—Chicago lesbian pioneer and civil-rights activist Jackie Anderson died after a short illness on Jan. 7.
—Chicagoan Therese Curran passed away Jan. 8 unexpectedly from a tragic fall.
—Phlebotomist and amateur photographer Adrien Iris Pakovsky passed away in January.
—Elpidia Casillas Gomez Valle—mother of Center on Halsted CEO Modesto Tico Valle—died peacefully in her sleep on Jan. 16. She was 78.
—Native Chiacagoan Darlene Lorraine Cross passed away Jan. 17.
—Elizabeth E. Owen passed away peacefully Jan. 27 at home in Chicago. She was 43.
—Frasier actor and longtime Oak Park resident John Mahoney died Feb. 4.
—Dr. Kathryn Noel Farrow, 46—physician, scientist, wife, mother, and mentor—died peacefully on Feb. 7 following a three-year battle with cancer.
—Joseph Thomas Stack, 54, visual artist and award-winning architect of Chicago's Lake View neighborhood, passed away peacefully Feb. 11.
— George Malcolm Mariner, attorney, longtime of Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood, passed away gently at home Feb. 25.
—Miriam U. Hoover passed away at her home in Palm Springs March 6. Miriam, the aunt of Chicago LGBT activist and philanthropist Michael Leppen, followed her nephew's guidance on her support of HIV/AIDS and LGBT causes for decades.
—South Side Help Center founder Betty L. Smith, 76, died March 6 at home from Alzheimer's disease complications and a long illness.
—Varoujan "Var" Ketenjian, 56, of Barrington, passed away unexpectedly on March 9. He was 56.
—Original Trikone Chicago board member Deepa Patel, 31, died March 9 at Loyola Medical Center.
—Chicagoan Daniel Joseph Howard, 53, passed away April 1.
—Community activist Bruce Barnes Jr. died April 4 at home due to complications from HIV and cancer. He was 62.
—Northwestern University reproductive biologist Neena Schwartz—who discovered the hormone inhibin and its role in the regulation of reproductive cycles—died April 15. She was 91.
—Sharon Avalon O'Flynn, a longtime Lake View resident and retired airline sales rep, passed away peacefully April 17.
— Attorney and River Forest resident Howard Wax passed away May 12.
— Chicago-based singer/songwriter, therapist and activist Paula A. Walowitz died May 23 after a short battle with cancer.
—Playwright Ron Weaver, who wrote Hell in a Handbag's 2017 Bewildered production, died June 4.
—Longtime LGBTQ activist Arthur Gursch died June 22. He was 72.
—Chicagoan Nancy Wynne Crane passed away June 24.
—James M. Schulze, a lifelong Chicago Heights resident, passed away in July.
—Val's halla Records store owner Val Camilletti, 78, died July 24 at the British Home in Brookfield, Illinois of complications from breast cancer. She was a resident of Cicero at the time of her death.
—Edward George Raap, 78, of Chicago and Puerto Vallarta passed away unexpectedly but peacefully after a brief illness in August.
—Transgender Chicagoan Dejanay Stanton died by homicide on Aug. 30.
—Marcia J. Lipetz, who was prominent within several significant organizations in Chicago's LGBT community, passed away in September.
—Ciara Minaj Carter Frazier, who was transgender, died by homicide on Oct. 3.
— Writer Robert Klein Engler, of Chicago and Omaha, passed away Oct. 3 in Omaha. He was 75.
—Steven William Jones, 48, architect, died Nov. 2 at his home in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood.
—Todd Anthony Lillethun—a filmmaker and social worker who was a resident of Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood—passed away peacefully at home on Nov. 14. He was 46.
—Kathleen Ada Shaw died Dec. 20 of endometrial cancer. She was 62.
