Today, I have two items that are unrelated other than that they both deal with St. Valentine's Day and crime.
First, an article that appeared in the Milwaukee Journal on February 14, 1925 about the unusual Valentine given to Stanley Janis after he married Clara Jasnewski (possibly Jansniewski) :
I wish I could learn what happened to this couple, but I was unable to match up any families in the 1930 or 1940 census records that matched the specifics given in the article.
That was all I had planned for today, but then today I ran across a possible connection between our community and the much more famous interplay of the law and February 14th: the
St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
I was entering information from the
Pedigree Resource File of Frances (Lukaszewski) Cesarz when I noticed a probable match between this family and the family of Leo* and Frances Cesarz that is part of the
Sweeney and Allied Families Tree on RootsWeb World Connect. A little investigative googling fleshed out the following story.
Leo and Frances Cesarz had one daughter, Irene Alice Cesarz who was born in 1906 and baptized at St. Hedwig's. Unfortunately, Frances appears to have died just a year later in 1907. The 1910 census finds Leo and daughter Irene living with Leo's in-laws, Joseph Lukaszewski and Catherine (Prill or Pryll) Lukaszewski. Tragically, it appears that Leo, succumbs to tuberculosis in 1913. In the days before Social Security, perhaps the only thing Irene then had to live on were her family connections and the $150 she received from Leo's membership in the Wood, Wire and Metal Lather's International Union. I do not know when either Joseph or Catherine Lukaszewski passes away, but I cannot find them in the 1920 census, so it may have been before that date.
According to the Sweeney and Allied Families Tree, Alice makes her way to Chicago. 1926 finds her as a back-up vocalist at the notorious
Green Mill Cocktail Lounge in north Chicago. There she meets and marries Milton Neul, a jazz musician. They have one son together. I do not know what became of this marriage, but in about 1932, Alice marries again, this time to John Edward Moore.
The occupation of John Edward Moore on the Sweeney Family Tree is given as "Bootlegger; owner: Circus Cafe, Chicago; Labor Union Racketeer." Of course, there is more to this than that one statement would imply. John Edward Moore, a.k.a.
Claude "Screwy" Maddox was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1900 and he may have been a member of the gang called
Egan's Rats. He eventually makes his way into the Chicago crime scene. He was the owner of the Circus Cafe night club, and more notably, the leader of the criminal gang of the same name. The Circus Cafe gang was the only gang on the North side of Chicago that associatedwith the organization of
Al "Scarface" Capone, infamous leader of the Chicago Outfit (and, reputedly,
part-time resident of Brookfield, WI.)
Moore may have been involved in the Massacre in a couple ways. First, Moore's previous association with Egan's Rats mat have played a role because the Rats were eventually implicated in the crime. Second, the location of the Circus Cafe on the North side made it an
advantageous spot from which to hit the Irish north-side
gang of
Bugs Moran. After the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, the police searched the back of the Circus Cafe. They found a drum filled with bullets for Thompson sub-machine guns. They also found numerous overcoats strewn about. Were these the overcoats of the killers? Or, perhaps, the victims of the Massacre? One of the overcoats held a .45 caliber pistol in the pocket. Moreover, it is speculated that the garage next door to Cafe was used to cut up one of the get-away cars. However, it caught fire and burned before this could be fully investigated.
Moore himself was never implicated in a direct involvement in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. He had the best of alibis: he was already in jail on that day for an unrelated offense. But, he may have been involved in other gangland killings.
Needless to says, he seems an odd choice in husband for a nice Polish girl who had been baptized at St. Hedwig's.
Sources:
Binder, John J.,
The Chicago Outfit
The Lather,
My Al Capone Museum: When, Where and How Did They Die
The
obituary of Milton Neul, Jr. on Legacy.com.
*Shifting from Leo Cesarz to his brother, Teodor connects you with another published family tree: the
Balliod Family Tree, also on the RootsWeb World Connect Project.
