Evelyn - I Beginnings

It was a Sunday morning, January 28, 1912.  Josephine Viebrock McGowan could hear the church bells ringing as she lay in bed at the Hanaman Hospital at 29th and Cottage Grove in Chicago..  She had just given birth to her first child, Evelyn.

Josephine Viebrock was born on August 26, 1886.  My Dad was Archibald Rockwood McGowan, third oldest of five children.  His birthday was November 24, 1881.  Dad's brothers and sisters all graduated from high school -- unusual for that time -- but Dad got into disciplinary problems in every school he attended in Chicago and was expelled from them all.  As a result he never went beyond fourth grade.  He claimed that he was bored in school; that when he finished the assigned work there was nothing else to do but to get into trouble.  This  might be true because by the time he grew up he had read so extensively that he could speak well (and at great length) on almost any subject.  He used to help my sister with her algebra and geometry.   He was far more knowledgeable than his brothers or sisters.  He had no job skills, however, and he tried theater, dancing teacher, fireman on a Great Lakes cargo ship, millwright, newspaperman, police photographer and finally, a commercial photographer.

By the time he reached adulthood he realized what a temper he had and so he decided that Army discipline might help him.  In the early 1900's he joined the National Guard.  A second reason for joining was that there were no jobs available.

In the summer of 1910, a movie company needed some soldiers for a scene, and so Dad's National Guard group went to the Palos area where the filming was to be done.  The area, southwest of Chicago, was quite rural and sparsely inhabited at the time, so, when the filming was over, Dad and a couple of other soldiers decided to look for a place to eat.  They found a tavern on 95th Street that also served meals -- probably the only one for miles around.

The tavern was owned and operated by Matthew Bates and his wife Margaret.  They were childless, but many years earlier Matthew's sister Mary, who lived in Summit with her husband John Viebrock, had sent their five year old daughter Josephine to stay with her uncle and aunt.  Her aunt Margaret had broken either an arm or a leg - it wasn't clear - and she needed someone to run errands and to do small chores.  When the break healed Josephine stayed on instead of returning to her parents' home. The Bates were glad to have a child to love.  The Viebrocks had five other children; John (Hans,) Margaret, Christine, Rose and Matthew, who was born after Josephine left.  Making ends meet was not easy and when the harness-making business began to decline, John Viebrock had to depend on making other leather products.  They were probably glad for the help offered by the uncle and aunt.  I don't think Josephine ever got over the feeling of abandonment, however.

Foreword

My great-grandmother, Olive Locke Weston McFarland, left a diary or "journal" as she called it, for the year she was married, 1855.  It came into my hands, and I was so fascinated by the differences in lifestyle that I decided to write about my childhood so that my children and grandchildren might know what it was like to be brought up during Prohibition in a neighborhood where a gang was active.

This gang and others in the city were united under the Mafia chiefs and from this evolved the powerful Cosa Nostra.  The profits from bootlegging gave them the financial base that enabled them to grow.

I also wanted my descendants to know what it felt like during the Depression when the whole country was without hope.  Few people realize that, for almost ten years, the Depression affected almost every aspect of our lives.

This is not meant to be a literary effort.  After I typed it I remembered many things which I should have included.  There was no way that I could retype it, so I inserted the paragraphs with asterisks.  (ed. note:  The additions were incorporated into this manuscript.)

Please, try to be not too critical when you read this.

Evelyn M. Potyen