Uncle Al Capone

UNCLE AL CAPONE

The Untold Story From Inside His Family

By

Deirdre Marie Capone

Recap Publishing Co.

Copyright © 2011 Deirdre Marie Capone. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system - without written permission from the author.

ISBN: 0982845103

ISBN-13: 9780982845103

LCCN: 2010911023

BNEPUB-J10-S301-G20

Al Capone & Deirdre Marie

I dedicate this book to the family Capone that I knew and loved and who knew and loved me, most importantly my father Ralph Gabriel Capone. My hope is that my life and success will give his short life some real meaning.

Over the course of writing this book which began in the 1950s there have been many people who have listened, talked, and encouraged me to move forward sometimes through the tears I was shedding.

First I will start with my husband Bob. He was the first person in my life who did not judge me or criticize me because I was a Capone. I met him in 1957 working at the same insurance company who fired me because of my name. We lost each other for a couple of years but then found each other and picked up our romance where we left it. He is my best friend and partner. He helped me more than anyone, with this project. He put in many, many hours, helping me research the facts and proofreading. Thank you Honey!

Other people who deserve my thanks are Chuck Pipher my computer guru and friend and his wife Jackie for lending him to me for so many hours.

Beth Bruno who first was my editor then became my eyes and ears for all parts of this project.

My son Jeff for taking so much of his valuable time to read my chapters, look over contracts and make suggestions.

When word got out that I was writing this book I was bombarded with questions about it. One of the most frequent questions I encountered was “Is your book any different than the many other books written about Al Capone”?

The answer was always an emphatic “Yes”!

Granted, there have been many good books written about Uncle Al, but they all have one thing in common: none of the authors actually knew the man. They relied primarily on previous books, newspaper articles, and government records.

This is the only book written about Al by someone from inside his family, someone who as a little girl sat on his lap, hugged and kissed him, and traded “knock-knock” jokes with him.

Someone who helped him cook spaghetti, ate many meals with him and slept in his house.

Someone whom he taught to swim, ride a bicycle, and play the mandolin.

And probably most importantly, someone who as an adult had countless conversations with his older brother and business partner (my grandfather Ralph) as well as his other brothers and his only sister.

Someone whose father was raised by Al’s mother in Al’s house.

Someone whose father committed suicide due to the burden of the Capone name.

Someone who was scorned by classmates for many years, and was fired from jobs because she was related to Al Capone.

Only in this book will you find previously unpublished family photos and mouthwatering authentic Capone family recipes.

I promise you, Dear Reader, that after reading this book you will know things about Al Capone and his family that none of his biographers ever knew.

I have always been opposed to violence, to shootings. I have fought, yes, but fought for peace. And I believe I can take credit for the peace that now exists in the racket game in Chicago. I believe that the people can thank me for the fact that gang killings here are probably a thing of the past.

- Al Capone

I am a Capone. My grandfather was Ralph Capone, listed in 1930 as Public Enemy #3 by the Chicago Crime Commission. That makes me the grand niece of his partner and younger brother, Public Enemy #1: Al Capone.

For much of my life, this was not information that I readily volunteered. In fact, I made every effort to hide the fact that I was a Capone, a name that had brought endless heartache to so many members of my family. In 1972, when I was in my early thirties, I left Chicago and my family history far behind me, reinventing myself in Minnesota and making sure that no one in my life other than my husband Bob knew my ancestry. I succeeded—even with our four children.

But the truth about who I was hovered at the edges of the reality I had created, and I was terrified of it—terrified of revisiting the shy, wounded girl who grew up friendless, shunned by classmates, forbidden to play with a mobster’s child; terrified of once again hearing those dreaded words, “You’re fired,” and seeing another employer’s doors close to me because of my name; terrified of reawakening the grief of losing both my father and brother to suicide, collateral damage of the Capone legacy; and, above all, terrified that if my children learned they had “gangster blood” running through their veins, they’d be exposed to the same pain I had experienced.

As if this weren’t enough, my silence was also motivated by a little trick of fate truly stranger than fiction. My husband’s uncle married the sister of one of the men killed in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. As you’ll read later in this book, I have good reason to believe that Al Capone was not as responsible for those cold-blooded murders as history has written, but all the same, how could I bring such a terrible complication into our family life? How could I know that my aunt by marriage wouldn’t see her brother’s murderers in my face? This concern was overshadowed because I was more afraid of my children finding out about their ancestry so I kept up the false front.

When my nine-year-old son Bobby came home from school one day in 1974 to announce that his class was learning about Al Capone, it knocked the wind out of me.

Ever since my children started school, I had developed the habit of asking, “What did you learn today?” when they came home. Of course, I always listened to their answers with great interest, but on that particular day, I felt like the whole world had just slid out of focus, leaving only Bobby and me. There he was, smiling and cheerful as always, telling me he was learning about my uncle in his fourth grade class.

My heart seized, but somehow, I managed to get out a half-casual, “What did you learn about Al Capone?” “We learned that he was a gangster,” Bobby told me. He went on to tell me about Prohibition in the 1920s and 30s, Al’s bootlegging operation, and how he had been such an expert outlaw that when the police finally nabbed him, the only charge they could pin on him was tax evasion. I was so astonished that all I could do was nod along as he spoke.

Later that evening, when Bob and I were alone, I told him what Bobby had said. I felt like I had been holding my breath ever since Bobby so innocently chirped the name “Capone.” Bob and I decided together that we couldn’t keep the truth from our children any longer. We had no idea how they would react, but one thing was certain—we didn’t want them to hear about it from someone else, and now that our oldest kids were teenagers, they had started to ask about their grandparents. We couldn’t keep this from them forever.

The next evening, as Bob and I gathered our kids in the kitchen, I was petrified. This was a moment I had created in my head time and again, since Bob and I decided to start a family. And each time I imagined it, it ended badly. I thought our kids would be furious with me for keeping the secret, or for even being a Capone in the first place. Maybe they would be ashamed of me. Or worse yet—maybe they would be ashamed of themselves. Maybe hearing the truth about their family would send them into the same kind of downward spiral that had swallowed so much of my childhood.

When I was growing up, I was often mad at God for making me a Capone. I couldn’t understand why other children weren’t allowed to play with me, and my heart broke every time I heard someone murmur a slur or read the newspapers’ awful accusations about the family I loved—and the family that loved me in return while everyone else shunned me. If these were my prevailing memories of growing up as a Capone, I just couldn’t imagine that things would be any different for my children. As I sat them down at the kitchen table and prepared to break the news, I felt like I was on the verge of crushing the happy life that Bob and I worked so hard to give to them.

I could tell they sensed my nervousness, and they sat unusually quiet as I told them I had something important to say. I squeezed Bob’s hand tightly, and the words came slowly.

“There’s something I want to tell you about my family,” I began. “Al Capone was my uncle. My grandfather was his brother. I was born Deirdre Marie Capone.”

For a split second, there was silence in the kitchen. I could feel my heart in my throat. Then, at the exact same instant, both of my teenagers exclaimed, “Cool!”

In retrospect, I suppose I should have anticipated the reaction, think about what any teenager might say upon hearing they are related to a legend. But to be honest, their excitement was the last thing in the world that I expected. I was so used to hiding and living in quiet shame that it just didn’t cross my mind that my children might be more intrigued than upset.

But of course, it was a different time. I grew up with headlines about the menace of Al Capone’s “Outfit” splashed across the front page. I grew up seeing my classmates’ parents look at me and my family with constant suspicion and fear. I grew up well accustomed to men in dark suits guarding the Capone family home with machine guns. My children, on the other hand, grew up thinking of Al Capone as a celebrity, a folk hero more than a criminal.

As soon as that word, “Cool!” broke the tension in the room, the two younger kids chimed in. Bobby’s eyes grew wide as saucers and, before I knew it, all four of them were peppering me with questions. “What was he like? Was he nice to you? Did he love you? Do you look like him? Do you have pictures?”

Relief washed over me. I had built this moment up in my mind for so many years, but here I was, discovering that the very source of my shame was now the source of pride for my children. I tried to answer their questions as best I could. I pulled out my family photo albums and began to introduce my own children to the people who loved me most when I was their age.

First, there was Theresa Capone, the mother to Al and my grandfather. She was the rock of the Capones, the woman who held the family together as they emigrated from Italy to New York and then to Chicago. She had known poverty in Brooklyn and the realization of the “American Dream” as Al built his business in Chicago. She raised my father when his biological mother abandoned him, and she acted as a grandmother to me. Her house on Prairie Avenue became the warmest place in the world to me, even with heavy drapes drawn across the windows and armed men stationed at the doors.