Keith Trau

Capone's Wolff Keith Trau

Rumors and old photos placed my grandfather, Wolff Schneider in Chicago during the time of Al Capone and Prohibition. How he ended up and stayed for ten years in Chicago is what is started in the first book presented here. Family members rekindled my interest twenty five years after my Grandfather had died in 2012. I began to research and then to write Capone's Wolff. I could not leave the thoughts about what my Grandfather's life must have been like and what did an under educated immigrant have to do to succeed in life in America in the 1920's. In tracing and researching the times and people who my Grandfather encountered, my discoveries led me to many forms of work Grandfather did to survive, some legal, like working as a butcher in slaughter houses, some illegal, such as riding shotgun on bootleg whiskey shipments. Violence, murder, double crossing and outright grafting is witnessed by men and women who survived the Chicago recanted for you from 1920-1924, as this is part one of how my Grandfather came to work and you may say thrive in Chicago's Outfit. The Outfit is the gang name for Al Capone's organization of prostitution, gambling, speakeasy's, illegal beer making and prohibited hard liquor importing. Many competing gangs will fight Capone's Outfit for control of Chicago. The largest competitors are the Irish gangs of North Side Chicago. Names many know, but do not know really teh kind of men behind their names, such as, Dion (Dean) O'Banion, Hymie Weiss and Bugs Moran to name a few. This book is laid out in short chapters and small paragraphs to capture the pace of life in Chicago of the roaring 20's. The dialog is from research and authentic speaking (slang expression) is useful where the author can capture the mood of the times. Do you the reader know whose shoulders you stand on and what your family members had to do to build success for your current generation. This book is a tribute to family. My Grandfather always said, "Blood is all that matters." Please enjoy the life and times of Wolff Schneider.