John Joseph Duffy...

...was born in Schenectady, New York. How he or his parents got there, I'll never know. In fact, the only other thing I know about my great-grandfather's origins is that he was Irish. That's it.

At some point, John married a woman named Bridget O'Malliagh and migrated to Chicago, not necessarily in that order. (That spelling is an approximation on my part; I think it was some pre-Anglicized form of O'Malley.) Also, at some point, he joined the Chicago Police Department and rose to the rank of Detective Sergeant (whatever that is) and was on duty for the Haymarket Square Riot in 1886 (above).

John and Bridget had a bunch of kids (I forget how many; nine sounds about right) and at least one or two died young (which wasn't unusual in those days). One of the brood was named Leo, one Irene, one Tom and one Elizabeth, or Bess, my mother's mother. (I can't remember any of the others. I think there was also a John and probably a Mame -- didn't all Irish families at that time have a Mame? -- but I'm really not sure.)

All I know about Leo is that his nickname was "Dalla," or something like that, as in "Hey, Dalla, why don't you come over to our side of the street?" Irene was my Aunt Irene, a crabby old woman who never married and -- in that proud Irish tradition -- didn't speak to one of her sisters for decades. (What do you suppose that feud was about? Do you think even they knew?) Tom went on to become famous (at least in family lore) as "Red" Tom Duffy, a very small-time bootlegger who was shot and killed by Al Capone's gang in a 1920s version of a drive-by shooting. Tom's day job was as a barber and he died at the tender age of 21 or so. (I always credited Tom's fate with the unconscious decision by my family to "go straight." I don't know if anyone thought in terms of risk-to-reward ratios or high barriers to entry, but suffice it to say that cutting hair suddenly looked a lot more attractive than the "hospitality business.")

Bess Duffy was born on Taylor Street in about 1892, which was considered the South or West Side at the time. (I'm not sure which; it later became known as an Italian neighborhood and is now spitting distance from the University of Illinois at Chicago.) As I mentioned earlier, she was my mother's mother. More about her later.