Former Chicago Heights Mayor Angelo “Sam” Ciambrone, who died Thursday at age 95,  was remembered as someone who “reflected the soul of the city.” The longtime attorney and former official with the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association was mayor from 1995 until 2003. Ciambrone lived in Chicago Heights his entire life and was a longtime parishioner of San Rocco Church there. His daughter, Rosanne Ciambrone, said Friday her father “was a man of great integrity, kindness and warmth” and that he “did a lot of good things for a lot of people. He was a very selfless man.” “He was the pillar of our family,” she said. Dominic Candeloro was an assistant to Ciambrone during his tenure as mayor. “He was a Chicago Heights man through and through,”  Candeloro said Friday. “He reflected the soul of the city.” Ciambrone was instrumental in increasing hiring diversity in the city’s Police and Fire departments, and having Chicago Heights host events marking the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., according to his obituary and Candeloro. Then an Illinois senator, Barack Obama spoke at one of the King events in Chicago Heights, and Ciambrone hired the city’s first Black police chief, Candeloro said. Survivors include his wife of 62 years, Jean, as well as his daughter and son, Gregory, according to Panozzo Bros. Funeral Home. Visitation will be held from 1 to 8 p.m. Jan. 26 at Panozzo Bros., 530 W. 14th St., with a funeral Mass to be celebrated starting at 9:15 a.m. Jan. 27 at Our Lady of the Heights/St. Agnes Church, 1501 Chicago Road, Chicago Heights. Terrence Antonio James / Chicago TribuneFormer Chicago Heights Mayor Angelo “Sam” Ciambrone, seen on Jan. 27, 1999, outside his office at City Hall. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune) State Rep. Anthony DeLuca, D-Chicago Heights, followed Ciambrone as Chicago Heights’ mayor, serving from 2003 until 2009. when he was elected to the state legislature. DeLuca noted Friday that he was president of the Bloom Township High School District 206 Board before running for mayor when Ciambrone opted not to seek another term in 2003. “When he was mayor we were not always on the same page,” DeLuca said. “But over the years our relationship grew stronger.” “I never questioned his love for the city,” DeLuca said. “Over the years we became close and worked together, and would talk about city matters and state issues.” Ciambrone served two terms on the Illinois Racing Board, first from 1976 until 1980, and he was appointed to a six-year term in August 2006. A graduate of Bloom High School. Ciambrone attended DePaul University and the University of Notre Dame, where he earned his law degree, according to his obituary. After law school, he served in the U.S. Army Training Intelligence Unit. Starting in 1956, Ciambrone worked as an attorney at a Chicago Heights law firm and rose to become a partner in Wilczynski, Wilczynski & Ciambrone until his retirement last June at age 94, according to his obituary. Ciambrone was a director of the Italian Sons and Daughters of America, served as president of Italo-American National Union, was a director of First National Bank of Chicago Heights and president of the Chicago Heights Symphony Orchestra, according to his obituary. “He had many different interests, many different passions,” Candeloro said. “He spoke Italian and had a passion for the opera, horse racing.” Ciambrone would often travel to the Kentucky Derby, and frequented the former Washington Park Race Track in Homewood, Candeloro said. He said the mayor would cook for many city fundraisers, and Ciambrone’s daughter said her father was always the head chef for big family gatherings, with chicken and fish among his specialties. She said her father learned to cook from his mother, Rose, an Italian immigrant who cooked at Savoia’s Italian Restaurant in Chicago Heights. Ciambrone won a second term as Chicago Heights’ mayor in 1999, in an election that is likely part of the lore of political history in that city. Vote totals that evening showed Bloom Township Supervisor T.J. Somer with a lead over Ciambrone in the mayoral election. However, when the dust had settled, unofficial results showed Ciambrone on top with a one-vote margin. Somer appealed in the courts for a new election, and was denied. It wasn’t until a year later that some absentee ballots not originally counted gave Ciambrone a clear win, but a cushion of fewer than 20 votes. “It all sounded so fishy at the time, but it wasn’t,” Candeloro said. Rosanne Ciambrone said “one of the proudest moments” of her father’s life was working to have an oratory built on the site of San Rocco, the Italian-American church in Chicago Heights. A member of the church his entire life, he was lector at the early Italian Mass on Sundays for decades, according to his obituary. The parish was closed in 1990 by then-Cardinal Joseph Bernardin as part of a consolidation push in the Archdiocese of Chicago. Dedicated in 1906, the church was razed in 1995, along with its rectory, convent and grade school. Ciambrone and August Anzelmo made several trips to the Vatican in Rome to contest the shuttering of San Rocco, according to the obituary. Though a Vatican Signatura eventually decided in their favor and ruled that the cardinal’s action to close the church was in error and the church should be reopened, the archdiocese simply reconvened and closed the church again, according to the obituary. Ciambrone and Anzelmo researched and found a stipulation in Canon Law that allows an oratory to be opened as a place of worship for a particular community, and Bernardin allowed for the construction of the oratory. A fundraising effort was launched to build the oratory, 315 E. 22nd St., which still serves San Rocco parishioners.