By Matt Simonette

Staff writer

Family, friends and community members gathered Jan. 12 at University of Illinois at Chicago to pay respects to and remember the life of Lisa Tonna.

Tonna, who served as interim director of Lesbian Community Cancer Project and directed Center on Halsted’s Anti-Violence Project and various anti-smoking programs, among numerous accomplishments in the Chicago GLBT community, died Jan. 8.

To create the effect of a garden, several dozen planters filled with daisies and ferns were laid out at the head of the conference room in the UIC Student Services Building. Large terra cotta pots filled with colorful plants and flowers flanked each side of the podium.

“You wouldn’t see Lisa with a regular funeral wreath,” remarked one observer.

By the time the memorial began, all seats were filled and the overflow audience was left either standing in the back of the room or sitting in the aisles. Each person was given a charm that had been threaded by Tonna’s friends and family.

After an opening prayer to the Goddess, those closest to Tonna came forward and offered their remembrances. Every speaker noted Tonna’s commitment to social justice and the fight against inequality.

Theo Pintzuk, who did activist work alongside Tonna, said, “I knew of her as this shadowy, large presence at this place called Horizons. …(She) could make things happen.”

Describing Tonna’s “deep sense of humanity and her vision for what the world could be,” Pitzuk said, “Lisa worked hard to live in a kindler, gentler world. Her vision was complex, because she saw the personal and the political as entertwined.”

The strong sadness over Tonna’s passing was tempered by many warm anecdotes about her.

Her friend Tessie Lennon-Dorn joked that Tonna would often take her commitment to diversity and spirituality too far on birthdays.

“Lisa’s birthday gifts were always different. She’d give me books about women’s history or Goddess paraphanaglia. …I (asked) Lisa, ‘Could you just give me a Barbie?’” Lennon-Dorn said.

Avis Jamison, Tonna’s partner of 13 years, remembered meeting Tonna for the first time.

“(For) 13 years, I loved this woman, from the first day,” Jamison said. She recalled a mutual friend who, upon learning that she and Tonna were dating, came up to her and dropped to her feet.

“You’re dating Lisa now, right? You are it,” the friend said.

“I stand before you with my hair uncombed because that’s the way Lisa loved it. …My shirt’s un-ironed because Lisa never ironed and my belly hanging over my belt because she fed me so well. And she loved me for who I was, and I could not ask for a more warm, loving, strong person in my life,” Jamison said.

The memorial closed with a performance of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” Tonna’s favorite song, and more testimonials from Tonna’s acquaintances.