Leak and Sons Funeral Home

She was 80.Staples died Tuesday, April 10, 2018, at home in Chicago, according to Chicago funeral home Leak and Sons.She performed with her sisters Mavis and Cleotha and their father, Pops, on hits such as “Respect Yourself” and “I’ll Take You There,” their first No. 1 hit. The family was also active in civil rights and performed at the request of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Chicago Sun-Times reported.Yvonne Staples wasn’t as interested in singing as the rest of her family but stepped in when her brother, Pervis, left for military service, according to family friend Bill Carpenter, author of “Uncloudy Day: The Gospel Music Encyclopedia.” Yvonne Staples also helped her father with business tasks, Carpenter said.“She was very no nonsense but at the same time had a heart of gold,” Carpenter said. “But when it came to business she was very strict. If this is what the contract said, this is what you better do.”Staples was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with her family in 1999. The group also received a lifetime achievement award from the Grammys in 2005. Still, Staples wasn’t interested in the limelight, Carpenter said.“She didn’t want to talk about her own singing,” Carpenter said. “She said ‘Mavis is the star. Mavis is the voice.’ She never cared about attention for herself.”Yvonne Staples was Mavis Staples’ road manager until recent years, Carpenter said.The family’s music career had its roots with Pops Staples, a manual laborer who strummed a $10 guitar while teaching his children gospel songs to keep them entertained in the evenings. They sang in church one Sunday morning in 1948, and three encores and a heavy church offering basket convinced Pops that music was in the family’s future — and the Staple Singers was born.Two decades later, the group became an unlikely hit maker for the Stax label. The Staple Singers had a string of Top 40 hits with Stax in the late 1960s, earning them the nickname “God’s greatest hitmakers.”The family also became active in the civil rights movement after hearing King deliver a sermon while they... (The Philadelphia Tribune)

In October 2015, family members of Ella Mae Rutledge arrived at Leak and Sons Funeral Home in the Chatham neighborhood for a last-minute inspection of her body before the viewing, her daughter Monique Williams previously told the Tribune.Williams became unsettled when she noticed the complexion and nails of the body were different than her mother's, she said. Williams said he pulled the wig back from the head to confirm her suspicions: Her mother had white hair, unlike the dark-haired woman in the casket."We said, 'This doesn't look nothing like mama,' " Williams told the Tribune in 2015. "We knew she would look different but we said, 'Man, she can't look that different.' She had none of my mother's characteristics."Spencer Leak Sr., owner of Leaks and Sons Funeral Home, previously told the Tribune that an employee mistakenly tagged Rutledge and the other body. Adding to the confusion, a daughter of the other woman had identified Rutledge’s body as her mother, Leak said."Once we found out and we asked her if she was sure that it was her mom, she said she was having second thoughts about it," Leak said. "She was very distraught and wanted to let the other family know she was very sorry. ... Eighty-three years in business, and this is the first time dealing with someone erroneously interred."Once funeral home workers viewed photos of Rutledge, they realized they had already buried her a day earlier, the lawsuit says. Her body was then exhumed and returned to the funeral home, according to Leak and the lawsuit.The lawsuit filed in Cook County circuit court alleges the funeral home was negligent, intentionally inflicted emotional distress, breached their contract and interfered with the family’s rights to the body. The family seeks more than $50,000 in damages.An attorney for the family could not immediately be reached for comment.Without Rutledge's body, Williams held a memorial service instead of the funeral at the Greater Mount Carmel Missionary Baptist Church for the 300 attendees, many of whom came from out of town."It was absolutely devastating," sa... (Chicago Tribune)