Mike (the Pike) Heitler

There is an old movie/play called "Our Town," that when I watch it, I cry every time.  Every time.  If you don't know the story, I encourage you to read the book or watch the film.  It was written by Thornton Wilder and he received a Pulitzer Prize from it. It's a very thought-provoking story and you can't read or watch it without expressing some kind of emotion.  At least, I can't.

I said that to say that life is very short.  We hear that all the time, but it doesn't start sinking in until we get older.  When you watch the movie, you'll understand why I say this.  I can't go back to my youth, or the "way it used to be."  I have to keep moving forward because the past will literally never be repeated.  If you had a miserable past, this is a good thing.  If you had an enjoyable past, sometimes this is hard to bear.

One of these days, I'd like to do a family history with a genealogy chart.  I'd like to know more about my ancestors, as I think it's very interesting to learn where you came from.  History fascinates me and I wish I would have paid more attention in school.  It was all so boring to me at the time.  But then, we learned boring historical events - like the years that certain wars started and all that.  Who cares??  Maybe if they had made it more personal, it would have been more interesting to learn.  There's a thought.

I do know a little bit about one of my relatives who happened to be a gangster and worked for Al Capone.  His name was Mike (the Pike) Heitler.  He was my grandmother's uncle - my great-grandmother's brother, on my dad's (mother's) side.  He was a pimp who ran a whorehouse and for this reason, my grandmother would never speak of him.  He worked for Al Capone, and because Mike testified against Capone, he was murdered.  He was in fact, torched in his vehicle.  In my research, I found that he had a brother and a daughter, but I couldn't find any information on them.  There isn't a whole lot written about Mike, but what I found, I printed out and the photos I obtained, I've pasted below. 

Not the greatest lookin' guy in the world.  These photos were published in the Chicago Daily Newspaper.

This is the dump he held his prostitution business at.  Yuk.

In court for probably one of many times.

His mug shot.  He kind of looks like my grandmother.  :)

Now here, he really looks like my grandmother.


This is what Wikipedia says about him:

Mike Heitler

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    

Michael "The Pike" Heitler (died April 30, 1931) was a Prohibition gangster involved in prostitution for the Chicago Outfit.
Heitler began operating brothels in Chicago during the early 1900s based out of west Madison Street. By 1911, he had become a leading crime figure and a top lieutenant to Chicago racketeer Jacob "Mont" Tennes, later driving rival Jack Zuta out of business, with then ally Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik. Although arrested briefly for white slavery, Heitler continued to run independently of James "Big Jim" Colosimo and later independently of Johnny "The Fox" Torrio, until the early 1920s, after the formation of the Chicago Outfit.
Reluctantly joining Capone's organization, Heitler began informing Chicago police of criminal activities after rival Guzik gained control of the organization's prostitution operations, informing Judge John H. Lyle of extortion and other illegal activities in the Four Deuces nightclub. Heitler was soon found out and fired by Capone after he received a letter to the state's attorney office detailing his prostitution operations. Heitler continued to send information to police later claiming Capone's involvement in the death of Chicago Tribune reporter Jake Lingle, which, the letter was received by Capone.^{[citation needed]} Heitler may have also been involved in the conviction of Guzik and Ralph "Bottles" Capone for tax evasion, in 1930. Heitler was last seen with Capone associate Lawrence "Dago" Mangano and was later found dead after a fire in his home, on April 30, 1931.


I think this article is wrong, in that he was found dead in his car which was torched.  In any event, it's interesting to find colorful characters like this when you do genealogy research.  My relatives would never talk about him when we were kids, because, God forbid, you shouldn't mention such a thing.  They would start talking Yiddish so us kids couldn't understand what they were saying.  It's the same thing I used to do when my kids were young.  At first I would spell everything out so they didn't know what I was talking about.  Then when they started to learn how to spell, I tried pig-latin, but that was too hard to keep up, so I would just yell and tell them to go outside and play.

The irony of Mike (the Pike), is that with his "ill-gotten" money, he was able to bring all of my grandmother's relatives to the United States from Russia.  They allowed him to buy their way here, but just wouldn't talk about or acknowledge him because of what he did.  Not that I condone his profession, but that is highly contradictory.  Or maybe it's just the way people are.  All I know is that if I lived back then, I would most likely get to know this dude and pick his brain.  Or at the very least, acknowledge him.  Everyone, from the greatest to the least, needs to be acknowledged.