Margaret and Sam Giancana

For this blog you first need to pretend that you hear the theme song from the movie The Godfather. Do you have it yet? Picture an old Italian Sicilian neighborhood, except this time it is in Chicago instead of New York. You see clothes hanging from one building to the other on a hot sunny day. You won't find the head of an expensive race horse in my story. Not quite the typical picture of Italians in the movies. It is now later in the evening and dark. The laundry has been taken down. It's a quieter time, with groups of teenage boys standing on corners talking about girls, sex and whatever. Ah, isn't Italian music nice?

Margaret was my four foot nine future Mother-In-Law and at this time she was a young single woman. She had been out late with her girlfriends, and had taken a late bus home. She was alone walking towards her family's apartment. The boys standing on the corner were not the usual type of teens you would would see today. These boys lived in a much harder time which led them to a life of crime and violence. Margaret only knew that they were just the neighborhood boys protecting the girls from outsiders. She never dreamed what would become of one of those particular boys. This was the depression era and crime was rampant. One of the guys was a budding mafia king pin, namely one, Sam Giancana.

From what I have been told, Sam was abused by his parents. He hardly ever got a good meal from them. Margaret's mother felt sorry for Sam and invited him over to share some of their dinners with him. That night Margaret was walking down the street, Sam yelled out, "Margaret, what are you doing out so late alone? You should have been home earlier, don't go out alone in the dark."

Sam went on to become a big mob boss of Chicago and Las Vegas. Margaret became the wife of a Welsh American and a mother of four children. Unfortunately she never taught her children the Italian language. Italians were looked down upon back then and called greasers, wops and dagos. People forget where Michaelangelo, and Galileo were born and raised.

People enjoy when I tell them this story. Funny how we make "heros" even of the meanest, cruelest people in the world. This man also shared a woman with the President of the United States!

This makes me wonder what would have happened if Margaret would have married Sam Giancana.