Women's Bar Association of Illinois

History: 90th Anniversary

With Mayor Daley’s proclamation, Friday March 5, 2004 became “WBAI Day” in Chicago.  Approximately 400 WBAI members, dignitaries and friends gathered at the Chicago Historical Society for a night of celebration.  Attendees were surrounded by the WBAI history presented in multi-media forms — from videotaped interviews of deceased WBAI members to a photo collage of recent WBAI events projected on the wall.  A framed group photo of twenty-one of the WBAI’s living past-presidents, made especially for this event, was displayed along with forty posters of WBAI past activities interspersed throughout the halls.  The forty posters went on display in the lobbies of the Daley Center and the Thompson Center for Women’s History Month after the event.  This event allowed the WBAI to raise approximately $12,000.00.

Attendees gathered for the presentation of the WBAI’s Chief Justice Mary Ann G. McMorrow Award, the very first award that any organization has named after Justice McMorrow.  The Chief Justice is one of the WBAI’s greatest treasures.  She served as our president in 1974 and for thirty five years has continued to support our association.  The first recipient of this award was Charlotte Adelman for her continued years of service and preservation of the WBAI’s history by singlehandedly writing the WBAI 75 – a history book of the WBAI’s First 75 Years.  The WBAI 75 can be downloaded under “The First 75 Years” section of this website or can be viewed in hard copy at local bookstores and law libraries.

“Thank you for awarding me the first Mary Ann G. McMorrow Award.  Recognition from one’s peers is wonderful and Judge McMorrow’s imprimatur doubled the award’s value to me.  Sharing the stage with Honorary Co-Chairs  Hon.  Mary Ann McMorrow, Hon. Anne Burke, Hon. Lisa Madigan, and Hon. Dawn Clark Netsch was memorable.  Witnessing the fabulous results from the tremendous effort put forth by the 90th Anniversary Event Co-Chairs Dawn Gonzalez, Deborah Gubin, and Patrice Ball-Reed was impressive.  Being the recipient of their warm attention was delightful.  I also compliment Elsie Holzwarth on her wonderful, history-rich posters.  Their subsequent display at the Daley Center and the State of Illinois Building gave them a much-deserved second life.

The 90th provided one really humorous moment.  As I gazed at the blow-up of the recent WBAI past President group photograph, it seemed different from the smaller version reproduced in the program book.  Something seemed odd.  In place of the boots I had worn for the photo-shoot, covering my feet was a pair of black pumps.  Luckily, the photographer was hanging about, so I was able to ask him how this miracle had occurred. The whiteness of my boots he explained attracted excessive attention, so he dubbed in a pair of shoes.

Closer examination revealed my new shoes were identical to the shoes being worn in the same picture by past-president Thelma Brook Simon.  We were both seated in the front row of the picture, on either side of Justice McMorrow.  Not only did I possess an exact duplicate of Thelma’s shoes, I possessed Thelma’s feet, and her neatly crossed ankles.

Many of you know that Thelma is petite and that I am not.  Thelma wears, say, a size 2 shoe. My shoe (and boot, for that matter) size is a 9.  It surprised me to be forever memorialized in this group photo as being feet challenged.  But seeing as the feet belong to Thelma, I choose to consider “having new feet” a permanent honor!”

Charlotte Adelman

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