Chicago’s Prohibition Era North Side Wives

Being the wife of a wanted criminal in the 1920s was equal parts alluring and terrifying. You were constantly in danger, or at least your spouse was in danger of being shot on the street or “taken for a ride.” If you chose this life you were probably one of three kinds of woman. Someone who really had no clue what the man they loved did, chose to see what the man they loved did and pretended not to know about it or knew what they did and embraced it. For the most part women who married the bootleggers of prohibition turned a blind eye to their husband’s escapades for one reason or another. It took a special kind of personality, one that, it might be argued wasn’t that different from those that they were partners in life.

Erin Finlen explains.

Images to click on before you start:

George Moran and Lucille: https://images.app.goo.gl/nTCYpeTnHW1Qt6bHA

Cecelia Drucci: https://images.app.goo.gl/agLdrHV5DAwHnTpX6

Hymie Weiss and Josephine Simard: https://images.app.goo.gl/XD61BpZUuxECbdXq7

Dean O'Banion and Viola: https://images.app.goo.gl/WKR137gBQypWFiRD9

Viola O’Banion

Viola O’Banion was born Viola Kaniff in Chicago, Illinois on March 27,1901. When she was school age she went to boarding or finishing school in Iowa. She was home on her Christmas break in December of 1920 and she and some girlfriends went to cafe on the North Side, where she caught the eye of Dean O’Banion. Viola could be described as the female of version of her husband. She had dark blond hair and blue eyes and an infectious attitude and penchant for trouble. She radiated a joy for life. Dean was instantly in love and the two were married in February of 1921.

There is a real possibility that Viola had no idea her husband was in the bootlegging business. She even told a reporter who came to visit O’Banion when he was under house arrest pending the trial for the murder of John Duffy that there was no way he could have done it, the police just didn’t like him.

The two vacationed together on the infamous trip where Dean is credited with finding the Tommy Gun and ordering some to be brought to Chicago, but there is no reason to suggest that she was involved with his criminal activities in anyway. When Dean was murdered she claimed that the only reason he ever carried a gun was for protection in the dangerous city, something Dean could have told her and she probably believed, it was a plausible reason in the city where money controlled the cops and the money was controlled by the gangsters. For better or worse the pair were a good match and both loved each other dearly. Viola would never be quite the same after his death.

That’s not to say that she was lost her mischievous streak by any means. In 1926, she married a man on a dare only to discover he was already married and promptly divorce him. In 1929, she was arrested for driving over 66 mph through a residential neighborhood and using the sidewalks as well, an activity that her late husband had also engaged in. Then, in 1934 she watched as her sister jumped off a bridge. When her sister was rescued she accompanied her to the county hospital. They refused to say why her sister was in the water and Mrs. O’Banion Carter, as the papers called her, answered with, “I don’t like the police and we were just celebrating a wedding.” A dislike and distrust of policeman and a joyful outlook on life made her the perfect and possibly blind eyed wife to Dean O’Banion and his gangland kingdom.

Josephine Simard

For the purposes of this article I am going to call Josephine the fiancé of Hymie Weiss, splitting her version of events and what can be proven cleanly down the middle. Marie Josephine Simard was, like Dean and Viola, a bubbly outgoing young woman who was born on October 23, 1902 in Massachusetts. She joined the Ziegfeld Follies in New York City, a comedy troupe of chorus girls, who were considered risqué at the time, and in the fall of 1925, the tour was visiting Chicago where she met Earl “Hymie” Weiss. It’s probable that the vivacious personality of Simard was what drew him to her, she brought out the good side of the otherwise angry, violent, and serious man, a much needed light after the death of his best friend the year before.

There is a lot of speculation about the relationship that the pair actually had. Josephine said that she spent the happiest days of her life to that point with Weiss, that even though he was a bootlegger he enjoyed quiet nights at home with her and that if you didn’t know who he was you would never guess. At no point did she hide that she knew what he did or who he was, instead she said it didn’t matter because she loved him. Their friends all said that they were very happy together and a picture of the two in Miami, Florida taken between the winter of 1925 and fall 1926 shows an extremely happy couple. They were reported to have heated arguments but only because, as Rose Keefe says in her book, The Man Who Got Away, they were such different personalities. The famous scene in the 1931 film, The Public Enemy, where James Cagney shoves a grape fruit in Mae West’s face supposedly came from an incident where Weiss shoved an omelet in Josephine’s face because she was talking too much early in the morning.

According to Josephine, the pair were so in love that they eloped in Florida in the winter of 1925, but she was never able to provide a marriage certificate, saying that Weiss had a priest brought to their room. Stating that she was his widow, she insisted that she had a right to his estate when he died. His mother and the executor of his will, Mary Weiss was not having it, going so far as to have her son in law, James Philip Monahan go get the car that Weiss had bought for her. The pair faced off in probate court, no small feat for the Follies Girl, since all signs point to Mary Weiss being a fierce woman who didn’t back down from a fight. The case was eventually dismissed. It is worth noting that Weiss was meticulous about his will. It makes sense seeing as he had terminal cancer. If the marriage was legally binding it’s doubtful that he would have neglected to add her to it.

She never hid who she had married. Her second husband, Samuel Marx, remembered her as crying a lot when they met due to losing Weiss. For Simard it was either love or money that kept her with Weiss, not a notion that he wasn’t the bootlegging kingpin that he was. Most people at the time said it was the money, but from her heartfelt statement after his death, it’s clear she loved him dearly.

Cecilia Drucci

The wife of Vincent Drucci is actually harder to track than her husband. In fact, she is downright impossible to find any factual information on. There is no record of their marriage until she says at his funeral that they gave him a swell send off and yet, if you were to think of the kind of woman Drucci were to marry, it would be Cecilia.

There isn’t much know about her, besides that she was blond and feisty. There is an anecdote that sees her threatening a dinner guest with a butchers knife. When a dressmaker was telling people that Drucci had robbed her store, he showed up with an unknown blond woman and told her to teach the woman a lesson. The woman turned the shop over and Drucci herded the customers to the backroom before the pair fled in a taxi. There is a chance that this woman was Cecilia. Although, blond doesn’t tell us much. While his friends were faithful to their partners once they found them, Drucci was not and was reputed to have a different blond on his arm every night.

When Drucci was buried his wife said “We sure gave him a swell send off,” and then disappeared without a trace. There isn’t much to tell about her but Cecelia Drucci exemplifies the woman who worked alongside her husband in the Chicago Underworld.

Lucille Moran

George Moran’s wife is not Cecilia Drucci nor is she Viola O’Banion. However, neither does she quite fit the same mold as Josephine Simard. She wasn’t a high strung, quick tempered moll, a naive young lady who had no idea what her husband did and she also wasn’t as willing to pretend that Moran didn’t have a criminal record that he was actively adding to during their marriage. She loved and supported her husband and knew what he was to the Chicago Underworld, it was less important to her though than the fact that he was a good husband and a great father to her child.

Born in 1899, Lucille was a recently divorced mother of one when she met George, in 1923. He was instantly smitten with her according to their love story and, while she was at first worried that he wouldn’t accept her son, Moran was just as infatuated with him. The boy spoke French, which Moran had grown up speaking and helped him learn English.

Though he seems to have been an ideal partner there was no hiding what he did for a living, especially when he was arrested on suspicion of attempting to assassinate Johnny Torrio. After that he moved to a hotel and when Weiss was assassinated in 1926, he was arrested there after he left the funeral without telling anyone and rumors abounded as to his future plans. Lucille was supportive, loving and there for every step of her husband’s life, even picking him up when he was released on bail or watching in court. Then, in 1929, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre happened. She had to wait for news that he was alive and then he fled to Canada, leaving her and her son at the hotel, to be watched over by his underlings. When he returned, she tried to remain just as strong as she had been but after another trial in 1930, Moran was advised to leave Illinois all together and she had had enough. She decided that she couldn’t live like that anymore and served him divorce papers.

And they all lived…

Well, not happily ever after. The life of the women who called a gangster her husband was high stress and fraught with danger, whether they accepted it or not. Of the four women discussed only one didn’t see her marriage end in tragedy and it was the scare of doing so that made her finally pull the trigger on her divorce (so to speak). Viola, Josephine, Cecilia and Lucille were also, strangely, all perfect fits for the men they married, at least from a historical perspective. Viola and Dean, fun loving partners in life with hot tempers and a disrespect for the law. Josephine and Earl, volatile, quick tempered people who balanced each other out and brought out the best in each other. Cecilia and Vincent, who were so alike as to be almost uncanny. George and Lucille, each there for each other when they were needed, level headed and perseverant. Four different couples and four different but intriguing female figures of the 1920s.

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Sources

Binder, J. J. (2017). Al Capone’s Beer wars: A Complete History of Organized Crime in Chicago During Prohibition. Prometheus Books.

Burns, W. N. (1931). The one-way ride: The Red Trail of Chicago Gangland from Prohibition to Jake Lingle.

Keefe, R. (2003). Guns and roses: The Untold Story of Dean O’Banion, Chicago’s Big Shot Before Al Capone. Turner Publishing Company.

Keefe, R. (2005). The Man who Got Away: The Bugs Moran Story : a Biography. Cumberland House Publishing.

My Al Capone Museum. (n.d.). https://myalcaponemuseum.com/

Sullivan, E. D. (1929). Rattling the cup on Chicago crime.

The North Siders - Chicago’s Pirate Robin Hoods: George ‘Bugs’ Moran

The Roaring Twenties were a time period filled with tales of adventure and glamour. Prohibition fueled a party lifestyle - and made available a dangerous but adrenaline fueled life to some of the more enterprising members of the underworld. In Chicago, Illinois, the Twenties have become a time of legend and usually call to mind one man, Al Capone. But Capone, for all intents and purposes, was only a figure head during the Beer Wars. He ran his gang and racket, but he delegated the dirty work.

To the north of him was a group that was, as one newspaper of the time called them, Modern Day Pirates, The North Side Gang. Consider Capone the Prince John to their Robin Hood and his Merry-men, an analogy that Rose Keefe introduced in her book, Guns and Roses: The Untold Story of Dean O’Banion. Robin Hood isn’t quite as steal from the rich to give to the poor and you’ll need to give Little John a temper and thirst for vengeance that was unrivaled. Also, make the merry-men a little crazier and a lot more deadly. You get the picture.

Three years, three bosses dead. The North Side track record was less than desirable, George Moran would have been well aware of this when he took over after the death of Vincent Drucci in April of 1927. He had said goodbye to three of his good friends, the flower shop was gone, Mr. Schofield having kicked them out after Hymie Weiss’s assassination, and having run from the past at least once already in his life, George Moran took stock of his life and probably thought about throwing in the towel. But Chicago was home and he couldn’t just forget everything that had happened. A part of him still wanted revenge and leaving the North Side would have felt like letting his friends down. So Moran did what he did best, he carried on.

Erin Finlen continues her series.

Part one is here, part two is here, and part three is here.

Note: An image of Moran is available here.

Minnesota Years

George Moran, the prohibition gangster most associated with being the arch enemy of Al Capone and by extension Chicago was actually from St. Paul, Minnesota and named Adelard Cunin. Born on August 21, 1893 to a French immigrant named Jules and his wife Marie, he was, like his friends enrolled in a Catholic School. And also like his friends, turned to crime at a young age, in fact he had served time three times before he reached the age of twenty one.

He and his father did not get along and Adelard regularly was hit with a belt by his dad for his behavior at home. At school, they also believed in corporal punishment and by the time he got home his father could be waiting to punish him again. Strong willed and resilient, the beatings did nothing to change his personality or willfulness. He turned to crime as an outlet for his frustration. At the age of eighteen, he escaped from jail and made his way south to Chicago. His father refused to have anything to do with him, but his mother still kept in touch.

It was after arriving in Chicago that Adelard started adopting different names, including George Gage, George Morrisey, George Miller and, of course, George Moran.

In photos, Moran typically is wearing something that covers his neck. When he was living in Chicago in 1917, he got in the face of someone heckling a public speaker. A fight broke out and Moran was cut several times on the neck with a knife. He was rushed to the hospital where they managed to stop the bleeding and save his life. He was lucky but also self-conscious of the way the scars looked and would do his best to hid them throughout his life. There was good to come of the incident, though. In his recovery he would meet Dean O’Banion.

The Beginnings of the North Side and Rise to Leader

In 1917, Dean O’Banion was working as a waiter at McGovern’s Tavern, charming customers with his beautiful singing voice. This tavern was where Moran began to become a regular during his recovery. He met there a man named Charles Reiser, who introduced him to bigger kinds of burglary. For the most part, George would steer clear of bootlegging, at least at first, he preferred to stick with thieving and safe cracking.

One of Reiser’s safe cracking proteges was O’Banion and the two were drawn to each other, both with independent, stubborn spirits. Although, Moran was much quieter and kept his cards close to his chest. They were joined shortly after by Hymie Weiss and the three became a trio of safecrackers. They were joined by Drucci last and though he was also readily accepted, it was not likely that it was for his thieving skills as his charm and reckless bravery.

They were well on their way to becoming the North Side Gang of legend, when Moran was sent to jail again and this time, after an escape attempt that was going well until he got caught, Moran would be absent in Chicago until 1921 as he served his sentence at Joliet Penitentiary.

When Moran got out his friends were waiting with good news: they were big shots in the bootlegging business and Moran was happy to help. He even went to Canada to see about a shipment for O’Banion. That wasn’t to say that bootlegging was his only occupation. He was arrested at least once with O’Banion and Weiss for burglary. And at one point Weiss and Moran were both involved in a police chase that ended when the police fired on the car and the pair decided it was safer to pull over.

Also, in 1921, Moran met a woman with whom he fell instantly in love, Lucielle Logan. Lucielle was worried that George would run when he found out she had a son, but George was just as smitten with him and adopted him, spoiling him and helping him learn English, as Lucielle and her son, who would go by John George Moran for the rest of his life, spoke French. Surprisingly, he loved being a family man and when one reporter asked him what was next after a funeral, he probably wasn’t lying when he said he just wanted to live with his wife and kid in peace.

In 1924, when O’Banion was murdered, Moran was fully on board with Hymie Weiss’s plans to get revenge. There was also another item of business that Moran could not wait to handle. He had never been a fan of O’Banion’s bodyguard, Louie Alterie. So, when Alterie was talking to the media about shooting the murderers of O’Banion and, strangely, following Torrio and Capone to New York after the funeral, Moran sent Alterie packing, saying there was no place for him in the North Side Gang. With that taken care of, it was time to get to the real business of getting even, even if the boss was in jail.

While Weiss was in jail in the summer of 1925, Drucci and Moran tried several hits on the Gennas. They weren’t exactly subtle about it though.

Between the two of them, neither Moran nor Drucci was known for thinking revenge plans through to the full extent. And with Weiss in jail and the grief over losing O’Banion mixed with a disdain for the Gennas they were more gung ho than usual. Amatuna, who had been a shooter of Dean O’Banion had agreed to hand over to Moran and Drucci the other two men believed to be responsible: John Scalise and Albert Anselmi. They believed Amatuna and went to the rendezvous where they were promptly shot at and both had to be treated at a nearby hospital.

After Weiss’s death, Moran agreed with Drucci that peace was the best option but he wasn’t happy about it. And when Drucci died, he kept the peace but he could feel his nagging hatred for Capone, the man who had stolen O’Banion and Weiss from him, itching at him. Then, after Capone battled with other men, he eventually started eyeing a Northwest gang whose territory he wanted. He had the leader bumped off. The man, John Touhy, was an old friend of Moran’s. Seeing another of his friends dead by the hand of Capone reopened the wounds that had never closed from O’Banion and Weiss’s deaths. The war was back. And this time it was going to take a massacre to end it.

Checkmate

After the death of Touhy, Moran and Capone continued to battle. Murdering continued until Capone had had enough. Somehow word got back to him that Moran was having a meeting at the North Side’s garage on Clark Street. Al Capone was never one to do anything quietly, a fact which irritated his friends back in New York, who found his ostentatiousness to be too attention seeking for their comfort. And what Capone had planned was nothing short of attention grabbing. Unfortunately for him and the seven men who would be in the garage, it wouldn’t see the end of his arch enemy.

On February 14, 1929, Moran was late to his meeting at the Clark Street garage. If he was like people of today, running late to your first meeting on a very cold, snowy morning, probably makes you think that your day isn’t going to go well. So, when he turned onto Clark Street and saw black police vehicle sitting outside his garage, he changed his course and went into a nearby diner to wait.

Men had been waiting across the street for Moran to enter the garage. When they thought they saw him enter, the signal was given and two men dressed as police officers entered. They had the men surrender their weapons and face a wall with their hands raised. Then they pulled out Thompson submachine guns and opened fire. Six of the men were killed instantly but one was still alive when the real cops arrived, although in his short time left he refused to identify the killers. The carnage was unlike anything Chicago had ever seen and the police and medical examiners were sickened by it. The lone survivor was the mechanic, James Mays, dog, Highball. When the police finally arrived they found him howling and shaking. He was later euthanized due to being unable to recover from what he had witnessed.

Word of what happened reached Moran and in a rare show of emotion, he checked himself into a hospital for exhaustion and a stomach issue. When police eventually found him, the only thing he would say was “Only Capone kills like that.” The man who was killed in Moran’s place was Al Weinshank. He looked uncannily like Moran in build and facial features. He was not a criminal, he simply associated with them.

Moran didn’t stay long in Chicago after that. And the North Side Gang was no more. Capone had won the Beer Wars.

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Sources:

Binder, J. J. (2017). Al Capone’s Beer wars: A Complete History of Organized Crime in Chicago during Prohibition. Prometheus Books.

Burns, W. N. (1931). The one-way ride: The Red Trail of Chicago Gangland from Prohibition to Jake Lingle.

Keefe, R. (2003). Guns and roses: The Untold Story of Dean O’Banion, Chicago’s Big Shot Before Al Capone. Turner Publishing Company.

Keefe, R. (2005). The Man who Got Away: The Bugs Moran Story : a Biography. Cumberland House Publishing.

Kobler, J. (2003). Capone: The Life and World of Al Capone. Da Capo Press.

Sullivan, E. D. (1929). Rattling the cup on Chicago crime.