Who Is Amy Eshleman? Everything About Lori Lightfoot’s Wife

Amy Eshleman is the first lady of Chicago City. She is better known as the wife of current Mayor Chicago, Lori Lightfoot. Professionally, Amy is a former public library assistant commissioner turned educational activist for young children.

Amy and her Mayor-wife, Lori – have been together since at least 2001. They are now parents to one adopted daughter, Vivian. Eshleman standouts even when the focus is on her partner, mostly because of her height.

She additionally also has her own story. Know about her life aside from the political fame of her wife, Lori. Also, read a somewhat prolonged version of her past life, the beginning of her relationship with Lightfoot, & beyond.

Amy Eshleman Early Life; Is She White?

Amy, the wife of Lightfoot, born 31 December 1961, is originally from Sterling, Illinois, and has lived in Chicago since 1991. She is the oldest of her siblings. And while she is yet to reveal her ethnicity; the Chicagoan has once affirmed her family hailed from the midwest.

An entry for Eshleman on the Sterling Schools Foundation website states the wife of Lori was a student-athlete at Sterling High School who played tennis and basketball.

In fact, she was an avid basketball and tennis player. She graduated in 1980 and was also on the school’s 1977 girls basketball team, which was the first girls’ basketball state champion in Illinois.

Amy has a bachelor’s degree in history from Miami University in Ohio and has worked on two congressional staffs from 1984-88.

Amy Eshleman Worked As A Public Library Assistant 

Eshleman apparently worked for nearly two decades, 1994 to 2012, as the assistant commissioner of the Chicago Public Library. It is the fifth-largest public library in the country by collection size.

She was an employee there for the entirety of former Chicago Public Library (CPL) Commissioner Mary A. Dempsey’s tenure, which was from 1994 to 2012.

Worth mentioning is Eshleman’s former boss at the CPL, Mary A. Dempsey gave Lightfoot’s mayoral campaign worth $64,776.

During her time at the Public Library, Eshleman also helped develop YOUmedia. It was a digital media center for teens that started in 2009 at the Chicago Public Library’s Harold Washington branch. It also did outreach and engagement for the teenagers. The program turned out to be a success and similar versions opened up across several states.

In fact, former President (Barack) Obama also admired the initiatives. He cited (the) YOUmedia digital space for teens as a type of new and innovative learning space that the country needed to replicate throughout its states.

As of present, more than 12 CPL locations have a YOUmedia center. A 2013 article by the Remake Learning network reports Eshleman after Youmedia helped expand a similar Learning Labs program nationally.

What Is Amy Doing In The Present?

The Sterling native Amy left the CPL in 2012, and currently works as an education consultant, according to her LinkedIn page.

The six-foot-something-inches-tall woman became Chicago’s first lady when her spouse, Lightfoot became the city’s 56th mayor in April 2019.

In March 2020, Eshleman and Deputy Mayor for Education and Human Services Sybil Madison launched the My Chi. My Future. initiative. It is the former’s wife, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s youth-focused campaign. It hopes to connect young people with opportunities that focus on their interests and mentorship which in turn will help them on the path to success.

Amy Eshleman And Her Mayor-Wife, Lori Lightfoot  

Eshleman and Lightfoot have been together for almost 20 years. They wed on the day same-sex marriages became legal in Illinois.

In an interview with Chicago Tribune, Eshleman discussed why the couple chose to tie the knot when they did and the anxiety of coming out,

“You don’t know what your life is going to be like. You want certain things for yourself, and falling in love and having a family and doing all those things felt really important to us. To be able to be married on that day felt really big,”

said the former collegiate basketball.

Eshleman and her wife, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot live in Logan Square with their preteen daughter. Together they are parents to a 13-year-old daughter, Vivian Lightfoot.

Did Lori Lightfoot Cheat On Amy Eshleman? 

During the summer of 2021, there were speculations on social media all claiming Lori was going to submit her resignation over an alleged cheating scandal involving another woman.

There were rumors circulating on social media stating Chicago mayor Lori was about to tender her resignation after some yet to be identified sources caught her cheating on her wife, First Lady Amy.

The hearsay stemmed from a now-deleted tweet posted by Chicago civil rights advocate Ja’Mal Green.

“Lori Lightfoot is resigning tomorrow in a stunning end to her mayorship. WOW,”

Green had tweeted.

The cheating theory, however, came only after the emergence of another tweet. It claimed Lightfoot was resigning after a source caught her committing infidelity to Eshleman, with another woman at an Elmhurst hotel, which the city of Chicago paid for.

The outlet claimed the woman Lori was having an affair with had a boyfriend who police had caught for possession of a weapon and she had asked Lightfoot to “take care” of it.

Eshleman And Lori Had A Physical Brawl?!?!

Allegedly the situation reached the point where Amy Eshleman reportedly beat her politician wife after finding out about the cheating thing.

As per some Twitter account, police responded to the domestic dispute at the Lightfoot-Eshleman residence, where they ran into their daughter who told them “my moms are fighting.” The stories, however, never met any credible verification no official statement came from the Mayor or her wife, Amy.

News of Lightfoot’s alleged resignation, however, sparked outrage on Twitter with many expressing their anger over the mayor’s decision to resign over a cheating scandal.

The online community instead pointed to the fact that Lori should have resigned for other prior unfortunate events. Some of them were the misappropriation of COVID relief funds to the Chicago Police Department, covering up a botched raid on Anjanette Young, as well as the fatal shooting of Adam Toledo.

Who Is Richer; Amy Or Lori?

Being a more prominent figure, Lori certainly wins the debate as to who is wealthier between her and her wife, Amy. Despite the democrat being in the mayoral job for the service of the community, the 61-year-old spouse of Eshleman, to a popular extent, has been reported to be a millionaire.

To have the perspective of her wealth or the stats of her income, it’s worth noting that Lightfoot allegedly rakes in the bracket of $400,000 to $500,000 from her mayoral jobs.

Lori reportedly earned more than $497,000 from a law firm during her first year (2019) in office, Chicago Tribune reported in March 2021, from her tax return.

Considering the maths and figures it’s pretty given, Amy’s net worth subsides against the seven-figure fortune of her politician partner.