Chapter 1.17 - Chicago

Well any way, now I’m through high school and I’m on my own. So I’ll tell you where I went and what I did and how I got there. Before I graduated in 1931 that spring, I wrote to Coyne Electric College in Chicago. I wanted to get into electrical refrigeration on the ground floor. My Dad agreed to co-signing on this Coyne school and they would provide room and board, find me a job while I was in school and also find me a job after I graduated and I needed to pay them back in two years. That’s what Dad had to cosign for - to pay them back in two years. I remember it was somewhere around $300. Any way, there was a neighbor lady right near Grandma’s and Grandma told her about what I was going to do. This lady had been a teacher in Chicago and she came out west and married a fellow that worked in the Forest Service. She was all upset. She told Dad and Grandma and the aunts that Chicago was all gangsters—Al Capone stuff—and a terrible place for a young innocent boy to go. So Dad withdrew his cosigning and I was out.

Chapter 1.17 - Chicago (T1.20)