2 Tootsie Roll employees die of COVID-19 as state death toll tops 5,000 Latest numbers
Two employees of the Tootsie Roll manufacturing plant on the Southwest Side have died of COVID-19, after the company announced last month that 18 employees had contracted the disease.
Cosme Tenorio and Angel Butron loved their jobs at the candymaker, their families said.
Tenorio, 62, was a maintenance man and had been with the company 43 years. He died Tuesday.
One of his last duties at the plant was posting signs and marking spots on the floor in an employee lunchroom to encourage social distancing, his wife, Maria Tenorio, said.
Tenorio lived in Oak Lawn and loved spending time with family, including his five children and 11 grandchildren.
He planned to retire this summer and move back to his hometown in Mexico.
He could often be found in his garage, listening to loud Mexican music or watching television.
“I used to tell him, ‘Take the pillow and blanket; don’t come back,’ ” Maria Tenorio said with a laugh.
“When we got back from the hospital, that’s the first thing my son did was [he] went to the garage and turned on his music real loud and cried,” she said.
‘Always thought of others’
Butron, another Tootsie Roll employee who’d been with the company 50 years and worked on a machine that mixed ingredients, died Saturday.
Butron, 75, lived near Midway Airport and came to the United States from Mexico in 1969.
“He just always had work on his mind, and it was important for him to know that family was taken care of,” his son Isaac Butron said.
When he arrived in the U.S., people helped Butron get his feet on the ground, so he made sure to do the same for others. Anyone who needed a meal, a place to stay for a few weeks, a way to get a car fixed — he’d help, family said.
The elder Butron would have celebrated his 52nd wedding anniversary with his wife, Carmen, in November.
Tenorio and Butron are among the 5,083 people who have died of COVID-19 in Illinois, after state health officials announced another 160 deaths Wednesday.
The latest toll could include some deaths from over the holiday weekend, according to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office, which warned that many state laboratory workers were off Memorial Day. The high tally comes after four consecutive days of fewer than 100 deaths, something that had not occurred since mid-April.
There were also 1,111 new cases reported, raising the state’s total to 114,306. The state received 17,179 test results, officials said. All regions of the state remained on track to enter Phase 3 of Pritzker’s reopening plan Friday.
MSI layoffs, trials delayed again
The Museum of Science and Industry announced it has laid off about a quarter of its staff. The museum is also requiring the remaining staff to take 10 furlough days and is introducing “graduated pay reductions” for the majority of employees, a spokeswoman said.
The Circuit Court of Cook County will delay most pending civil and criminal cases for another month, while continuing to handle new cases and emergency hearings. A new general order will extend the court’s modified schedule through July 6.