It was 6 a.m. Thursday when sisters Angelita Sanchez and Vanessa Garcia learned through a news report the Rogers Park townhome where their sister, mother and two nephews lived was on fire.
They later received the devastating news that all four of them had died.
The victims were identified by relatives as Valentino Vallejo, 13; Francisco Vallejo, 24; Mariza Garcia, 48; and Maria Jimenez de Garcia, 69.
Sanchez said the tragedy represented the loss of a family matriarch who held her daughters together, particularly after their father died during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’re women power. She was the head of the woman power,” Sanchez said of her mother. “We’re family bound.”
A day later, as relatives searched their charred home at 7049 N. Paulina St. for belongings and keepsakes, neighbors and strangers stopped to offer condolences, prayers and donations.
Among them was Ellen Baren, who lives a couple of blocks away. Although she didn't know the family, the news of the fire and the deaths hit her deeply. She walked to the home to pay her respects, but began to cry as she approached.
“It's sad because all of a sudden it started and all of a sudden, you know, it was over. Their lives were over,” Baren said.
Standing across the street, Baren sang a Jewish prayer: “May your memory be for a blessing.”
“The prayer isn't so much about someone passing away as much as it is to live a good life,” Baren said.
As the sisters kept watch over their family home, they confronted not only the loss of four loved ones but the difficult prospect of arranging four funerals.
“Four bodies, four burials,” Vanessa Garcia said. “That's hard. Times are hard already, and for us to think about the amount of money that's gonna cost. It's sad to say, but you do worry about that."
A GoFundMe campaign launched Thursday had raised about $87,000 by Friday evening to assist with costs toward a $140,000 goal.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Family members said the home had working smoke detectors. Chicago Fire Department personnel were also at the scene Friday distributing smoke detectors and fire safety information to residents in the area, according to a department post on X.
Mayor Brandon Johnson, who visited Rogers Park Friday as part of his Working People Neighborhood Tour, called the deaths an “absolute tragedy.”
“Lives in communities are not the same when tragedy like that occurs, and so we are praying for the families and all those who were connected to these individuals,” Johnson said.
The family's loss reached beyond the relatives and immediate neighbors. Among those contributing to the fundraiser was Ana Blasini, a server at South of the Border, a restaurant around the corner that the family regularly frequented.
She remembered Mariza as cheerful and quick to joke with staff. When she saw news of the fire, she was stunned.
“I was at a (traffic) light and then stopped the car because I was in shock,” Blasini said.
Still in disbelief, Blasini said she tried to call Mariza that morning, hoping the news wasn't true.
“I can't believe that that's happened because honestly, they don't deserve that," she said. "There are really good people, really, really good people.”
The family's Rogers Park roots stretch back decades. Maria and her husband opened La Guadalupana, a Mexican restaurant in the Devon Avenue business district that closed in 2004 after a decade when he became ill.
“That was their dream when they came here,” Vanessa Garcia said. “They did their dream.”
Their family's generosity extended well beyond the restaurant. Relatives described a neighborhood where residents watched over each other's children, shared food and trusted them with house keys.
“We had the trust of leaving our house keys to each other,” Vanessa Garcia said. “That's how much of a trust ... all these townhomes we had with each other.”
Mariza carried that spirit into the wider community. She helped care for neighborhood children and volunteered as a catechist at St. Jerome's Catholic Church, where her son Valentino was preparing for his First Communion in May.
“She found peace by being in the community, in church more than anything,” Garcia said.
She was also a vocal advocate for people with disabilities, participating in the annual Special Olympics Polar Plunge to support of Francisco, who had intellectual disabilities.
The 24-year-old worked as a dishwasher at Northwestern University. The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Sun-Times.
Sanchez said her nephew's coworkers treated him with patience and respect.
“They didn't make him less because of his disabilities. They treated him like a normal person,” Sanchez said. “Never judged him because of his understanding of certain things. They had patience with him.”
Mariza's sisters plan to participate in the Polar Plunge this year in honor of her and their nephew.
This year we're gonna do it in honor of them, and we're gonna do it,” Sanchez said. “I'm gonna honor her in that way
Now, the sisters are holding onto one of their last celebrations together. Just days before the fire, Mariza and her mother helped create elaborate altars and decorations for Día de los Muertos, the Mexican holiday honoring loved ones who have died. The family gathered last Saturday to celebrate before heading to South of the Border, where Mariza and her mother enjoyed margaritas.
The sisters intend to continue the tradition, creating the altars each year in their mother and sister's memory.
“They did a whole bunch of altars of the Day of the Dead, and that's how we're gonna continue with our legacy, if God permits, to do it next year in honor of them,” Garcia said.
And they plan to return to the restaurant afterward, just as Mariza and their mother loved to do.
“I think that's gonna end our night,” Garcia said. “At South of the Border drinking a margarita in their honor.”
For Sanchez, carrying on those traditions means fulfilling her mother's greatest wish: keeping the family united and involved in the Rogers Park community that raised them.
“For the family to be united like we always have been, keep the same, what she wanted,” she said. “Be united. And be in the community as well.”
