Deirdre Marie Capone - Uncle Al Capone - The Untold Story from Inside His Family

Al Capone & Deirdre Marie

When word got out that I was writing this book I was bombarded with questions about it. One of the most frequent questions I encountered was Is your book any different than the many other books written about Al Capone?

The answer was always an emphatic Yes!

Granted, there have been many good books written about Uncle Al, but they all have one thing in common: none of the authors actually knew the man. They relied primarily on previous books, newspaper articles, and government records.

This is the only book written about Al by someone from inside his family, someone who as a little girl sat on his lap, hugged and kissed him, and traded knock-knock jokes with him.

Someone who helped him cook spaghetti, ate many meals with him and slept in his house.

Someone whom he taught to swim, ride a bicycle, and play the mandolin.

And probably most importantly, someone who as an adult had countless conversations with his older brother and business partner (my grandfather Ralph) as well as his other brothers and his only sister.

Someone whose father was raised by Als mother in Als house.

Someone whose father committed suicide due to the burden of the Capone name.

Someone who was scorned by classmates for many years, and was fired from jobs because she was related to Al Capone.

Only in this book will you find previously unpublished family photos and mouthwatering authentic Capone family recipes.

I promise you, Dear Reader, that after reading this book you will know things about Al Capone and his family that none of his biographers ever knew.

I have always been opposed to violence, to shootings. I have fought, yes, but fought for peace. And I believe I can take credit for the peace that now exists in the racket game in Chicago. I believe that the people can thank me for the fact that gang killings here are probably a thing of the past.

- Al Capone

I am a Capone. My grandfather was Ralph Capone, listed in 1930 as Public Enemy #3 by the Chicago Crime Commission. That makes me the grand niece of his partner and younger brother, Public Enemy #1: Al Capone.

For much of my life, this was not information that I readily volunteered. In fact, I made every effort to hide the fact that I was a Capone, a name that had brought endless heartache to so many members of my family. In 1972, when I was in my early thirties, I left Chicago and my family history far behind me, reinventing myself in Minnesota and making sure that no one in my life other than my husband Bob knew my ancestry. I succeededeven with our four children.

But the truth about who I was hovered at the edges of the reality I had created, and I was terrified of itterrified of revisiting the shy, wounded girl who grew up friendless, shunned by classmates, forbidden to play with a mobsters child; terrified of once again hearing those dreaded words, Youre fired, and seeing another employers doors close to me because of my name; terrified of reawakening the grief of losing both my father and brother to suicide, collateral damage of the Capone legacy; and, above all, terrified that if my children learned they had gangster blood running through their veins, theyd be exposed to the same pain I had experienced.

As if this werent enough, my silence was also motivated by a little trick of fate truly stranger than fiction. My husbands uncle married the sister of one of the men killed in the St. Valentines Day Massacre. As youll read later in this book, I have good reason to believe that Al Capone was not as responsible for those cold-blooded murders as history has written, but all the same, how could I bring such a terrible complication into our family life? How could I know that my aunt by marriage wouldnt see her brothers murderers in my face? This concern was overshadowed because I was more afraid of my children finding out about their ancestry so I kept up the false front.

When my nine-year-old son Bobby came home from school one day in 1974 to announce that his class was learning about Al Capone, it knocked the wind out of me.

Ever since my children started school, I had developed the habit of asking, What did you learn today? when they came home. Of course, I always listened to their answers with great interest, but on that particular day, I felt like the whole world had just slid out of focus, leaving only Bobby and me. There he was, smiling and cheerful as always, telling me he was learning about my uncle in his fourth grade class.

My heart seized, but somehow, I managed to get out a half-casual, What did you learn about Al Capone? We learned that he was a gangster, Bobby told me. He went on to tell me about Prohibition in the 1920s and 30s, Als bootlegging operation, and how he had been such an expert outlaw that when the police finally nabbed him, the only charge they could pin on him was tax evasion. I was so astonished that all I could do was nod along as he spoke.

Later that evening, when Bob and I were alone, I told him what Bobby had said. I felt like I had been holding my breath ever since Bobby so innocently chirped the name Capone. Bob and I decided together that we couldnt keep the truth from our children any longer. We had no idea how they would react, but one thing was certainwe didnt want them to hear about it from someone else, and now that our oldest kids were teenagers, they had started to ask about their grandparents. We couldnt keep this from them forever.

The next evening, as Bob and I gathered our kids in the kitchen, I was petrified. This was a moment I had created in my head time and again, since Bob and I decided to start a family. And each time I imagined it, it ended badly. I thought our kids would be furious with me for keeping the secret, or for even being a Capone in the first place. Maybe they would be ashamed of me. Or worse yetmaybe they would be ashamed of themselves. Maybe hearing the truth about their family would send them into the same kind of downward spiral that had swallowed so much of my childhood.

When I was growing up, I was often mad at God for making me a Capone. I couldnt understand why other children werent allowed to play with me, and my heart broke every time I heard someone murmur a slur or read the newspapers awful accusations about the family I lovedand the family that loved me in return while everyone else shunned me. If these were my prevailing memories of growing up as a Capone, I just couldnt imagine that things would be any different for my children. As I sat them down at the kitchen table and prepared to break the news, I felt like I was on the verge of crushing the happy life that Bob and I worked so hard to give to them.

I could tell they sensed my nervousness, and they sat unusually quiet as I told them I had something important to say. I squeezed Bobs hand tightly, and the words came slowly.

Theres something I want to tell you about my family, I began. Al Capone was my uncle. My grandfather was his brother. I was born Deirdre Marie Capone.

For a split second, there was silence in the kitchen. I could feel my heart in my throat. Then, at the exact same instant, both of my teenagers exclaimed, Cool!

In retrospect, I suppose I should have anticipated the reaction, think about what any teenager might say upon hearing they are related to a legend. But to be honest, their excitement was the last thing in the world that I expected. I was so used to hiding and living in quiet shame that it just didnt cross my mind that my children might be more intrigued than upset.

But of course, it was a different time. I grew up with headlines about the menace of Al Capones Outfit splashed across the front page. I grew up seeing my classmates parents look at me and my family with constant suspicion and fear. I grew up well accustomed to men in dark suits guarding the Capone family home with machine guns. My children, on the other hand, grew up thinking of Al Capone as a celebrity, a folk hero more than a criminal.