Booze Under The Rumble Seat

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

The great things about visiting relatives is that you can ask them questions about your family history. And you can hear the stories that your parents didn't want to tell you!  That's the good stuff!

My Uncle Jerry is at the kitchen table where he tells the stories. He told me about my grandfather, and now he ran moonshine for Al Capone crime family in Chicago during the wild thirties.

My grandfather had a Pontiac coupe with rumble seats in the back. Underneath the rumble seats was a large empty area. You couldn't see what was under the rumble seat when the rumble seat was closed. That made a great hiding place for booze!

So my grandfather would drive from South Chicago, to a coffee shop somewhere in North Chicago, where he would park across the street, and park his car in the direction that he was wanting to go, which would be south. That told the mobsters that they needed to load full bottles of booze to go south

My grandfather would sip coffee coffee shop until the manager would come out and nod his head. That meant that he was ready to go. So my grandfather would leave the coffee shop, get into his car, and head south to South Chicago where he would stop at another coffee shop.

At this coffee shop he would park across the street pointing north, telling them that he had full booze to be unloaded, and needed to be reloaded with empty bottles. After he was done for the night he grabbed two or three hours sleep and go to his daytime job shoveling loose asbestos! No mask, no breathing air, no nothing back in those days.

My grandfather was paid five dollars a trip by the Capone crime family. That made ten dollars a night total. Making ten dollars a night during the Great Depression in the thirties was a lot of money! That was back in the days when people would try to sell an apple for a nickel! So if you were making ten dollars a night, you are making good money!

When Al Capone was convicted of tax evasion by the Untouchables, and put in prison, my grandfather decided it was time to get out of town. So my grandparents bought a dairy farm in Central Wisconsin, and settled down as a country farmers. He farmed  for the rest of his life, and we were sitting in the kitchen table in the old family farmhouse.

William James Roop

Roop-Crappell Ministries

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Apostolic Theological Seminary

The Pistol

 Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

My wife and I were just up in Wisconsin visiting with my mother's family that still lives in the area.  We also escorted my elderly mother up there with us.  While we were living with my mothers older brother, my uncle Jerry Mankowski, and his wife Nancy. 

 Jerry and Nancy still live on the old dairy farm of my Grandfather Ed Mankowski, the old booze runner for the Al Capone gang! Jerry still had one of the old pistols that belonged to Al Capones men!  The other three blog posts that tell of my family's involvement with the Capones are, "The Escape From The Mob,"  "The Booze Runners,"  "FBI Crackdown."

When the famous St. Valentines Day Massacre occurred, Charlie, an Chicago policeman, was first on the scene. He took the opportunity to relieve one of the dead mobsters of one of his sidearms. He took a pistol. Charlie was married to a lady named Stella, the sister of Frank and Ed Mankowski. 

Frank and Ed worked for the Al Capone gang! Ed was a booze runner, and Frank was a gang enforcer! Ed was my grandfather. In the nineteen-thirties, crime scene investigations was not the science that it is today. Cops taking souvenirs from a crime scene was pretty common back then, especially if it was not directly involved in the crime.

Many years later, when Charlie died, his wife Stella had the pistol. Stella gave it to her brother-in-law ED, my grandfather, and father to my uncle Jerry.  When my grandfather died, Hellen, my grandmother, gave it to her son Jerry.  That's how my uncle Jerry came to own a pistol carried by a Chicago gangster that died in the St. Valentines Day massacre!

Roop-Crappell Ministries

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Apostolic Theological Seminary

The Escape From The Mob!

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

I was up in Wisconsin visiting my mother's side of the family. My aunt and uncle currently live on the old family dairy farm. They are Nancy and Jerry Mankowski. Both are in their early eighties, but both doing well.  You can read related posts called, "The booze runners" and "FBI crackdown," "The Pistol."

While I was there, my uncle Jerry started telling stories about the Al Capone days in Chicago. One of the stories was about Frank Mankowski, and him changing his name. He did this to hide from the mob!  This is what happened.

Frank Mankowski was a booze runner with his brother Ed. But Frank was more than a booze runner, he also was an enforcer for the Capone crime family!  Their sister Ann was a waitress for a very expensive Supper Club.  One of Al Capones men wanted to date Ann, but Ann didn't like him, so she to refuse his advances. 

Just after the famous St. Valentine's massacre, and the mayor calling in the FBI, Ann was beaten up very badly by the Al Capone man that she rejected! She was beaten up so much that Ann was a the hospital for a month! When Ann woke up, she was terrified of the man who attacked her!

But Frank apparently knew the man, and why he had attacked her. Frank calmly informed Ann not to worry about them. Frank said that he had "taken care of him!". Now remember, Frank was an enforcer for the Al Capone crime family, so that only meant one thing!

When Frank finally got Ann out of the hospital, just as the Feds were cracking down, they fled to California!  When Ann got settled down there, Frank took a slow boat around through the Panama Canal and up to New York City. That is when Frank Mankowski changed his name to Langowski. That was his mother's maiden name.

His mother was pregnant with Frank by another man before her marriage, so Frank was never really a Mankowski anyway. So, Frank changed his name and laid low in New York City for about five years! Frank would never reveal what he did in New York City during those years, that went with him to the grave!

After the five years, Frank bought a farm in central Wisconsin near his brother Ed. There they both lived as farmers, and a much quieter life!  He kept the name Langowski for the rest of his life.

William James Roop, M.A.B.S.

 Roop-Crappell Ministries 

 Hospice Care and Life 

 The Trucking Tango 

 Apostolic Theological Seminary 

The Booze Runners

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

I was just up to Wisconsin to visit family. We stayed at the old farm house that my aunt and uncle now reside. They are Nancy and Jerry Mankowski. My grandparents were dairy farmers there. You can read related posts called, "The escape from the Mob," and "FBI crackdown," "The Pistol."

My grandfather, Ed Mankowski, was a booze runner for the Capone crime family in Chicago.  He ran with his brother, Frank Mankowski. Frank was also an enforcer for the Capone's.

Other teams would smuggle the booze out of Canada, and bring it down to the north side of Chicago. The smugglers would deposit the booze at restaurants though out north Chicago, for safe keeping.

Ed and Frank would drive a truck to one of the restaurants, park and walk in and drink coffee and pie  Sometime during the evening, the manager would nod at them. That meant that their truck was loaded and ready to roll!

Ed did the driving and Frank was there with a tommy gun!  That's how he got the nickname of "Tommy Gun Frank!". They would transport the booze to Capone warehouses on the south side of Chicago. Other teams would then deliver it to the many secret casinos and speakeasy's on Chicago's south side.

William James Roop, M.A.B.S.

 Roop-Crappell Ministries 

 Hospice Volunteer Stories 

 The Trucking Tango 

 Apostolic Theological Seminary 

FBI Crackdown

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

I flew up to Wautoma, Wisconsin, to visit my aunt and uncle. They are Jerry and Nancy Mankowski. While I was there, Jerry told me many stories, here's one. Also other related posts are, "The escape from the mob," and "The booze runner,"  "The Pistol."

My grandfather, Ed Mankowski, and his brother Frank, both work for the Al Capone crime family, in Chicago, Illinois, in the nineteen-thirties. Ed was a booze runner, and Frank was also a booze runner, but also an enforcer. They also had a sister who worked as a dance hall girl.

Running booze for the crime family was one thing, but being also an enforcer for the Capone's was another thing altogether! Frank did a lot of the dirty work for the Capone's.

Just after the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago, the Mayor called in the FBI to clean things up, due to the bad press. Everyone knew that they would soon have to lay low for awhile. 

After the massacre and before the FBI got settled in, a lot of score settling took place between the gangs of the city.  Frank got mixed up with that, and fled to California with his sister. Ed left in nineteen-forty-two to a farm in Wisconsin.

William James Roop, M.A.B.S.

 Roop-Crappell Ministries 

 Hospice Volunteer Stories 

 The Trucking Tango 

 Apostolic Theological Seminary