You should check out St. Joseph Village-- they have a very good skilled nursing section and assisted living. The facility is very new (just a couple of years old), beautiful on the inside (make sure you have a look at the chapel!), and they've had two perfect surveys the past two years from the Illinois Dept. of Public Health.
It's located on the North Side, too, which may be helpful for your mother's acquaintance. They are located at 4021 N. Belmont Ave. (one block west of Pulaski). ###-###-####
The website is http://www.stjosephvillageofchicago.com
The only way you'll know if the place is somewhere your mother's acquaintance might spend a couple of weeks to get stronger is to make an appt. to tour the facility.
(In the interest of full disclosure: my M. is the Director of Nursing there, and I'm immensely proud of the work she and her skilled nursing team do at St. Joseph Village. I've also visited a lot of friends at other nursing homes-- so I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly, if you know what I mean-- so I can honestly say that St. Joseph Village is the best looking, smelling place with a positive atmosphere that I've been to. The perfect IDPH surveys just put it over the top.)