermanic campaigns. Her relentless pursuit to cut through rhetoric and implement actions benefited many organizations. Claudia championed the rights of lesbian mothers and women entrepreneurs. She was part of the successful class-action suit to gain wheelchair access to her beloved Cubs games at Wrigley Field.
She believed in accountability for monies raised through fundraising efforts; sharing her personal and business expertise with many organizations throughout the years. She was a board member of the Northwest Community Mental Health Center; the Rodde Center; the planning board for the creation of a lesbian community center during the 1980s; and Interfaith Housing.
Claudia supported womyn's music and culture through many venues: as a longtime member of the Mountain Moving Coffeehouse collective; as owner of Amethyst Productions ( which produced concerts by Kay Gardner, Musica Femina, Romanovsky & Phillips, among others ) ; and, channeling financial support to community artists.
Claudia is survived by her partner of 22 years, Marilyn K. Wilson; her daughter and her husband, Denise Grandon-Keane and Pat Keane; and grandson, Patrick Grandon. She was preceded in death by her parents and beloved son, J. Howard Shane.
On Nov. 3, 2005, a viewing was held and attended by family, friends and colleagues. She was cremated and entombment was private. In her honor, donations were made to the Christopher Reeve Foundation to promote spinal-cord injury research.
The family would like to thank all of the staff of the Niles Family Services Center and Advocate Medical Home Health Services, for their help and support.