We lived in Oak Park when I was a kid (left there when I went into the 7th grade). On Sundays after church, my dad would head down Roosevelt Rd to Ed Rohn’s liquor store on the south side of the street in Berwyn (or possibly Cicero, even). The store wasn’t open except to Ed’s friends. Sometimes I’d be invited along. They’d sit in the back storeroom, having a couple beers, and I’d drink soda. Rohn had Vargas girls pasted over the wall so that was an education for me :) Also, my dad told me Al Capone’s brother, Ralph, had the protection for the store and would stop by on occasion. I never saw him there, but I wouldn’t expect to on a Sunday.
Then, my first wife’s dad was a bootlegger in Chicago during prohibition. Small time, and he bucked the mob, but he talked about it openly. I had no reason to doubt him. He was that kinda guy...
Before moving from Oak Park I’d become a cub scout. I recall dad helping with some fundraising, and taking me to an apartment on Oak Park Ave where we met a couple guys and dad asked for a donation (he brought me along wearing my scout uniform, as a selling point, I guess). On the way home he told me they were ‘made’, or some such, and I knew what he meant. Shortly after, he took me to a home in River Forest to collect on the previous visit. Yep, it was Accardo’s home (The ‘Big Tuna’ himself...). I still remember it with the wrought iron fence around it.
No, my dad wasn’t Mafia. We’re German and he worked in retail all his life. But he knew how to get along with people. And, sometimes you just have to...
Now that I think about it, there’s no reason I’d see Ralph Capone at the liquor store. That would have been a fair time before I was going there...
When Weiss Went to the Lord in front of Holy Name Cathedral, my granddad went to Medicine Hat, Alberta for two years, "for his health." Didn't come back until Capone went to Atlanta.
Side note: My father remembered when he was small helping to make Bathtub Booze in the basement. Caramelized sugar for color, half tap water, iodine for bourbon, drops of kerosene for bottled in bond scotch. My dad wouldn't have scotch in the house...
That War on Demon Rum really worked...
The REAL secret of the Chicago Outfit:
Capone was a front guy, the visible face of the Outfit, for Frankie LaPorte, in Chicago Heights. Laporte ran the Mob, and told Capone what to do. He never spent a day in jail, never got his picture taken.