Rosemont: A Novel of Rosemont

By Tony Ginocchio

"First of all, Rosemont is not Chicago. It is a four-mile patch of greed and boredom that has planted itself, like a toddler demanding your attention, between the O’Hare airport and Chicago proper." With these words, Tony Ginocchio begins his mad dash through the history of America's most infamous suburb, past rigged elections, organized crime lords, marching band competitions, crumbling casinos, tacky theme parks, tapped phone lines, overpriced stadium concessions, and indoor skydiving. Out of all of this, Ginocchio has created a uniquely researched and occasionally hilarious family saga that prompted the head of the James A. Michener Society to say "please stop contacting us, we don't know who you are". ROSEMONT: A NOVEL OF ROSEMONT is a very specific history of a very specific place, but it's also a guide to what to do when you wake up and realize you're living in the middle of history yourself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tony Ginocchio
• Release date: Aug 2, 2021

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Rosemont

A Novel of Rosemont

Tony Ginocchio

Copyright © 2021 Tony Ginocchio. All rights reserved.

This is a work of historical fiction. While there are well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure into the narrative, all other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Cover photograph by Doug Kerr, distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 license. More information can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en . Use of this work does not constitute an endorsement by the artist.

The author is a proud member of the National Writers Union.

"Even though he's been dead for six years, Donald E. Stephens remains the Dear Leader of Rosemont, the little patch of farmland near the airport that, as its mayor for 50 years, he developed into Chicagoland's center for cheesy entertainment. You can't go too far without running into something that was named for him."

- Aimee Levitt, writing for the Chicago Reader in 2013

Rosemont is on the nation’s map, even the world’s, in a way that no Chicago suburb can match. And other suburban mayors and officials look at Rosemont with a mix of envy and abhorrence.

- Patrick T. Reardon, writing for the Chicago Tribune in 1997

PROLOGUE

First of all, Rosemont is not Chicago. It is a four-mile patch of greed and boredom that has planted itself, like a toddler demanding your attention, between the O’Hare airport and Chicago proper. Maybe you’ve visited Rosemont before and accidentally confused it with Chicago; if you’ve ever had a flight cancelled at O’Hare, there’s a good chance you thought okay I’ll just grab a hotel room and find dinner nearby and tell my family I’m stuck in Chicago for the evening and then spent some time in the Village of Rosemont, population 4,107, incorporated 1956.

Rosemont is not Chicago; only 4,107 people live there. Chicago’s famously turfy neighborhoods and wards each built their own unique block-level lore and culture and politics, with the balances of economic and political power shifting throughout the city’s rich history. Rosemont barely has any history - your parents might be older than the village - and Rosemont barely has any people. If you go to Rosemont for a concert or play or convention, you’ll see the big arena and the fancy theater and the massive convention center, and you might even see a minor league ballgame or eat at one of the theme restaurants or visit the world’s largest public collection of Hummel figurines or do some indoor skydiving or check out a college football museum, and it won’t occur to you until after you get home that you actually don’t even know where a resident of Rosemont would live, you didn’t even see any homes or residential areas of any kind. Chicago is heaving with people; one imagines that Rosemont on a weeknight feels very empty and well-lit.

Rosemont is not Chicago; the Democratic party stronghold of Chicago has been home to many famous political brawls. Rosemont’s mayors have all been Republicans, and there aren’t political brawls in Rosemont. Local elections are very sleepy affairs, the residents all seem to be fine with the village services and relatively low tax rates, and overall the village does not seem like much of a place where history happens, political or otherwise. And that sounds very refreshing in a very politically polarized age, until you realize that in its 65-year history, Rosemont has only had two mayors, ever. The first, Donald E. Stephens, founded the village before he turned thirty, he was elected mayor thirteen times in a row, he does not appear to have ever earned less than eighty percent of the vote in any mayoral election, and he served until he died, despite federal indictments and rumored mob ties and investigative reports and five marriages and his weird Hummel collection. The second and current Mayor of Rosemont is Bradley A. Stephens, Donald’s son. And once you learn that Rosemont has only ever had two mayors and that they’ve both been from the Stephens family, you’re not far off from learning that all of the other important public service leadership roles in the city, and the leadership roles of several private companies that do significant business with this key economic center of the Chicago metropolitan area, are all held by other members of the Stephens family. Chicago is a city where all sorts of different interests get caught up in a cutthroat struggle for power; Rosemont put the Stephens family in charge of everything forever and they’re doing just fine, thank you.

Rosemont is not Chicago; people write books about Chicago. When the great historian and broadcaster Studs Terkel wrote Chicago in 1985, he said that Chicago was still the arena of those who dream of the City of Man and those who envision a City of Things. The battle appears to be forever joined. That’s true, to some extent, about every city: the haves and the have-nots fight continuously to drag their version of the city into reality. The people trying to build a City of Things protect their wealth and power, the people trying to build a City of Man demand to have their dignity and their rights recognized, even when doing so would threaten the wealth and power of others. Hell, even if you live in a small town, there's still someone who wants to raise taxes to fully fund the public library, and there’s some rich asshole who doesn't want to pay taxes and thinks the public library can fuck itself. When you see what Terkel wrote about Chicago, you might start to think that Rosemont is the one place in the world where the battle is not forever joined, and that might be a singular historical achievement in its own way. One family has controlled the town since its beginning, and nobody seemed to have any interest in opposing them or presenting any sort of alternative. It’s hard to even physically find the people who could oppose them or present that alternative. So one family brought their vision of the American city to life without any compromises, built it around an airport and convention center, and made it like ninety percent theme restaurants and hotels with steakhouses on the first floor. Chicago is an epic saga that could fill volumes, shelves, libraries. There are no books about Rosemont, a place where, at first glance, history is not happening and has never happened.

It seems absurd that history would not happen on this four-mile stretch of swampland at any point in the past sixty-five years, at any point from 1956 to the present day. But Rosemont is not Chicago, it’s a bunch of people who fled to the suburbs in the fifties and sixties as city institutions started to get hollowed out. Maybe 1956 to the present day was the only era in which Rosemont could have happened, and maybe Rosemont could have only happened because in 1956 to the present day, it was not Chicago. Maybe what comes next, what comes after the present day isn’t going to have the same conditions that allowed Rosemont to happen. Maybe we should look at the story of Rosemont to see what should come next. And maybe that story, like many great stories, starts with a bunch of people not showing up to work.

CHAPTER I - THE RED COMBINE

He had a neat method of rolling a cigarette - it was really a masterpiece. I don't know how he did it, but he could roll a cigarette with one hand - his left hand - and with his other hand he could throw a brick through the window of a scab's car.

Hank Graber, FE Local 101

After a long night of not sleeping, Joseph Stezcyk got dressed and drove into the city for a long day of not working. It was a long drive downtown to the twine mill, where the workers were gathering outside of the front entrance and setting up a PA system.

Joseph parked and heard a voice across the street calling his name. He headed over to where his comrade Duncan and what looked like a relatively new worker were standing at watching the twine mill.

They’re still getting set up, we’ve got some time, said Duncan. Leonard, this is Joe Stezcyk, Duncan continued, introducing Joseph to the new guy. Leonard’s new to this, but we’ve got him doing jail support for Local 141 today, if it comes to that. Comrade Joe here is a shop steward for Local 101 at the McCormick Works right behind us, been a huge help to us with our previous strikes, going to be a huge help again for our next one, right Joe? Joseph grunted, not being one for conversation.

Are you going to be going on strike again? Leonard asked. Joseph nodded solemnly in response.

Hard to imagine we won’t, Duncan continued. "The contract is up in two months, management is the worst they’ve ever been and I’m saying that having spent my whole adult life at Harvester. They’re gutting whatever they can, trying to get the stewards like Joe here to handle grievances off the clock, just trying to get total control of the workplace however they can.

Bastards, he spat, continuing on. It’s going to be tough. It’s not a good time to be, like, to be a union guy right now, not all of this anti-Red bullshit and the UAW trying to raid us and just...just years of fighting these guys for every scrap. Ah, look, speaking of bastards, several Chicago Police Department vehicles had pulled up as the twine mill workers finished setting up. This guy here, Duncan continued, reaching up and clapping a hand on Joseph’s shoulder, he flattened four cops once in a brawl on a picket line we had...what was it, Joe, two strikes ago now?

Joseph smirked and Leonard stared. Oh my God, said Leonard, that’s you? You’re Big Joe? I’ve heard stories about you!

Joseph grinned. Fun times, he finally said.

But probably not in a big brawling mood for today, I’m guessing? asked Duncan. You been getting any sleep, Joe?

Joseph laughed. No...

Joe’s a new dad, Duncan quickly explained to Leonard. Just moved to a new house outside the city.

Congratulations! said Leonard. Boy or girl?

Boy, said Joseph. Brian. The cops were getting out of their cars and just trying to generally look intimidating.

And where’s the new place?

Northwest, said Joseph. Cook County land, by the big airfield

Oh yeah, so, said Leonard, is that like, around Des Plaines, that area? Joseph nodded.

Here we go, here we go, said Duncan, tapping Joseph on the shoulder. One of the twine mill workers had started speaking into the PA system.

Good morning, my name is Alice, said the worker, now joined with dozens of other workers behind her, "and I’m a proud member of the Farm Equipment Workers Union, and a proud employee of the twine mill behind me, a twine mill that International Harvester has promised to shut down and relocate to New Orleans, all to find cheap, Jim Crow, non-union, sweatshop labor, she said, pounding his fist in the air. The workers behind her started shouting THAT AIN’T RIGHT!"

This mill, and the proud union members who work in this mill, have been pillars of Chicago’s industry and community for decades, proud members of the city, proud members of Harvester, who are just looking for a job with dignity that allows us to take care of our families. Alice continued. "We’ve contributed to this city, and to this company, all while our company’s president makes hundreds of millions of dollars in profit and says he can’t afford to keep this plant open in Chicago! She had to shout now, to stay heard over the voices screaming THAT AIN’T RIGHT! in response to everything she was saying. Management says this is a time for difficult decisions, this is a time for sacrifices, she continued. Well, this was an easy decision for management. They don’t make the sacrifices. We do, she concluded, as the crowd rose up once again to shout THAT AIN’T RIGHT!"

So today, we’re taking action, she continued, we’re not letting them pack up this plant and move it to the South. As we speak, two hundred and fifty other proud members of the Farm Equipment Workers Union are chaining themselves to the mill’s machinery. We are on a sitdown strike for our jobs, for this factory, and for working people all over the city!

The police officers who had shown up had changed their look from generally intimidating to worried. Some men in hard hats and overalls, presumably the guys Harvester had hired to load everything onto the trucks, had shown up and were standing next to the cops. They were also looking worried.

Our brothers and sisters from across the street, the men and women who make our country’s tractors and harvesters and combines, are here in solidarity with us today as well, Alice continued. We will not let Harvester management take these machines away today. Thank you. The crowd behind her cheered, and Alice turned and walked back into the mill.

Wow, said Leonard. That was great. I guess, he said, turning to Duncan, I don’t really understand what I’m supposed to be doing if I’m not in there?

You’re jail support, like we said, you’re going to be keeping track of the arrests, getting everyone in contact with lawyers, that sort of thing, said Duncan.

A very important job, rumbled Joseph.

Well, I mean, nobody’s going to jail, said Leonard.

The hard hat men looked at each other, then walked with the police toward the mill. The crowd that was cheering Alice on - a few dozen men and women who, for the most part, had fought in a world war a few years earlier and did not find the Chicago Police Department especially intimidating by comparison - immediately leapt onto the intruders and started beating the shit out of them.

See, that’s why you’re here, said Duncan. We don’t like to fuck around. You’ve heard stories about Big Joe here, but the real dirty secret about the FE, he said, is that we have, more than a few members who have flattened four cops on a picket line. Oh hey, there’s the first truck.

A small truck, presumably loaded up with mill equipment before the workers had started chaining themselves to everything, was starting to slowly move out from the loading dock. Someone in the brawl yelled TRUCK! and a detachment of workers hurried over towards the trucking, grabbing bricks, stones, whatever heavy objects they could find on the side of the road and hurling them at the windows.

Holy shit, said Leonard.

You know, if you want to get in there and throw some bricks at some windows, you can, said Duncan. It’s your first direct action, you want to get at least one brick throw in.

Leonard looked around, them found a brick a few steps in front of him. He picked it up and turned back to Duncan. You sure? he asked, like an eager kid about to jump off of a diving board.

Sure, go ahead, said Duncan cheerfully.

You want to throw a brick? asked Leonard, holding it out to Joseph.

Joseph shook his head and let off a low chuckle. I think I’ve thrown enough bricks at cars for a lifetime.

Leonard shrugged. Suit yourself. He turned, hurled the brick at the car’s window, and immediately started running after the brick he just threw.

You know, comrade, said Duncan, standing back as the brawl kept escalating, I really do love Chicago.

Joseph nodded. I miss it already, comrade.

Joseph usually took most of the night shift watching his infant son, since his wife handled things while he was at work, or helping other people not work. Which is how Joseph found himself in the newly-painted nursery that night, rocking the bassinet while his son laid inside and just stared at him wide-eyed.

Like most new fathers, Joseph had no idea what would actually get his son to sleep. Rocking didn’t seem to work, making shushing sounds didn’t seem to work, and after what felt like an eternity of rocking and being stared at, Joseph finally asked so what's your deal then, big guy?

Brian just stared back, wide awake. At least he wasn't crying, but still, that stare was disconcerting. Joseph couldn’t think of anything to say to the baby, but he figured that silence wasn’t going to work anymore.

What about a story? You want to hear a story? asked Joseph, again receiving a silent stare in response. Let's see here… he looked over at the small pile of books he and his wife had gotten as gifts. Oh! Here we go, he said, taking out one with a red cover, "Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. A great one, you'll like this one, let's see."

Joseph cracked the book open and felt the rush of some long-ago memories, nothing specific, but the general sense that this was something that he had had in his childhood too, something familiar and good, and that brought him a little bit of comfort in a situation where he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. So he started into the story of Mike Mulligan the worker and Maryanne the sentient steam shovel, the dream team that had dug the canals and plowed the prairies and built the highways and laid the foundations of the great cities.

You hear that, big guy? Joseph asked. They were the ones who did it, who built the highways and the cities. Not the bosses, not the people who paid for it, Mike and Maryanne. Remember that, always remember that: without our brain and muscle, not a single wheel can turn.

Baby Brian kept staring at Joseph, and Joseph could have sworn that Brian was starting to smile, although it’s possible that Brian was just pooping. As Joseph read the rest of the story, he noticed that Brian was starting to use his little hand to tap on the mattress of his bassinet. It didn’t seem to be in response to anything, but he was keeping a very steady rhythm with his tap tap tap.

That’s pretty good, grunted Joseph. You’ve got a good sense of rhythm there. Are you a musician? You an aspiring musician? Of course, there was no response, but Joseph was starting to have fun. You going to be a musician when you grow up? Maybe play for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra? That would be pretty good, they’re a great orchestra, Brian. And they’re union musicians, I’m pretty sure, that’s good too, he added.

That’s kind of what’s on my mind right now, Joseph continued, still rocking the bassinet gently and not expecting any sort of response beyond Baby Brian’s stare and steady thumping. I’m in a union, Baby Brian, and...you don’t know what that is and I’m probably not going to be able to explain it very well, but… Joseph trailed off. The union had been really important to him for a long time, but Joseph wasn’t great at finding the words to explain why, to explain that it had been really important that he was part of something that helped people, helped them get paid fairly for the work they do, and come home safe from their jobs every day, and look out for each other at their jobs. And Joseph didn’t have the words to tell his son that everyone in that union was about to do something very scary, and they didn’t know if it was going to work or not, but they had to do it, because they wanted everyone to live in a world where people kept getting paid fairly and coming home safely and looking out for each other. And they were all worried that if they didn’t do this scary thing and go on strike, that world was going to go away someday, not overnight, but little by little. They had to do something scary now, so that other people would keep doing it in the future, that they’d know that it wasn’t impossible to fight for something like this. And Joseph was thinking, but couldn’t say, that maybe Baby Brian would have to do something like this someday, or that Baby Brian’s kids would have to do it if he ever had kids. But he didn’t say any of this, because while it was all gathered up inside of his head, he didn’t know how to get it out, and he wasn’t big on long dramatic monologues. So instead, Joseph just kept rocking and sighed, I don’t know, big guy. Baby Brian kept staring at Joseph, but Joseph didn’t notice; he was staring off into space, in his own head, listening to the thumping.

Suddenly, Joseph stopped rocking the bassinet and looked down at Baby Brian. You like music? You want to hear a song? Baby Brian kept thumping. You want to hear, uh, rock-a-bye-baby, or, a thought occurred to him, do you want to hear a real song, like a good song? Baby Brian stared at him and kept thumping. Let’s do this one, I learned this one a long time ago.

And in time with Baby Brian’s thumping, Joseph started singing a very old song, one that he had learned on the job years ago, although the lyrics were older than Joseph’s career, and the tune was older still. Joseph’s song was set to a church hymn that had been around for ages, but the lyrics were, well, not from a hymn:

Are you poor, forlorn, and hungry?

Are there lots of things you lack?

Is your life made up of misery?

Then...DUMP THE BOSSES OFF YOUR BACK.

Joseph really leaned into that last line, and he thought he saw another little smile on Baby Brian’s face. Did you like that? Because there are more verses, and you can keep drumming to those… and Joseph sang the other verses, and made funny faces and sang dump the bosses off your back in a deep funny voice every time, and Baby Brian seemed to be getting into it.

What do you think? Was that a good song? asked Joseph, starting to rock the bassinet in rhythm this time. Do you want another one?

Joseph had no shortage of old labor songs stored in his head, because he had sung all of them at rallies and on picket lines with the other members of the Farm Equipment Workers Local 101 Chicago. He couldn’t explain the history of the labor movement or the decades-long fight with his bosses over at Harvester to a newborn. He couldn’t explain the big scary thing he was planning to do with his union, or what the stakes were. But he could sing to his son, and sing songs that he had learned on the picket line, songs that workers had sung to each other for decades, workers who couldn’t fully explain their own struggles to each other because they all carried different countries and families and lives and languages with them, and not all of them were educated, and not all of them were natural organizers, and not all of them were brilliant communicators, but they all knew that their bosses were making their lives miserable. So they wrote songs, set to hymn tunes that everyone already knew, and people learned them and learned about how to organize, and now a sleep-deprived shop steward was sharing them with his newborn son. And Joseph sang Hold the Fort and The Preacher and the Slave to Baby Brian next, and Baby Brian kept staring and thumping, and eventually Joseph got to Solidarity Forever.

Solidarity Forever is not just the most important labor song ever written, it’s also a very good song to sing to a baby that you want to fall asleep, because it has six verses, you can drop the refrain in between each verse, and you can take the whole thing at a very stately tempo, so that the entire song takes up a decent chunk of time. And it worked for Joseph, because Baby Brian finally, finally fell asleep by the time he got to the line without our brain and muscle, not a single wheel can turn.

What do we want?

CONTRACT!

When do we want it?

NOW!

It was Joseph and Local 101's first day out on strike. Well, their first day out on the 1952 strike. The Farm Equipment Workers union had a history of going out on strike a lot, even by 1952 standards, and always insisted on signing one-year contracts with management so that the threat of another strike was never far away. So nobody on the picket lines in Chicago had to learn the chants from scratch, and nobody was asking where they were supposed to be, and nobody was wondering why 300 cops had shown up in their powder-blue helmets to glare at the picketers. The word on the street was that several brawls had already broken out at the other Harvester plants, and the boys down in Louisville - who happened to tape all of their picket signs to baseball bats - had already taken a few arrests.

Up in Chicago, though, the picket was off to a relatively civil start. Hundreds of workers were out in front of the factory, everyone was fired up and energized, it was a beautiful August morning in Chicago, the kind where you have to get outside right away because you don’t know how many of those mornings you have left in the year, and Local 101 was happy to wake up the neighborhood with their chants. Tired though he was from another long night with Baby Brian, Joseph was feeling good about the strike. He felt better when his wife and son showed up to the picket line.

Hey you, Joseph said, stepping off of the picket line for a minute to give his wife Marie a kiss.

Hey you, she responded. How's everyone doing?

Off to a good start, and we needed a good start, said Joseph. He was right: there were hundreds of people walking out, nobody was crossing the picket line yet, and hopefully management at Harvester was seeing just how serious the union was taking this strike. What do you think, big guy? Joseph added, leaning over into the buggy that Marie had pushed onto the line with her. Baby Brian just stared back at his dad from inside the buggy.

You hear the songs, big guy? Joseph asked; there was no way that Baby Brian couldn't hear them. Remember these?

You want to take him on the line for a little bit? Marie asked. We're getting lunch set up for you guys at the park.

Joseph nodded, hugged his wife, and took the buggy onto the line. As he started marching again, Duncan hustled over to him. Is this him? Is this your son? Is he ready for his first picket line? Baby Brian had started tapping his hand again, and it was in perfect time to the chants from the line. Wow, he’s got a good sense of rhythm already! Duncan said, and Joseph smiled at that.

Have you filled him in yet? asked Duncan. Should I? Joseph just laughed and nodded. Okay, Baby Brian, Duncan continued, as the chants echoed all around him, we're just going to march in this big circle for a while, and make sure there aren't any scabs trying to go into the factory, okay? You know, the guys who run this place, sometimes they need some convincing, you know? We have so many good people at the factory, who do such important work, and sometimes the bosses say 'we're paying you too much' or 'you're not working fast enough' or 'we're the ones who tell you what to do'', and every so often, we have to stop working to remind them, he said, who gets to tell who what to do around here. He looked around at his hundreds of comrades. It's really a beautiful sight, the first day of a strike, he continued. Hopefully this one will be over very quickly.

Two weeks later, the strike was not over, although the picket lines had relocated for the day. Workers from across the different FE locals in Chicago showed up to a downtown courthouse to do more marching, more yelling, and more singing. Joseph was now eight weeks in to being a dad, and was so drained from his infant son, and had just had one of those nights where he wasn’t even sure whether he had fallen asleep or not, he was in and out of bed so much, and as energizing as picketing could be for a day, picketing for two weeks was starting to drain him of what little he had left in the tank when he wasn’t raising a child.

On a corner outside of the courthouse, part of Harvester’s management team was talking to reporters from the Tribune, saying no, I don’t think it comes as a surprise that the FE Union leadership contains a large number of communist and communist sympathizers, and I think it’s a terrible shame. I think it’s an absolute disgrace, that one of the great American companies, a company founded by one of the great American families, finds its workers in the thrall of such a dangerous group of people with such dangerous ideas. These are difficult times that will require everyone to come together and make difficult decisions, and the old way of doing things may look good to the Communists, but they don’t work anymore for Americans. He gave a large, clearly exaggerated sigh, "but of course, we do respect the process