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166 11 the shook-up generation MATCHBOOK MESSAGES Marge Stone, the former flapper from Norwood Park with the rubyred lipstick and sarcastic air, died alone at Swedish Covenant Hospital on February 18, 1958, from cirrhosis of the liver. Not even Leo was present at her bedside when death arrived early that evening. Those who knew Marge were busy condemning her for living a profligate’s life, even as the mourners repaired to the corner tavern down the block from the John V. May Funeral Home in Jefferson Park, where the wake was held. My vague recollections of that long-ago day of sorrow include fifty people drinking in a crowded saloon reeking of “old beer,” a smell buried deep in the walls and ceilings common to all of Chicago’s neighborhood bars. My dad was, of course, on hand to pay his final respects to a woman he found to be a whole lot more jolly and full of fun than his dour ex-wife, who hid behind her mother when the old man sidled up to the bar. I have only one really vivid memory of that day—the gift of a plastic toy gun to amuse myself with while the adults smoked, drank, and chattered on. I was not quite five years old. With this cheap dime-store novelty in hand, I raced around the crowded room and blatantly drew careful aim at the men and women leaning against the bar getting smashed. They shooed me away and paid me no mind. Perhaps in some mysterious way, a spiritual connection existed between Aunt Marge and me, as I pointed that toy gun at the funeral hangers-on who knew the woman for better or worse. I sometimes think of the toy gun as an accusatory finger pointed from the hereafter at the lot of them by a misunderstood, diseased, and broken woman, who never desired to become an object of pity for anyone, let alone for her mother or sister. the shook-up generation 167 In the years before her death, life at Marge and Leo’s little apartment on Strong Street resembled a series of chaotic Chinese fire drills. Following an afternoon of shopping or two hours at the tavern, Marge flirting with men as the couple watched a Cubs game on television, disagreements often erupted into angry name-calling and broken dinner plates. The bickering and fighting ended only after Leo’s stash of beer numbed them into insensibility or if Marge was the first to pass out on the couch. Helen had already quit her own beer and wine regimens and slimmed down at “fabulous” Slenderella. (“Paris, New York, Chicago, Beverly Hills and Principal Cities—No Disrobing, No Exercise, No Electricity, No Starvation Diet! You’ll Love the Care, Only $2 a Visit!”) Marge, on the other hand, was bloated, and her famous beauty was gone by her fortieth birthday. Her platinum-blond hair was cut short and her cheeks were puffy. Aunt Margaret’s days were spent cooped up in her miserable apartment waiting for Leo to come home or entertaining a few girlfriends from Norwood who dropped by to drink and gossip about old boyfriends, 1930s nightclub escapades, and their mean-spirited husbands. Life had seemingly passed them by. One by one, the big bands were disappearing from the popular culture and with them a treasured way of life. Now it was rock and roll, and who could dance a waltz to that kind of music? The fabulous hotel ballroom floorshows, the 1930s dance halls, and Wayne King’s orchestra had become nostalgia for their generation. The Milford Ballroom south on Milwaukee Avenue advertised “Over 40” dances in the newspaper. The famous Ritz on the edge of the Chicago– Niles boundary line had closed, and the syndicate was running a strip show at the Riviera Lounge next door. “No one goes out of the house anymore! Hell, they don’t even want to play cards!” Marge wailed. “What’s the matter with people? And what’s so special about watching Arthur Godfrey on TV anyhow?” Margaret longed for attention, reminiscing with the girls about the Charleston contest she won at the Norwood Park field house at age thirteen and all the innocent, or not so innocent, flirtations during her wartime job at the Underwood Electric Company. At the latter, saddled with enlistment notices and looking for that last grand fling before shipping out, the handsome young men would swarm around her like...

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