North Shore Death Notices: Week of May 17 - May 23

The following death notices were added to funeral homes serving the North Shore area in the past week. Those homes have provided obituaries for some of those that have passed away recently. Links to those obituaries and notices of upcoming services have been provided below.

Kelley & Spalding Funeral Home, 1787 Deerfield Road in Highland Park

Joseph C. Pugliese, 93, Deerfield
Visitation May 24, Mass May 25

John K. Wilcox, 81, Lake Forest
Service May 26

Robert L. Winter, 87, Highland Park

Donnellan Funeral Home, 10045 Skokie Boulevard in Skokie

Regina A. Krakowski née Sobczak, 94, Evanston
Visitation and Mass May 24

Peter A. Sheehan, 88, Wilmette
Visitation May 25, Mass May 26

Jeanette D. Shomo, 88

John E. Burke, 74, Winnetka

Haben Funeral Home, 8057 Niles Center Road in Skokie

Jacqueline M. Mohrlein née Mazur, 73, Chicago
Visitation May 23

Edward H. O'Keefe, 76, Skokie
Visitation May 24

Patricia B. Waldron née Coogan, 81, Skokie

Sureshi K. Sharma, 68, Morton Grove

Reuland & Turnbough, 1407 N. Western Avenue in Lake Forest

Peter W. Smith, 81, Lake Forest

Wenban Funeral Home, 320 Vine Avenue in Lake Forest

Richard Biondi, 69, Highland Park
Visitation May 23, Mass May 24

Richard Laue, 86, Vernon Hills
Mass May 23

Chicago Jewish Funerals, 8851 Skokie Boulevard in Skokie

Allen Shiner, 82
Service May 23

Jacob Brody, 87

Jack Christensen, 63

Lyudmila Bolotina, 78

Lester Kalfen, 98

Freda Glantz, 101

Eugene Balter, 87

Ann Nayser, 97

Gary Zussman, 60

Scott Kroman, 61

Sheldon Galnick, 84

Ella Lozovsky, 82

Dr. Gerald Gordon, 91

Elizabeth Katz, 94

Gertrude Kite, 93

Sylvia Ray, 90

Featured Obituary:

John E. Burke, age 74 of Winnetka.

Dr. Burke was the true embodiment of a renaissance man. As an undergraduate at Marshall University, Dr. Burke double majored in communications and political science. While studying for a doctorate, he took a job at a local television station as a reporter. However, his focus shifted from broadcast communications when he was appointed head of the Department of Medical Communications within the School of Allied Medical Professions at The Ohio State University. As he observed in a 2014 interview, “from that point to this, I’ve worked at the intersection of communications and healthcare.”

He then worked for 14 years as Director of Bio-Medical Communications at The Ohio State University. He later worked in the Department of Allied Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago as an Associate Dean and professor. Dr. Burke was also appointed Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of The Journal of Allied Health.

Dr. Burke transitioned from academia to the corporate world when he accepted a position at Abbott Laboratories where he was Manager of Scientific Relations. He retired from Abbott Laboratories and began a new career as CEO of an international healthcare accreditation association, AAAHC in 1997. Under Dr. Burke’s leadership, AAAHC grew significantly and experienced tremendous financial success. Landmark achievements during his tenure include: increasing the number of AAAHC-accredited organizations from approximately 600 to 6,000, expanding skilled support staff from eight full-time employees to more than 65, founding the AAAHC Institute for Quality Improvement in 1999 to provide opportunities for ambulatory health care organizations to benefit from performance measurement and benchmarking, launching the first Medical Home accreditation program based on on-site review in 2009, and the establishment of AAAHC International (now Acreditas Global) in 2010.

Beyond communications and healthcare, Dr. Burke was a passionate collector. In 2015, he published a memoir, Never Enough: Confessions of a Capricious Collector, a personal and knowledgeable account of his growth as a collector of netsukes, Persian carpets, walking sticks, and antique watches. In 2016, Dr. Burke was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus honor from the College of Liberal Arts at Marshall University.

Employees who worked with him over the years remember Dr. Burke as a mentor who encouraged them by emphasizing their strengths and focusing on the positive. In an addition to an outstanding leader, Dr. Burke was a devoted father, loving husband and loyal friend. He will be truly missed by all who knew him.

He was the beloved husband of Mary Kay Burke nee Enright, loving father of John Burke, Elizabeth (Tom) Beaty and CC Burke, proud grandfather of Lindsey (Jon) Tees, Will Burke and Tom Beaty, great grandfather of Penelope Beaty, dear brother of Kathryn (Jack) Munsey, fond brother-in-law of JoAnn (Buzz) McKibben, and loving uncle of Jennifer McKibben and the late Scott McKibben.