Martin Langner

Martin LANGNER was born 23 Oct 1897 in Cicero, Cook County, Illinois. He was the fourth child of John, who was a laborer aged 30 years, and Maryanna (MICHALAK) LANGNER, who was 29 years old.

Martin LANGNER and Miss Bessie DOLECKI of Cicero, were married 17 Feb 1917 in Cook County, Illinois. Marty and Bess became parents when their daughter, Marie LANGNER, was born in 1918. Their son, Ray LANGNER was born in 1921.

Martin's Birth Certificate
23 Oct 1897

1910 Census
3015 48th Court, Cicero

Marriage Certificate

The ages given on the license were not accurate, Martin was only 19 and Bessie was only 16 years old.

Draft Registration Card
Sep 1918
5018 W 31st Place, Cicero

Marty wasn't drafted into the military during World War I because he was the sole supporter of his wife and child.

Census 1920
3015 48th Court, Cicero

Ray's 1921 Birth Certificate

5018 W 31st Place, Cicero

Ray, Bess, Marie
1921

Census 1930
2930 49th Court, Cicero

"He worked at Diamond T [starting] back in 1917, I went there to take his lunch when he forgot it once. That's when I first met Tilt, the owner. Diamond T made well-known trucks. During the war they made tank transports. We made the first successful half track with 105 millipede of howitzer on its back." [*RML]

Martin LANGNER joined the Masons/Shriners in 1922. Cicero Lodge No. 955 A. F. & A. M. was located on Austin Blvd.

"Our grandfather was an expert golfer. He won the state Masonic championship one year. Dadsie said he was the big boss's (C. A. Tilt's) golf partner at Diamond T, and they won lots of money on the golf course. It was said Grandpa could out drive Johnny Bulla, on of the pros of the day noted for long drives off the tee." [*ML]

(Marty was also a boxer.)

"Inscription says: Cicero Pastime 1936 Golf Tournament Won By Martin Langner. I have that and his “lucky horse shoe” which he always had mounted over the door to his bedroom." [*CMP]

In 1925, Marty opened a tavern at 2930 S. 48th, and they lived behind the saloon. He sold the tavern when he began to work for the syndicate.

"That's how he got into the business. My father had a little saloon. Somebody wanted to buy five gallons of alcohol. Grandpa went around trying to find Louie Lipshultz trying to get it for him. Louie Lipshultz found out that Grandpa was going to sell it to the man at the same price as he bought it, he wasn't going to make a dime, it was just a favor, and Grandpa had gone looking around for two hours. Louie Lipshultz thought he was a good guy so he gave Grandpa a job. That's how my father got into the alcohol business." [*RML]

"Saul Lipshultz was my father's partner in delivering the alcohol. Saul was Louie Lipshultz's brother. Louie was the boss and he paid my father." [*RML]

"The saloon was in the front. There were quarters in the back where Uncle Marty, Aunt Bess, Marie, and Ray lived. There was a door going from the kitchen to the saloon with a shade on the door. On Sundays, now and then, the saloon was closed and I would go and shoot pool with Ray. They also had free fish fry every Friday. You would go and buy beer and eat all the fish you can. All the taverns in the area did that. It was a big deal. I remember my mother would go and help Aunt Bess with the frying of the fish and so on. They used to get a real big box of potato chips to serve with the fish. We were visiting there one time, possibly a Sunday morning. The saloon wasn't open. All of a sudden, Uncle Marty got real excited. There was noise. Guys with the five gallon cans of alcohol were making a delivery through the side door. He got all shook up. It was noisy, there was yelling. Ray and I tried peaking through the window shade. It was the only time I ever saw Uncle Marty look scared. We were chased away from the door to the saloon. But we had seen enough. Apparently, the one gang that was delivering the cans were set upon by another gang. They were beating the delivery men up. I remember seeing the blood squirting all over and on the pool table. That's when Uncle Marty hollered at us to get away from the door. Spike was the guy that was really beat up. We were all scared." [*HJL]

"He bought one delivery dump truck. Then he bought another and hired a guy to drive the extra truck for $50 per trip. At night they would go to the still and get the alcohol using the delivery trucks. They drove to a farm in Mc Henry, where they had a still; loaded the dump truck with five gallon cans of alcohol and topped off with cinders; drove to Chicago to unload. He would get $200 per trip from Louie Lipshultz. They made the trip three nights each week. At other times he sold sand and crushed stone to show Feds he had a legit. He used the Joliet and Harlem quarry." [*RML]

"One day in 1928, I sneaked in the back of the truck on the way to the quarry. Just before the stones were being dumped, my head popped out and they saw me in time to prevent crushing me. My father raised hell with me but then stopped to buy a large 5 cent Hershey chocolate bar for me. That's the way he was." [*RML]

"The Feds would raid the tavern looking for alcohol but they couldn't go into the flat behind because that was a home. All the alcohol were kept in the basement of my mother's mother's house which was across the alley at 48th, Cicero Avenue. The basement had an outside entrance. There used to be maybe a hundred five gallon cans of alcohol at her house. We used to drive down the alley and get the cans into the car to sell and deliver to the different taverns around Hawthorne. I used to deliver with him but I couldn't pickup the five gallon cans. He did it for a couple of years when we were in the saloon on 48th Court. He would keep the trucks in the Ostrega bakery's 60 foot yard next door to the tavern." [*RML]

"Then the dirty Democrats got in and repealed the 19th Amendment (December, 1933). We moved into the flat behind our saloon-tavern on the next block at 30th Place for a year or so then Aunt May moved into our house from 32nd Street and 53rd." [*RML]

"Grandpa was asked to run and be the mayor of Cicero. He declined to run because he thought politics was a dirty business. After he refused, they asked his older brother, Henry, to run." [*CMP]

"During the depression, Grandpa used to load cigars so they would explode. He would load the big, expensive dollar ones. He would pass them out to his associates as practical jokes. One day Dad [Ray Langner] mixed one of the loaded ones with his father's. He said Grandpa didn't take the joke well." [*ML]

"In 1932 he bought a home at 5056 W. 31st Street. They lived there until they bought another saloon at 5060 W. 30th Place which had a hall in back for receptions." [*RML]

He made a lot of money, but he was required to spend the money. That's when Bess told him to buy a house for them to live in. "He died at 5056 W. 31st Street. I and my folks were living there at the time with them the day he died." [*CMP]

"Grandpa was the President of the syndicate's Dreamland Dance Hall on Harlem in Stickney, Illinois. They first closed the Dreamland Dancehall and then they burned it." [*RML]

"Next, my father met the 4811 nightclub at 22nd and Cicero (near Western Electric and the Town Hotel) and became the register owner (fronted the syndicate). The years come together ... At one time when he had the Barton Hotel and Grill, across from Western on Cicero and 23rd, he had a gambling house." [*RML]

"When they sold the saloon and we moved to another flat near 29th and 52nd, Mom stayed home. When they repealed prohibition, things got rough (1934). My father didn't go to work because after making all that money he couldn't work a regular job." [*RML]

"My father went back to Diamond T in 1939 because they were getting Arsenal for Liberty defense contracts for the European war. He took a job as a tester, he used to be the boss during World War I." [*RML]

1941
Standing: Marie, Ray, and Harry
Seated: Marty, Carl, Bess

"Grandpa used to lay on the couch each evening and smoke a cigar while listening to the news. He listened to two broadcaster, Walter Winchell and Gabriel Heater." [*CMP]

"When I was very young, my folks, Susie, and I lived on 31st Street (5056, I still recall the address) with Granny and Grandpa (about 1944). Grandpa and I had a Sunday morning ritual in the summer when the horses were in town at Hawthorn Race Track. Mom would polish my white shoes, put on a clean and pressed short-pants suit, and Grandpa would take me for a walk to the track. We would walk in the stable area just inside the gate. People from the track would come and talk to Grandpa while I watched the horses work out trotting around the track. When we were finished, we'd go across the street where there was a railroad round house. There were always several steam engines on the property, and if one was about to be switched out, Grandpa would get the engineer to put me on the engine and let me ride while the locomotive was being moved on the turn-table. These are the earliest memories I have of Grandpa, and I must have been about five at the time." [*CMP]

"Come to think of it, he (Grandpa LANGNER) must have had a fascination with trains too. Uncle Ray bought the Lionel “O” gauge electric train set for me for my 2nd Christmas. I recall those early childhood days every Christmas, when my Grandpa and Father would "help me play with the train" because I was too young to run it by myself." [*CMP]

"Grandpa must have liked horses a lot, for I also remember going to horse shows in a large arena in the Chicago stockyard area. Seems to me my dad took me to one of those shows also, after Grandpa passed away [1948]." [*CMP]

"He had been off from work 3-4 weeks because of a heart attack. He went to the doctor on the Friday before Memorial Day. A friend called him up Tuesday morning to find out whether or not to pick him up for work. Harry (PIETRZAK) went in to ask him, and he was dead." [*RML]

"I also remember the day Grandpa died (31 May 1948 of a heart attack at home in Cicero, IL). I was in the back yard when Granny started screaming (at the time I thought it was a chicken squawking). A neighbor jumped the fence and kept me in the yard. I did not see them take Grandpa from the house. I also recall the wake, and kissing him good-bye on his bald head. I recall counting the cars in the funeral procession --- 105. Except for being at the burial of Gen. Douglas McArthur in Norfolk, VA, Grandpa's procession is the longest I've ever seen in person. I really loved him, and I still miss him. He was special." [*CMP]

"What I recall being told was that he and Grannie were having fun in bed the night before tickling each other. He was looking forward to getting back to normal and going to work. Thus when that call came in about picking him up, it was Grannie who went to wake him by trying to tickle him. He, of course, had died and she screamed." [*CMP]

"I was only 5 when he passed away, but I do recall him laying on the couch pretending he was sleeping as I crept up to him and kissed him good night on his bald head. He would always act like it was a surprise." [*SMPB]

1940 Census
5056 31st Street, Cicero

[*CMP Carl Martin Pietrzak, *HJL Herbert Joseph Langner, *ML Marty Langner, *RML Raymond Martin Langner, *SMPB Susan Marie Pietrzak Bejnarowicz]

Martin LANGNER

23 Oct 1897 - 31 May 1948