Unofficial Voyageur Site - visit: www.NicoleBraun.com

I then looked up the 1945 anti-gambling bill she mentions on the Internet and found that it is the foundation of the current law on gambling in taverns in Wisconsin.

The legislative response to widespread tavern gambling was Chapter 374, Laws of 1945. Also known as the Thomson Antigambling Law, for its sponsor, Assemblyman Vernon W. Thomson (later attorney general and governor), the law provided for the seizure and destruction of any slot machine or gambling device found in a tavern and the revocation of the establishment’s alcohol beverage license. Any law enforcement official aware of illegal gambling who failed to take appropriate action was subject to removal from office by the governor. Well-publicized raids resulted in the confiscation of many illegal gambling machines. [“The Evolution of Legalized Gambling in Wisconsin,” www.legis.state.wi.us.]

Regarding Mae’s era in Spread Eagle, Pat explained, “When state police came in to raid, they would tell the local officials who would tip off the owners.” In the case of the new law, local officials themselves could be prosecuted for their knowledge of illegal slot machines. With three times the state enforcement agents on duty, the local law officials were in danger of being prosecuted themselves for knowledge of illegal gambling. So the tolerance which had previously existed came to an end.

One last surprising gem of information from Pat: He said some customers were “Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit money. The Mob came in to enjoy themselves. They [the brothels] were a guy’s hangout. They all carried shotguns, pistols, machine guns.” It was a place where they could be armed and entertained in the way they liked in the vacation atmosphere of Wisconsin’s North Woods. “Mobsters partied and had fun here. They could run around armed with tommy guns, and no one would say anything.”

I found a description of what he was talking about in Tom Hollatz’s book, Gangster Holidays. “Gangsters, too, enjoyed escaping the city’s heat to vacation in the woods. Like other wealthy Chicago tourists, the hoods hunted, fished, swam and otherwise enjoyed themselves in the relaxed vacation atmosphere with family and friends.”

Pat commented on the effect of this in Spread Eagle during the Depression. “The mobsters always brought money into the area,” he said. “Sure! The mobsters from Chicago were always good to people here. They would bring up tires, which were hard to buy, and give those away. They gave away food and clothing for the kids up here.”Finally, I asked Pat if he thought it was a good deal to come up here in the Depression in the 1930s to run this business. He said, “Yes—clean, fresh air, nice countryside, steady money, no trouble.” On the other hand, he said in the same breath, “Whoever was the toughest survived in this business.”

Well, it probably was a good deal. Mae toughed it out in a rough business. Yet no one I talked to remembered her in a tiny town where she had lived for twelve years. Her husband, her business, yes, but not her. I sensed a certain wistfulness in the Hollywood’s ironic motto printed on its letterhead, “A Fine Place - Just Like Home.” A good deal, yes, but was it good enough?
Mom, who knew Mae in her fifties, characterized her as “a drunk” with a “cold personality.”A few months before her death in 1948, she came to Milwaukee for the July christening of her first grandchild, my older brother. Mom says Mae was so drunk that she was afraid to let her hold her baby. Mae’s death certificate reports her death in October, at age fifty-six, from “heart failure, due to alcohol over indulgent.”

Two decades later, the story of her life was still fresh in her sister Lily’s mind, when she wrote the following in a letter to Dad, marked “Personal and Confidential.” I had already read the letter several times over the years. But I didn’t understand what she was getting at until now.

She had a lovely—generous nature—very sentimental was a beautiful girl. A girl like that is prey for a weak, selfish person [i.e., the lover who abandoned her to single motherhood]. ... the affair ruined a nice person’s life. ... After...she grabbed at the first straw—which was all wrong—that was the greatest tragedy. By nature your mother was not born for that life—one saw what it done to her. It completely changed her expression. That picture I have of her sitting on the grass is excellent—the dress was pink. ... She was not a mercenary person. Only dreamed of love, home and family.

PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY