Funerals begin today for Highland Park shooting victims

Those grieving for the Highland Park shooting victims begin the heavy task Friday of burying their loved ones.

The first funerals for the victims will be held Friday. Among those who will be memorialized Friday are Jacquelyn “Jacki” Sundheim, 63, and Steve Straus, 88, both of Highland Park. A visitation is also planned for Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78, who was visiting family from Morelos, Mexico.

They are among seven people who were shot and killed when a gunman opened fire from a rooftop at the Highland Park Fourth of July parade Monday.

Sundheim will be honored at the North Shore synagogue where she not only worked for decades but was a lifelong member. Sundheim taught preschool at North Shore Congregation Israel and also coordinated events such as bar and bat mitzvahs and weddings.

Her “work, kindness and warmth touched us all,” congregation leaders wrote in an online statement announcing her death. They said she she guided “innumerable among us through life’s moments of joy and sorrow, all of this with tireless dedication.”

“There are no words sufficient to express our grief for Jacki’s death and sympathy for her family and loved ones,” synagogue officials wrote.

Straus’ family described him a lover of culture with a curious mind who still commuted five days a week to his stockbroker office downtown.

[ These are the victims of the Highland Park July 4th shooting ]

A native of Chicago’s South Side, Straus was “very much a Highland Parker” and went to the parade each year, one of his sons told the Tribune.

Straus, said his son Peter Straus, was “very curious about the world.”

Toledo-Zaragoza’s family has said he’d planned to spend three months in the Chicago visiting family, something that had been delayed because of COVID-19.

As the father of eight, his family said, he had a large number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and he was surrounded by relatives at the parade when he died.

“Today Nicolas is our guardian angel,” his granddaughter Xochil Toledo wrote about Nicolas Toledo. “We ask you (to) please keep our family and all the families of this horrible tragedy in your prayers and stay strong as a community.”

Also killed in the shooting were Katherine Goldstein, 64, of Highland Park; Irina McCarthy, 35, and her husband Kevin McCarthy, 37, who left behind a 2-year-old son; and Eduardo Uvaldo, 69, of Waukegan.

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