A MERRY GANGSTER STORY!

John Dillinger's letter to Henry Ford.

Some say it's a myth, others say, no it's true. Either way it makes an interesting story.

It's 1933, the year Dillinger robbed 17 banks throughout Indiana, for a little over $300 grand. A nice tidy figure, if it's true. Personally, I wouldn't trust any bank in relating how much money was stolen, especially, when they're crooks themselves. If you get my drift??

One thing for sure was verified by the FBI, he was broke when he landed in Chicago, in the summer of 1934, because he got a job as a store clerk to stay low and make some money.

That is where he met and was dating Polly Hamilton, the girl who was with Dillinger and "The Lady in Red", Anna Sage, the night that Melvin Purvis and twenty or so FBI agents gunned down Dillinger in an alley on July 22, 1934. The shooting occured near the Biograph Theater on Lincoln Ave. on Chicago's North Side.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself, let's step back in time a bit.

In late February of 1934, Dillinger was captured, do to a freak occurence, in a historic hotel in Tucson, Arizona and extradited to a jail in Crown Point, Indiana for bank robbery and the killing of a police officer named Wm. O'Malley. The sheriff there was a woman named Lillian Holley, who had a cocky attitude, so they say.

Somehow or other, Dillinger got a knife and a piece of wood or soap and supposedly craved an image in the shape of a gun and blackened it with black shoe polish. Some feat?? (It could have been passed to him by a friend). Well, whatever, he escaped, to the embarrassment of Sheriff Holley, in her brand new v-8 Ford. The chase was long and fast, Dillinger managed to out-run the cops and crossed the state line into Illinois.

Soon after his daring escape, Dillinger supposedly, wrote a letter to Henry Ford praising his 1934 v-8 Ford car. It went like this:

"Hello Mr. Ford,

Arrived here at 10:00 a.m. today and am dropping you a line to tell you what a wonderful car you have built. Been driving it for about three weeks and it's a treat to drive. You know your solgan should be,'Drive a Ford and watch the other cars fall behind you.' It can make any other car eat Ford's dust."

Bye-bye, John Dillinger

Letter or not, it sure makes for a good story.

Now, go softly into the night. mgf--The Merry Gangster, Michael G'Francisco.