Beneath the dirt and grim of streets patrolled by gun-toting, smooth talking gangsters, laid the Corrupt City’s true underbelly. It’s a world that came alive with rumrunners, bootleggers and speakeasies. This secret world, not for the faint of heart, attracted some of Chicago’s newest residents- recent immigrants seeking a world of opportunity. Among them was my great-grandmother.
The Gunslinging Outlaw
The Code Breaking Intelligence Officer
Grandma was a badass. With her soft waves and red lipstick, she always reminded me of old Hollywood scarlets. Like the characters portrayed by those stars, she had gumption. She served in counterintelligence in the Navy and enlisted in intelligence in 1944 as part of the United States Naval Reserve. This program that allowed women to join the Navy for the first time taking stateside jobs during World War II is better know as WAVES.
As part of a class assignment, I had to interview a family member about World War II. Being the matriarch and my only surviving grandparent, she was it.
“Grandma, do you remember the bombing of Pearl Harbor.”
Her game of solitaire stopped. The cards were set down on the table. She readjusted her glasses and starred hard at me.
“Yes. Don’t you know the story?”
There’s no shortage of stories involving my grandmother, especially because she never shied away from telling people exactly what she thought. She applied for a position in the District Attorney’s Office shortly after being the only woman to graduate from her law school class. A male attorney laughed at her for applying and said they didn’t want a woman in the office. Suffice to say, I’m “too much of a lady” to repeat what she said.
I pulled up a chair and settled down beside her with a notepad. This one was going to be good.
She told me a story of being stationed in New Orleans and receiving an odd code early in the morning. It seemed to be reporting an attack on Pearl Harbor.
“It couldn’t be. We didn’t believe it.”
“What did you do?”
“I had to send it to my supervisor.”
My grandma- one of the first people to receive word of the bombing of Pearl Harbor on the mainland…. or so she said.
The 1960’s Working Mom
After World War II, my grandmother went on to law school, graduated and started a practice with her first husband, my great-grandfather. When her second husband needed nursing home care and she didn’t find one that she would put him in, she simply built and operated one herself. She worked until she was in her early 80s.
The term “working mom” wasn’t often used in the 1960s. Women were just entering the workforce. By then, my grandmother was already a military veteran. She was embarking on her career as an attorney, all while raising four children alone. Inside and outside the home, she was blazing trails.
The Magical Hostess
In 1982, I was able to give her a new title, Grandma. Thirty years later, my oldest daughter gave her another- Great-Grandma or Gigi. As much as she cherished serving in the Navy, being an attorney and a business owner, she loved being a grandma and great-grandma best of all. She delighted in the noise and chaos that came with six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Her home was an enchanted cottage where toys magically appeared on our beds, where candy never ran low and where dolls, trains and other toys came to life over the Christmas holidays. When her “good friend,” Santa, made special house calls, we couldn’t help but wonder…. Was our grandma Mrs. Claus? Or at least one of his magical helpers? Who knows how the daughter-in-law of a gunslinging immigrant forced to flee Chicago after killing someone will be remembered. The details often change from one telling of the story to the next. Facts quickly become fiction. Family tales often become quite tall.
