The Man in the FamilyBy: Ann C. Piasecki
Owner: Cameo Memories and Photography
www.cameomemoriesandphotography.com
Email: director@cameomemoriesandphotography.com
My name is Jim Conley. I grew up an Irish Catholic in a large corner apartment building at West End Avenue and Le Claire Street in the heart of Chicago's Austin District. I'm the oldest of three boys, each born a year apart, to Lee and Mary (O'Brien) Conley. In 1915 my parents owned the six-flat apartment building where we made our home. The community of largely Irish, Italian, German and Scandinavian immigrants was solidly middle-class, clean and safe. Elm trees and neat lawns lined the streets and boulevards. Small businesses like Sal's Groceries, Ed's Barber Shop, Kresgee's Five-and-Dime, O'Hallaran's Pub and Gelato's Pharmacy dotted the 25.7 square miles of this West Loop neighborhood.
The makings of World War I in Europe were yet beyond our purview— we had enough bluster coming from our own City Hall. St. Thomas Aquinas Parish and School on Washington Boulevard was an integral part of our family community. You could rent a canoe or paddle boat at Columbus Park, and in the summer we'd walk over to the pavilion for an outside orchestral performance. I was partial to Red Allen, and boy could Louis Armstrong make that horn cry.
We used to swim at the YMCA or play side-street baseball—that was our gang's favorite activity. Our bicycles, our own two feet, the Lake Street "L" and the Green Hornet street rail were our modes of transportation.
I guess you could say my dad, a Chicago policeman, my mom and us boys were snug in a comfortable existence; but for me, it lasted only 14 years. I had just completed my freshmen year at St. Mel's High School when my dad got shot and killed in the line of duty. School was already out for the summer, so on this Friday my brothers and I travelled with my Uncle Obe, he was policeman too, to see a friend of his on Maxwell Street. Afterwards we shopped around for deals on baseball cards—I wanted one of Lou Gehrig. I saw Babe Ruth play once while on a vacation in Philadelphia. You had to respect the Yankees.
But what happened later that day is forever burned in my memory. I recall every sensation. If I think about it, I can still detect the evil odor of dread, upset stomach, nervous shaking that occurred on that shadowy and unusually hot spring night, May 31, 1929.
Supper was late. Mom kept the pot roast warming on the stove for a long time before she got fed-up and told us to come in and eat. My dad was supposed to accompany my little brothers, 13-year-old Jack and 12-year-old Bill, to a mandatory meeting about vocations and the missions at the St. Tom school gym. We thought my dad was just running late—probably stuck booking some bum he'd pinched for public drunkenness, and that he'd be home soon. I'd finished my paper route and was listening to the baseball game, the Socks vs. Philadelphia, on the radio. I sat perched on the window seat in front of the long, tri-bow window frame in our third-floor apartment, waiting for the familiar wave Dad gave me every night when he stepped out of the squad car he frequently drove home.
It got to be about 7:30 p.m., two-and-a-half hours late from his normal arrival when I spotted a line of squad cars driving down the street. It wasn't just three or four; there must have been 20 or so it seemed, in a parade-like fashion looming in on us. Then it hit me. I didn't know the details, but I knew the god-awful truth.
I sat there, paralyzed, couldn't make a sound. The yet unspoken, dizzying reality of never again seeing the 39-year-old, 5-foot-8-inch redhead that everybody said I resembled to a tee literally took my breath away. Watching those blue and white squads snake around the corner and park, I thought I was transported somehow into a slow-motion film. The images were real, but my ability to absorb them were more like blurry impressions. I heard the car doors open and slam in unison. About six or seven uniformed policemen crowded around the lead squad—I knew the captain, John Maloney, and my dad's patrolmen friends; Ziggy, O'Connell, Pete Donovan and Joe Duffy—Dad's partner, Pat Murphy, wasn't there—he died that afternoon too along with an innocent bystander named Myron Bagnola. Of course I didn't yet know about Officer Murphy or Mr. Bagnola.
I saw the officers walking toward the front door. Then there came that blaring sound of the buzzer; it shook me out of my catatonic-like state. Mom came out of the kitchen wearing an apron and wiping her hands on a towel. I was breathing heavy and my heart was pounding so hard I thought it would leap out of my chest. I stared at her with a panicky look on my face. She pushed the intercom button and asked who it was. Captain Maloney identified himself. He said something had happened and that he had to talk to her.
A tidal wave of emotion came over her. Her hands moved suddenly over her mouth. In a muffled cry, she screamed, Oh My God! Oh My God, it's Lee!" Then we heard the trail of heavy-footed steps echoing in the stairwell, mounting their way to the third floor. Mom opened the door to find a bevy of police officers on the landing.
I never heard the conversation. My nerves had taken over; I couldn't hear anything. I saw Captain Maloney's mouth moving; I saw my mom—a normally take-charge woman, the kind that had no qualms about cracking one of us boys if we gave her lip or failed to take out the garbage—collapse into the arms of Ziggy and O'Connell. The uniforms surrounded her. I was stunned, but then Ziggy noticed me; he grabbed me with a big bear hug. I pushed him away and started yelling, "No. No." Tears streaming down her face, my mom gathered Jack and Bill into her arms.
We later learned the devastating details of Dad's death. A domestic dispute in the Ukrainian Village erupted around 4 o'clock. A former WW I sniper, an immigrant from Kiev, went nuts and started firing rounds from an old Mauser. My dad had just finished an eight-hour watch in the Shakespeare District and was on his way home when he got the call about a family argument gone awry. He was the first on the scene and moments later Murphy, who got flagged down before he left the station house, arrived in another squad; he pulled up behind Dad. They could hear the gun shots even before they got out. My dad told Murphy to radio for back-up, but they knew they had to act immediately. The nutcase had some old woman pinned down behind a milk wagon; I guess she was hysterical, and people were scattering like rabbits. The thing is the two had no idea that this guy, Kuzma Zelenko, was a sharp-shooter, nor that he was having a flash-back to some armed encounter in Eastern Europe. He'd already shot his wife in the shoulder and then bolted out of the apartment. He climbed onto the Polk Brothers' rooftop and was firing at anything that moved.
The fact that my dad was the first to charge the sniper was no consolation. He got his head blown off. Murphy was down seconds later with a shot in the chest. When back-up arrived, they found what was left of the two lying in a bloody pool on the sidewalk at Division and Ashland. Dad was on the force for 16 years; Murphy, who had four kids under 6 at home, had 10 years in. Zelenko managed to take out one more policeman, Stanley Pierson, before the tear-gas they launched on the rooftop overtook him.
There was little solace to the fact that this bastard Zelenko never made it alive to the station house for questioning. This was Chicago, and he'd massacred three police officers. Believe me, they took it personally. They cuffed him and loaded him into the paddy wagon. Apparently he'd escaped and then committed suicide. A few days later his body was found bloated and floating in the Chicago River.
Economic Violence as Potent as Gangster Warfare
The antics of society elites in the Roaring '20s and the evolution of bootleggers and gangsters, especially Al Capone and Bugs Moran, who regularly gave the Chicago Police Department a run for its money, were pretty much just newspaper accounts to us kids. The St. Valentine's Day massacre a few months before Dad died cemented Chicago's infamous reputation as a home for mobsters. Little did we know that the coming era of economic violence would be far more potent. Like the bullets that riddled those warring gangsters in a vacant garage on Clark Street, the Great Depression would strike at the core of our existence; first it whittled away at our pocketbooks, but more intensely, it chipped away at the heart and soul.
Sometime over the summer of '29—I don't know exactly when—my family stopped calling me Jimmy. I was Jim now, because I was the man in the family. A part-time job at Sal's Groceries pretty much replaced neighborhood baseball games, and the thought of going out for the high school football team seemed pointless. My usual cavalier attitude was replaced with worry and responsibility. Dad's life insurance policy and pension amounted to a pittance. After the funeral, we never really heard much from the Conley side of the family. They were "shanty Irish" and lived up near Galena, IL.
I picked up the smoking habit in the fall, but nobody seemed to care. I saw it as a man's privilege. And just as I thought I'd managed to accept my new life, things got a lot worse. The stock market crashed on Oct. 29, 1929. Black Tuesday marked the beginning of the Great Depression.
Sure my mom's side, the O'Brien's—Uncle Obe, and the spinster sisters, Aunt Jo and Aunt Sue—helped as much as they could. They paid for our tuition; Jack and I were both at St. Mel's High School and Bill was still at St. Tom's. But it didn't cover the bills. Mom started taking in laundry and ironing, and I gave her my money from the grocery store and the paper route I kept. Jack and Bill both took on paper routes. I learned how to do simple repairs around the building like fixing leaky pipes, faulty iceboxes or broken window ballasts. I found I had quite an aptitude for that kind of thing.
I set a curfew for my brothers and made sure they stayed out of trouble. I had to meet once with Bill's school principal, Sister Mary Agnes, after he got in a fight on the playground—at least he won or so he said. Truth be told, I was actually proud of Bill because I never did like that kid, Dino Giovanni. He was a cocky little son-of-a-pup, and beside that, his air was greasy and he looked like he needed a shave—he was only in 8th grade.
Over the next several years, I'd relish in the rare opportunities I had to see a film. Sitting in velvety seats in the darkness of the Tivoli Theatre or the State & Lake, I'd stare up at the gigantic screen and laugh at Jimmy Durante's shenanigans in "The New Yorkers" and lose myself in the confident aspirations of Ethel Merman singing "I've Got Rhythm" in the film "Girl Crazy." For a couple of hours I could escape the daunting liability I had inherited.
The jobs at the Stock Yard were slashed, but industries like small steel mills, glass companies and furniture makers pretty much dried up all together. My hours at the grocery store were maintained because I took over inventory procedures, but the O'Brien's lost all discretionary funds. They couldn't help us with much, so Jack and I left St. Mel's and enrolled at Austin High School; Bill did graduate from St. Tom's though. I don't think the school ever got the full tuition due.
No, we didn't go hungry, but milk and meat were scarce. No matter how bleak life had become, Mom was determined to maintain the essence of our life. In contrast to the makeshift tents set up in Columbus Park by people who'd lost their homes, our apartment was clean and comfortable. She'd clip the frayed strings off the now worn-out lace doilies that graced the coffee table, and she made sure that dust never settled on the statue of the Blessed Mother in the curio cabinet. I could hear her, once in awhile, talking to herself and sort of yelling at Dad for abandoning her to face all this on her own.
In October 1932, my senior year, I got kicked out of Austin High School for smoking in the bathroom; I wasn't that upset. As it turned out, Mom lost the building for $235 in back taxes. We became renters there. I was 17 years old and could work day jobs for anyone who could afford to pay 25 cents or less an hour. The song, "Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?" sure resonated with me. I burned garbage out behind the Diplomat Restaurant, shoveled out coal bins, washed windows and dishes—anything to make a buck. Then I got a fairly regular job running errands for the Precinct Captain; the tips were good. Sometimes I'd get a buck for delivering an envelope! Uncle Obe said he could get me a job working for the City when I turned 18. I wanted to follow in the footsteps of my dad and uncle and become a policeman too. You had to be 21. I later discovered that my 5-foot-6-inch frame was two inches too short to meet the physical requirements for the men in navy blue.
By 1934 things were beginning to look up. I was still working for the Precinct Captain, and he's the one who eventually lined up a job for me in the Water Meter Division. Now and then, I could afford to take a girl out to dinner.
Any money that came in was appreciated. Uncle Obe was "on the take" at work. He'd accidentally lose bits of evidence in racketeering cases against the mob and ignore bribes paid to City inspectors. The family all knew about it, but it was never discussed openly. After all he was married and had a family of his own to support. He bought back the building for my mom in 1935. We were a tight-knit clan.
Jack and Bill worked hard to earn tuition for college, but I provided significant assistance. I did it out of love. I wanted them to be happy. I helped out quite a few friends along the way too. Eddy Dolton got at least $200 and Jim Sullivan got an extra $25 whenever he was short. Jack graduated with a degree in business from Loyola University and eventually went to work for Sears & Roebuck, and Bill got a liberal arts degree from Benedictine College in Atkinson, Kan.; he became a teacher and football coach. I went on to work for the City and did a lot of campaigning. It was my bread and butter so I worked to get the Democrats elected. I was part of the political machine and glad to do it. I was well-liked and respected for taking responsibility seriously.
I got married Jan. 25, 1939, to Louise Marr, an Italian/Irish girl from the neighborhood. She was beautiful, sort of the ilk of an Elizabeth Taylor. We had three girls and a boy: Mary Lee is the oldest—she was named after my parents; then came Jane Louise; next was James (Jimmy) Patrick, and finally Ann Clare.
Every year on May 31, usually over the Decoration Day holiday, I take a ride out to All Saints Catholic Cemetery in Des Plaines. When the kids were little, I'd take them with me. I'd stand quietly over my dad's grave; my mom is buried next to him now. Then I say a few prayers. I believe their souls are in Heaven. And I still miss them.
The End
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