by Deirdre Bair
By the time of the 1920 census, both the business and the family had expanded, and they were living in a larger house at 1507 Flournoy Street. Their household included the five sons and two daughters to whom Clotilde gave birth in rapid succession. The eldest bore his grandfather’s and uncle’s name, Gennaro, which became Americanized to January or Jann. He was followed by Anthony (Tubby), Philomena (Phil), John, Annunziata (Nancy), Joseph (Pip), and James. The household was enlarged to nine children when Raphael and Clotilde took in another Philomena (called Fanny as a child and Phyllis as an adult) and another James (nicknamed Big Boy). Their father was Raphael’s cousin and another Vincenzo Capone, a wife and child beater who had been deserted when his battered wife seized her third child, the infant daughter Annunziata (also called Nancy), and in fear for her life ran off to live with a man who took her to New York. She left behind the two older children, who never saw her again and never looked for her after they were told by their enraged father that she was dead.
This Vincenzo Capone treated his two children cruelly, sometimes locking them into a rat-infested cellar while he went off to work or to a bar to drink himself drunk. Raphael heard them crying one day when they were locked in the cellar. He was a man of exceptional kindness to all children, so he took them to his home and told their father never to try to see them and especially never to try to take them. He and Clotilde raised them with the warmth and love they showed their own children, and Fanny and Big Boy grew up amid cousins who were like siblings to them.
Soon after he took in the children, Raphael needed a bigger house and also, because of his ties to Al, a bigger store, so he made another move, to Flournoy and Laflin Streets. There were slightly more cans of olive oil on the shelves, and a few imported vinegars joined them, so Raphael could now claim the import business as his legitimate occupation. Soon, his acumen in evading Prohibition and serving the alcohol needs of the community made him a respected figure there and beyond. It brought him an exceedingly attractive job offer that the family believes did not come directly from Al, but when he learned of it, it came with his approval. It also came with some unwelcome attention.
The firm of Balaban and Katz, known as B&K, was famous for the extravagant and ornate movie theaters it built all over the greater Chicago area starting in 1916. For those they were building in the southern parts of the city, they needed someone who could speak the Italian language and keep the workers in line, and in the early 1920s Raphael was offered the plum manager’s job. Here, the story takes on several interesting aspects.
It was well-known throughout the community that the Torrio organization was shaking down at least $1,000 per week from every one of the B&K theaters, a practice that continued for years after Al Capone took charge of the Outfit, and that both gang leaders always put their people on the inside to make sure the money was ready for the collector. Raphael was ready to accept the job when the first of the Black Hand letters arrived on his doorstep.
In the family lore, the letters were sent anonymously but were all of a kind; the usual demands for “protection” payments for the family grocery store now carried an additional warning: that Raphael should not work for Jews nor should he hire any. Also, that he should stay with his own people in his own little neighborhood and not hold a job that would take him above his station and away from it. The prejudice against Jews was real in the Italian-American community, but it was the latter part of the warning that was the strongest and most important.
Richard Gambino, in his authoritative study of Italian-Americans, quotes the proverb “Chi lascia la via vecchia per la nuova, sa quel che perde e non sa quel che trova—‘Whoever forsakes the old way for the new knows what he is losing but not what he will find.’ ” It was an illustration of the Italian peasant’s rigid adherence to l’ordine della famiglia, which Gambino translates as “the family system” and explains as “the unwritten but all-demanding and complex system of rules governing one’s relations within, and responsibilities to, his own family, and his posture toward those outside the family.” Loyalty to the family and the individual’s responsibility for it always came first; toward all other aspects of society, be it ethnic identity, employer, or even the neighborhood where he lived, the American-Italian was expected to behave as if he were still in Italy, with his responses to outsiders filling “a spectrum of attitudes ranging from indifference to scorn and contempt.”
Here again, as when Raphael persisted in courting and marrying Clotilde, he showed that by his willingness to contemplate a step outside tradition and take a job in the larger world, he was ready to adapt, to change, and to move beyond the age-old traditions of the family system. However, it was not an easy thing to do. Whether he paid this first (and comparatively small) attempt at extortion or not, he did decline the offer from B&K. Al must have allowed him to do so, for shortly afterward he was offered another job, this one as the president of a new bank that was being funded by a local group of prosperous Italian-Americans. This offer came shrouded in secrecy and myth, which his descendants attribute to “something not on the up-and-up,” adding that Al Capone was probably behind this offer. Raphael was no stranger to things that were not what they seemed, but in this case the unsavory aspects of the offer were more than he cared to entertain. Although there is no documentation to substantiate it, some of his descendants think these might have been his earliest business encounters with the Torrio organization, probably through Al, who had become Torrio’s trusted spokesperson.
Once Raphael declined the bank offer, he moved his family again, a little farther west to Congress and California Streets, where he set up a store that was both “controversial and confusing,” according to his grandsons. It was an actual business with real inventory, but “other things” went on there as well, and one day a fire of mysterious origin burned down and destroyed both house and store. “This was not the ‘Cow Fire,’ ” his descendants like to say, but it was big enough that the family lost everything.
Still, even though they kept moving, Raphael was not entirely overthrowing the Italian traditions of the old country, for every move he made was a small one that kept him in the same environs: the move to nearby Flournoy and Laflin was only several blocks away from Taylor Street, and Congress and California was at best only double that distance. They were in this general area until 1927, when Clotilde became so sick with what her children and theirs called “stress” that Raphael, who adored his wife, gave in and moved the family out of the city, farther west to the town of Freeport, far from the centers of bootlegging Al Capone had by that time established in Cicero and Berwyn. There was never a store in the large Freeport house with its six bedrooms and multiple bathrooms, but Raphael still gave his profession as importer, and wherever his income came from, there was always enough money to support his family in gracious comfort.
The reason Raphael Capone completely bypassed Cicero and Berwyn first for Freeport and then to move even farther west to Rockford was that Clotilde’s “stress” had its origin in his business dealings, and over the years a great part of what he did became tied up with Al Capone and the Outfit. By the time the family had its last store, the thirteen-year-old Philomena had left school and was working there as a clerk, while the boys who were old enough stocked shelves and delivered the occasional box of groceries. Mostly, however, they ran other mysterious errands that took them to different parts of the city, ferrying everything from bets on horse races to money collected from various extortions. Sometimes they even delivered booze-making supplies to families who were unable to come to the store for them.
None of this met with Clotilde’s approval, but she was extremely fond of Al, and that made it difficult for her either to condemn or to condone how her family life was moving into a world beyond her comprehension or control. The move to Freeport was intended to calm her fears and worries, and for two short years it did, even though the friendship with Al Capone grew stronger and he and his men were frequently in her house. And then something happe
ned that put her forever in his debt.
Anthony, called Tubby, was becoming an adolescent when he suddenly disappeared one day. He had been kidnapped, and no one knew by whom, although family lore credits the same small-time Black Hand gang that had been trying to extort Raphael for years, one composed of old Italian men who were permitted to operate because they posed no threat to the major gangs that were engaged in much larger criminal wars. Tubby was gone for almost a week when Raphael turned to Al for help. The next day, the boy walked back into the house as if he had never been away. Al came along a bit later and told them not to ask questions, so they never did.
The family’s response was typical of Italian-American behavior in those years: if there was any kind of documentation pertaining to the kidnapping, such as a letter with the famous black ink handprint that gave this particular brand of extortion its name, it was not saved; a paper document was something that might be damaging to the family and therefore best destroyed, as it had always been in Italy. Also, there was a code of silence within these families: there were many things best not talked about, things better left unsaid. Tubby had come home safely, and that was all that mattered. From childhood on, he too maintained the code of silence. If he ever talked to his brothers about what happened, they did not pass the stories on to their sons, who are now the elders of the family. And so what happened to Tubby was known by everyone, but why he had been taken and what happened while he was gone were never discussed. What they did talk about was the heroic part Al Capone played in getting him back. In this branch of the family also named Capone, Al became larger than life, and Tubby’s kidnapping was the first step toward the creation of their personal myth about him. There is always reverence when they tell this part of their family’s history.
As the myth of the powerful and invincible Al Capone was building, there is another family story of reverence and respect, but this one is about Al’s for Raphael. Al was often away from Mae for long periods of time when he was first in Chicago, and without her to keep him in line, he was not an attractive fellow. He dressed badly and behaved worse. Always boisterous and sometimes belligerent, he was a violent drunk and a frequenter of prostitutes. Raphael did not approve of Al’s public and professional behavior, but he knew better than to criticize him directly about it. However, when it came to how he behaved in his personal life, it was another thing entirely. When Al treated people who respected Raphael like a boor and a bully, they complained to Raphael. He did not appreciate someone who shared his name exhibiting such gross behavior, and he issued several admonitions that Al ignored.
One day, when the big black sedan that bore Al and the men who now acted as his bodyguards pulled up in front of the house, Raphael was waiting for him, seated in the living room with a heavy cane in hand. Al entered, preceded by one bodyguard and followed by two more. He greeted Raphael respectfully, but Raphael did not reply. Wordlessly, he stood up and beat Al about the head and shoulders with the cane. The bodyguards moved in at once, but Al simply raised his hand to stop them, then bowed his head and stood there as Raphael struck several more blows. When he finished, he and Al sat in silence for a while before beginning to discuss whatever business had brought him to the house, as if nothing untoward had happened.
Most of the older children were there, not actually in the room where the beating took place, but close enough to hear it, and although this story has doubters among those who study Al Capone’s life and crime in Chicago, Raphael’s descendants swear that it happened. Unlike Tubby’s kidnapping, they talked about this event for years, filled with wonder that their father had the nerve to strike Al Capone without being punished for it. First they told the tale among themselves, replaying every nuance as they argued, offered theories, and agreed or disagreed over what had happened. Not content to let it rest, they repeated the tale with all these ramifications for their children. Eventually, everyone in these two generations came to tell the story of the beating in the same way, with the same language, the same inflections, and the same gestures. And now the third generation coming into middle age also tells it that way. Most recite it as a factual text, a rote memory without the dramatic intensity of their fathers and grandfathers but with the exact version of the details, the highlight being that Raphael was the only man in Al Capone’s life (or his legend) who ever laid a hand on him and lived to have his third-generation descendants tell about it. Here again, it was another example of behavior according to Italian tradition: Raphael never spoke of what provoked his outburst, so his family can only speculate about what caused it.
Al Capone was a frequent visitor throughout the time Raphael’s family lived in Chicago and during their first several years after the move to the large Freeport house. They were always happy to see him because he brought baskets of good things for them to eat, including lots of candy, which Clotilde usually restricted unless Al took charge of dispensing it himself. The two smallest children, Fanny and Big Boy, were thrilled with the “dollar” Al always gave each of them, but it took several years before they understood why Clotilde always swooped in and took the money away the moment he left: Al always gave each child a $100 bill, telling them to “go buy some ice cream.”
After Al greeted the family and they engaged in the ritualistic consumption of food and drink—usually coffee, pastries, and anisette, for his visits were often unannounced and took place in midday or after dinner—the children were always shooed upstairs and told to stay in their bedrooms until Al and his men were finished with business. They still remember the clump of heavy shoes as Al’s men went up and down the stairs, from the dining room to the hallway closet that held the usual towels and sheets but also some mysterious business ledgers and brown paper packets that they now believe concealed money. Soon after that, the doors to the dining room closed, and if any of the children dared to risk their parents’ wrath by going down to the kitchen on any pretense, they would see Al and the men bent over the books and talking intently. Raphael sat quietly and nodded from time to time, but the moment Clotilde and the teenage daughters Phil or Nancy (who were allowed to sit in the kitchen with their mother) spotted the younger children, they were sent running back upstairs. When they grew to adulthood, they all insisted that their house was where Al kept one of his several sets of “real” account books, and they like to speculate that their set was the one that was most truthful.
Raphael made frequent trips into Chicago on what his grandchildren remember their fathers calling “his weekly pickup.” They don’t know what this was, but in March 1929 it took a deadly turn. This is how the grandchildren tell what happened: “When he got as far as Elgin, he ‘died’ [their emphasis, complete with air quotes]. The official death certificate said he was forty-seven years old, his occupation was ‘none,’ and the cause of death was ‘heart failure, lung failure, kidney failure.’ ” But when his sons went to claim his body for the undertaker, they saw that it was riddled with bullets. “Yes, it’s true,” they told their own sons, “if you are shot like that, your heart, your lungs, and your kidneys do give out, and you do die from heart and lung and kidney failure.”
It was around the time of Raphael’s death that questions arose among his sons about why Al Capone was so devoted to their family. He still came to the house for the next several years, sometimes to hide out from the press and the law, but usually to bring baskets of food and candy and dispense $100 bills to the children. Even though the children were old enough to have left school, there were few jobs during the Depression, and Al Capone became the major support of Clotilde and her family. Their children explain it today by saying, “There were five grown men in this family, and none of them really worked. And the family always had enough to eat and the mortgage got paid, and no one ever wanted for anything.”
That was when the other rumor surfaced that has since haunted this branch of the Capone family. Clotilde told her children, and they in turn told theirs, “You don’t know how close you are to Al Capone, and you must never tell.” Nat
urally, they wanted to know what she meant, but she never explained until she made them swear to “the Oath,” as it has come to be known in that family. Several weeks after her husband was buried, she called her five sons, two daughters, and two wards together, so everyone crowded into the dining room where the doors that were usually open to the living room and the kitchen were tightly shut. On that day, the glass bowl filled with wax fruit on the crocheted doily that usually graced the extra-large table between meals was not there; instead, there was a Bible, strange to see for a Catholic family not much given to reading the holy book. In fact, some of them wondered where it came from because no one remembered who had brought it into the house or when.
The widow took an unaccustomed place at the head of the table, which, since her husband’s unexpected demise, was always reserved for the eldest son, Gennaro (Jann). She told the others to gather around her, and they all shuffled somewhat uneasily into positions dictated by their age and station within the family. It was clear that something ceremonial, highly unusual, and therefore important was about to happen, even though there were no candles, no incense, nothing except the Bible.
Adeline Clotilde Tufano Capone spoke little English, so Jann got right to the point. “We are here today to take an oath,” he said as he described what was about to happen. “What we say here today will never leave this room. None of us will ever speak of it again.” He then put his hand on the Bible and instructed all the adults to do the same. His four brothers, two sisters, and the two puzzled wards all murmured some form of assent, but there was no other conversation. Everyone stood up and began the business of leaving, the dining room doors were opened, and the mid-afternoon business of the household resumed.