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1963 – 2022 · born and raised in South Bend
The fame: Jackie Walorski represented Indiana's 2nd congressional district — South Bend's district — in the U.S. House of Representatives for five terms, from January 3, 2013, until her death in office in 2022, after three terms in the Indiana House of Representatives (2005–2010). She was a national figure in the ordinary congressional sense: a sitting member through four Congresses' fights over taxes, trade, and veterans' policy, known in Washington as an advocate for servicemembers and veterans, and her death — in a head-on collision in Elkhart County on August 3, 2022, which also killed two of her staff — was national news, honored by a resolution of the U.S. Senate.
The tie, exactly: Born and raised, and then employed by the place for her whole career. Jacqueline Renae Walorski was born in South Bend on August 17, 1963, grew up with two older brothers in the city's Gilmer Park neighborhood — her mother a meat cutter at a local grocery, her father a firefighter who also owned an appliance store — went to Hay Elementary, and graduated from James Whitcomb Riley High School in 1981. Her first career was South Bend media: a photographer for the South Bend Tribune and then an on-air reporter for WSBT-TV (1985–1989). Only then came Indianapolis and Washington. She is buried at Southlawn Cemetery, South Bend.
Sources:
- Biographical Directory of the United States Congress — the South Bend birth, Riley High School (1981), the Taylor University degree, the Indiana House and U.S. House service, the death and the Southlawn interment.
- U.S. Senate Resolution 748 (117th Congress) — the memorial recital of the life.
- House of Representatives, History, Art & Archives — the concise biography.