Englewood – Mayor Olga Wolosyn died Thursday as friends and colleagues prayed for her.
Wolosyn suffered a series of aneurysms and strokes after falling ill last weekend during a budget meeting with city staffers.
Swedish Medical Center doctors had given a grave prognosis for her survival, friends and city officials said. Wolosyn, 54, had been in a coma at the Englewood hospital’s intensive-care unit.
Swedish spokeswoman Julie Lonborg said Wolosyn died Thursday afternoon.
Mayor pro tem Jim Woodward may have been the last person she spoke with.
At a city budget meeting Saturday morning, Wolosyn looked flushed.
“She got up and asked me to take over, that she needed to leave for a minute,” Woodward said.
A short time later, she was found unconscious on the floor of the women’s restroom.
She had arrived at the meeting with sunglasses, speaking of a penetrating headache behind her eyes.
Woodward will continue to serve as acting mayor until after the November elections. The newly elected City Council will select a mayor from its ranks.
Woodward said she was a friend and mentor to many.
“I’m working on a long list of everything she was involved in, and I know I’m forgetting things,” he said.
City politics was not her only passion. She and her husband, Jim Doty, ran Wolosyn-Doty Pottery.
She had no children of her own, but Wolosyn was an enthusiastic volunteer in schools, even helping sew costumes for plays, Woodward said.
She also served on the Englewood Education Foundation and the Englewood Public Schools’ Teenage Drinking Task Force. As mayor, she helped secure a $1 million grant for schools to teach math through arts programs.
“She truly was a huge advocate for Englewood,” said Bart Spedon, chairman of the Greater Englewood Chamber of Commerce. “She always wanted what was best for the city and local businesses. She had everyone’s best interest at heart.”
The chamber named her Business Woman of the Year in 2004.
A Mass is planned for 10 a.m. today at St. Louis Catholic Church, 3310 S. Sherman St. in Englewood.
