Street vendor dies after hospitalization with virus
Felipe Vallarta, a wellknown street vendor in the Rogers Park neighborhood, died Friday after being hospitalized with COVID19 for several weeks.
Vallarta, who was 61, contracted the virus days away from getting his first dose of a vaccine in early April, his daughter Elizabeth Jimenez said.
On Friday morning at 10 a.m., the family gathered to pay him one last visit before he was disconnected from the ventilator, said his niece Mercedes Vallarta. The Cook County medical examiner confirmed Vallarta’s death.
His granddaughter, Jany Andrade, 21, played his favorite songs from Vicente Fernandez right before he was disconnected.
“As much as doctors tried, they said there was nothing left to do to save him; he needed to rest,” said Mercedes Vallarta. She added that his wife, daughter and granddaughter are inconsolable.
He and his wife, Zenaida
Castillo, 74, had been selling elotes — corn — and other Mexican snacks on the corner of Rogers Avenue and Clark Street since 2015, when Castillo lost her job as a babysitter.
The couple became one of Chicago’s favorite street vendors after Vallarta shared his love for his labor as a street vendor for a video for the Chicago Sun-Times.
The two immigrated from Puebla, Mexico, and lived for more than 20 years in Rogers Park, where they “had many friends and neighbors who appreciated him,” said his wife during an interview in early May.
Hundreds of people donated money to a GoFundMe page that Andrade opened in April to help the family pay for medical expenses.
Now the money will be used to cover funeral expenses, including burial in his native town in Mexico, said Mercedes Vallarta.
Still hopeful that her husband was going to heal from the virus, Castillo said she had decided to open shop again in May to earn money to pay for rent.
Castillo said she and her husband struggled to find appointments to get a COVID-19 vaccine sooner despite their age and even though Vallarta had existing health conditions.
She got her first dose in mid-March and Vallarta was set to get his April 17, but he fell ill the first week of April and was placed in a medically induced coma April 25 at Glenview Hospital, Jimenez said.
“As much as I tried, I couldn’t get them both appointments to get the vaccine at the same time,” Jimenez said in a previous interview.
Vallarta was a “friendly and a very hardworking man that cared deeply for his family and others,” said Mercedes Vallarta.
His mother, who is 80, last saw him in February before she left for their hometown in Puebla. Since he fell ill, she called several times to see him through Zoom calls.
“She is devastated but tries to be strong,” Mercedes Vallarta said.