Virginia Marie Plys, nee Sayre. Ginger loved and lived for her family and friends; Chicago; and Lake Michigan with its unique dune ecosystem and beaches. She died in her hometown, Chicago, on August 13, 2024. Ginger and her late husband of 56 years, Al, are survived by their children, Marty (Meta Brown), Tim (Kamie) and Cate (Ron Garzotto); grandchildren Brittni, Alex, Georgie, Carly, and Dearborn; and her beloved nieces and nephews.

Ginger was born and raised in South Shore's St. Philip Neri parish, making every sacrament there. Ginger's and her five siblings' lives were forever changed in 1936 by the death of their father, Louis Sayre, when Ginger was just six. Two of her earliest memories were her dad reading to her every night before bed, and laying in his coffin for the wake in their home at 74th and Luella. Her mother, Mary "Mame" Hewson Sayre, managed to keep the family together in their home until the youngest girls were in high school. They sold the house then, and moved to a small neighborhood apartment. Ginger remembered that she, Mame and sister Jonna built shelves in the front hall closet to make a little library, judging it more important than having a place to hang their coats.

Despite the death of her father, the family's declining financial resources, the Depression, and World War II, Ginger remembered a happy childhood surrounded by family. One aunt's family lived in the first floor of their two-flat home on Luella, and several more aunts lived in South Shore. But she also remembered going to the movies one Sunday afternoon in 1941 and coming out to find newsstands filled with the huge black headlines announcing the attack on Pearl Harbor. "That was the day everything changed," she recalled.

Ginger's oldest sister Francie married her beau Johnny Borda before he went off to war. Sister Jeanne joined the W.A.V.E.S. and served on the East Coast, and brother Stormy joined the Navy. They were dark years, but everyone survived the war. A bright spot was baby J.P. Borda, Francie's firstborn. They lived in the house on Luella until Johnny came home. Unfortunately, the Bordas moved to the east coast and were disconnected from the Sayre family after Frannie's tragically young death in 1955. Ginger was never so thrilled as when Francie's children reconnected with the family in the 1990s.

After high school, young Ginger attended a year of college at St. Xavier's, then left to blow a $500 inheritance on a six-week trip to Europe instead. She never regretted it, though she didn't mention that part until after her own kids were done with college. She never forgot visiting the Vatican. Afterward, she became a working girl as a secretary downtown and had a great time with her boss, who nicknamed her "Speedy" for her quick shorthand.

A girlfriend fixed Ginger up on a double date one weekend with Al Plys, a young Polish chemical engineer from Hegewisch who'd recently finished his Korean War army service. Al's first gift to Ginger was a gorgeous alligator purse. They loved to go out swing dancing in the ballrooms back then, especially the Trianon. After they retired, they took the Queen Elizabeth oceanliner to England once when the Bob Crosby Orchestra was playing, and they won a ship award. One of Ginger's fondest recollections of dating was the time Al challenged her on whether she could really tell the difference between the chocolate chip ice cream at her two favorite South Shore ice cream parlors, Cunis's and Mitchell's. Specimens were procured from both stores, and Ginger was blindfolded for the taste test. She won!

Al won too, because they were married at St. Phillip Neri on September 8, 1956, holding a small afternoon reception in the restaurant that was then on the roof of the Del Prado Hotel at 53rd and Hyde Park Boulevard. Their best wedding picture is from the top of the Del Prado, with a sliver of blue Lake Michigan behind them and a tiny, tiny sailboat in the distance.

Al and Gin started out in a tiny apartment on 79th Street where it deadends at the Illinois Central (now Metra) train tracks. All three of their children—Marty, Tim and Cate (Cathryn) would be born at the University of Chicago Lying-In Hospital. The young couple moved into their first home, an orange brick bungalow in Dolton at 156th and Ellis, when Marty was a baby. The young family lived there until 1974, moving only a few blocks north to their second home. Ginger and Al devoted themselves to raising their growing family, pinching pennies like most couples of their Silent Generation. Ginger would remember that the first time they had any money to put in a savings account came when a driver crashed into one of the young trees Al had planted on the bungalow's parkway. The driver gave them some money to smooth it over. Rather than get a new tree, they opened their first savings account. Al righted the Pin Oak (as it was known), and though the tree was never quite right, it was good enough.

Ginger attended to everything around the house, including the three kids who must have driven her nuts much of the time. Al paneled the bungalow's basement, and built a partition wall to create his workshop on one side with the furnace in the corner. He also sawed out a portion of a big table to hold Ginger's sewing machine, which took up one corner of the basement. A couple of used love seats acquired for free through the ads in the weekly Shopper newspaper completed the basement. Al and his Uncle John built the garage in Dolton, and at the second house, they built the only screened-in patio in the neighborhood. A big night for Ginger and Al, like all their friends, was going out to play bridge with the St. Jude bridge club, or hosting it themselves around the kitchen table, with a few TV trays holding bowls of Brach's candy that attracted small children who were supposed to be in bed like flies to honey.

As a youngster in Hegewisch, Al had always dreamed of owning a sailboat he could take out on Wolf Lake. At one point as a young man, he saved up just enough money for an old used boat, but his dad talked him out of it. Sometime around 1975 or 1976, Al heard about the Illiana Yacht Club on the shores of Wolf Lake, right up against the toll road where it cuts through the lake. Somebody was selling an old boat there, and it was time for Al's sailing dreams to come true. Every Sunday Al captained the boat during the club's three races, each kid taking a turn as "crew." Eventually the kids aged out, and Ginger took over—somewhat reluctantly at first, but soon an ambitious sailor. By the time Ginger and Al left the club in the early '90s, they were winning races for their class, and even a regatta.

Christmas Eves were spent with Gramma and Grampa Plys, and Aunt Mary Ann and the Lampas, in Hegewisch. Ginger made the kids (and later grandkids and in-laws) a personalized Christmas stocking with felt, beads and sequins. Christmas Day, Ginger always cooked a roast beef as an homage to the Sayre family's World War II holidays, when the family had saved up all their meat ration coupons for a Christmas roast beef. On Christmas Day, Aunt Weeze, Uncle Howard and cousin Joan Flynn came over for that roast beef, bringing Aunt Weeze's famous green bean casserole with the crispy onions on top. Later Christmas night, Aunt Jeanne and some Figliulo cousins would drop by for coffee and some extra dessert, sometimes joined by Aunt Jonna and her boys Miles, Jerry and Stephen.

The years flew by, with Ginger and Al always focused on giving the kids a good home and getting them through school—paying three college tuitions at once for a few years. Al taught the kids poker, while Ginger taught them Canasta and Hearts. Many nights were spent watching shows like "The Muppet Show," with an occasional quart of Cunis or Mitchell's chocolate chip ice cream split five ways.

As Ginger and Al finally finished paying for the kids, they started looking at houses on Hamlin Lake, where the family had spent a long weekend every year for much of the kids' childhoods at K's Cabins on a little bayou. They bought a little two-bedroom split level built into the side of a hill, renting out the bottom floor to someone who would act as caretaker and mow the lawn. Frugal as they were, Al and Ginger did most of the work on the place themselves initially, and boy did it need work. They used some of the awful old furniture in the house by painting it, they fixed up the bathroom, and they painted the kitchen cabinets. Outside, they invested in a second-floor front deck and painted the boathouse white, planting roses on the side facing the house. They watched the sunsets from the end of the dock, and they were never happier than when hosting their kids and grandkids on the lake.

All this they were able to do because they had always put their family first, planned and saved. They even paid for College Illinois for all their grandchildren, a plan that paid 100% tuition for anyone who went to a state school in Illinois, and the equivalent elsewhere. Ginger and Al had about 15 good years of retirement before Alzheimer's and illness interfered, with Al dying in 2012. They deserved so much more. Even so, they were the luckiest people in the world: They knew what was important, they worked hard, and they had each other.

Family and friends will meet Saturday, August 17, 2024, at St. Josephine Bakhita Catholic Church (formerly St. Philip Neri Catholic Church), 2132 East 72nd Street, Chicago, Illinois 60649 for a 10:00 a.m. Visitation followed by an 11:00 a.m. Funeral Mass. Interment Holy Cross Cemetery in Calumet City, Illinois.

In lieu of flowers, consider donating to one of Ginger's favorite causes—the Statue of Liberty ( statueofliberty.org ), the Sable Point Lighthouse Keeper's Association ( splka.org ), or the Chicago History Museum ( chicagohistory.org ).

For further information please call 312-421-0936.