On Friday, May 12, 2023, Juanita Ramirez transitioned to the next life. She was 93 years old.

Born June 24, 1929, in General Cepeda, Coahuila, Mexico, to Margarita Valdez de Galindo and Jesus Galindo. Her parents soon migrated to Nueva Rosita, Coahuila, where she attended la Academia Minerva and graduated at the top of her class. While working as a bookkeeper for multiple downtown businesses she met and soon married Jesus Ramirez Gutierrez (1927–1997). In 1957, she immigrated to Chicago from Nueva Rosita, Coahuila, with her three little girls—Magda (1950–2019), Margarita and Norma, to join her husband Jesus Ramirez, who had immigrated a year earlier. In Chicago, they would have a fourth daughter, Patricia.

Juanita was devoted to her family and worked to provide her daughters with a good life with the little they had, often sewing their Easter outfits, assisting them with their homework, baking their birthday cakes, and never missing celebrating the holidays with her family. Later in life, she was a consistent volunteer at her grandchildren's elementary school, Inter-American.

A profoundly pious and religious woman, she was a member of St. Sebastian, then Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and finally St. Alphonsus Catholic parishes—chasing the remaining Spanish masses in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood despite fully understanding and speaking English. Over the years, she served as a lector, choir member, and minister of Holy Communion at these parishes.

Juanita was a proud, intelligent, and kind woman. She always had a nice outfit. She demanded perfection from herself and her loved ones. She nursed countless birds she would come across with broken wings and broken legs. She always had compassion and solidarity for the most vulnerable among us, always giving of the little she had. She lived her Catholic values—supporting social and economic justice, and instilled those values in her children and grandchildren.

Juanita leaves behind her three daughters—Margarita, Norma, and Patricia—her three sons-in-law, four grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandson. She joins in the afterlife her mother Margarita, sister Consuelo, husband Jesus, her daughter Magda, and granddaughter Julissa.

We will miss Juanita, but we are grateful to God that she was made as our mother and abuelita and that she is now resting in eternal peace.