How many “standup guys” have you had the good fortune to know in your life’s journey? That person whose sense of humor, inner strength,  and whose shared bottomless life experiences kept your ship upright, when events and upsets threatened to capsize your spirit. That person whose personal needs never seemed to surface. That person perhaps not at the center of your family life, but always nearby, always ready for the task at hand.

He can have any name you like, can be either man or woman, for that matter. But for me and my siblings, it was Uncle Jimmy, and this is his story…..

I can still see him in my memory, eyes focused on the task at hand, the tip of his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth, the strong hands gluing or shaping some tiny part of a model ship, or airplane, or tank. He would be sitting at his kitchen table on which no food was ever served. The table was perpetually covered with model parts, or to be more precise, works in progress. And my brothers and I, also into making models in the restored coal bin just feet from his door, could often be found watching the master modeler.  

He lived for a time in the perpetually damp basement apartment of our two-flat on west  Monroe Street. It was in every sense a Man-Cave, in desperate need of a woman’s touch.  He was in his forties at the time, still single, his parents recently deceased, and his share in the family home near Austin and Augusta sold to his recently married brother, Tommy.

He was a cop at the time, a “wagon man” in the parlance of the day. The “Paddy Wagon” as it was known back then, was a knock on the Irish, who were assumed to be drunk most of the time, and in need of transport to a jail. But the far more common use of the wagon was as an unofficial hearse for the indigent.

There wasn’t much competition for the wagon job, as the bodies of the indigent were usually located by sense of smell in alleys, gangways, and apartments with unread newspapers piled at the door.   

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He went by various names at different points in his life. As a young man it was “Red” the typical nickname hung on a red-haired young man. The last several years on the police, he was known as “Number 1” to all of the cops in the 15^th  District in the Austin part of town. Annual furloughs were assigned by longevity in the district, and he was first in line for years. But he was always “Uncle Jimmy” to me, my siblings, and a small army of cousins.

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James Oates was one of six children born to Mike and Teresa Oates. The birth order looked like this: Dolores (Dee), Rita (our mother), Evelyn (Evie), Jimmy, Tommy, and Noella (so named for her Christmas Day arrival).

Jimmy arrived in 1926, three years before the Great Depression took from this family their home, their money, and, for a time, their unity as a family under one roof. At eighteen, with World War II aflame, he enlisted in the Navy. Following boot camp in Great Lakes, he was shipped to Seneca, Illinois, a sleepy little town on the Illinois River. Seneca had a specialized shipyard, one that could turn out shallow draft, 327-foot-long ships known as LSTs, or Landing Ship Tanks.

As soon as the new ship slipped into the brown waters of the Illinois River, the recruits and their newly minted  officers would join a veteran training crew. Together they  began “shaking out” their just-launched vessels as they wound their way into the Mississippi River, and down to New Orleans. When the training crew finished their teaching duties, they would depart the ship, and the rookie crew would be on their own.

They sailed on into World War II in the Pacific, in time to land tanks and troops on several islands, including Okinawa, the last major invasion of the war. And those crew faced suicidal kamikaze fighters while lying beached on the shores as they scrambled to offload their human and metal cargo.

After the war, he joined the Chicago Park District Police Department, as it was then known. On December 31, 1958, the Chicago Park District Police Department was disbanded and absorbed into the Chicago Police Department.

In the mid 1960’s he met Marsha, a widow and mother of six who owned a hobby shop on Chicago Avenue. My brothers and I were thrilled that our favorite uncle living in our two-flat now had access to the models and Lionel train stuff we craved. But Jimmy was a bit gun- shy of jumping into a marriage in his forties and taking on a ready-made family. I once overheard my mother lecturing him as he agonized about what he should do. I think Marsha had given him the “fish or cut bait, sailor” ultimatum.

Happily, they married soon after and began a new life together near Belmont and Austin, where my family would move following my father’s death in 1968.

Jimmy took to fathering naturally, and to fixing up the bungalow that was now their home. His model making gradually gave way to home improvement, and he was a pretty good amateur.

As the children moved on and out, Jimmy and Marsha moved to a small home in Park Ridge. After his retirement from CP, he worked for a time as chauffer/bodyguard for Judge John Clark, a notable longtime figure on the judicial benches of Chicago’s court systems. 

Marsha passed in 2008 and Jimmy in the summer of 2010.

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Some Uncle Jimmy stories:

Delivering ‘Stiffs”

Working the “Paddy Wagon” in the 1950’as ands 60’s meant that you spent a lot of time picking up the indigent. No one wanted them, except for the owners of local funeral homes, who would be repaid by the county for a simple “no frills” burial. And they tipped the cops who brought the dead, known as ‘stiffs,” to their back doors. They actually competed for the trade and had a mutually agreed upon price under a “gentleman’s agreement.”

Pete Conboy, a second-generation undertaker and contemporary of Uncle Jimmy, told the story about Tommy Gibbons, a legendary old country Irish competitor, who let it be known among the “wagon men” that he would pay a premium to the cops for all deceased delivered to his door. Pete’s dad and others got wind of it and added an even bigger premium to the cops. Tommy folded and business went back to normal.

Ah, Chicago

Giving Uncle Jimmy his red hair back.    

Late in his life, Jimmy asked me for a favor. He assumed that I was some kind of computer genius because I used computers in my business. I was not, but the notion was stuck in his head.

One day he handed me his recruit photo from Great Lakes Naval Base. This little brittle wallet size black and white photo showed him with a laconic smile on his face, navy blues and sailor’s hat. He also handed me his actual uniform ribbons from the war. “Tommy, you’re a computer genius,” he told me. “ I’d like you to use one of your computers to put my ribbons on my chest in this photo.”

How could I refuse? I ended up taking the tiny, wrinkled photo to a local portrait studio, only to find out that such requests from the old Vets were quite common. The end result was an 8 x 10 color portrait, ribbons painted in by an artist. The artist even restored his head of red hair, long since gone,  as a bonus. When he asked me how I did it, I told him we a special computer for that.

Jimmy and the retouched photo (courtesy of Arthur Garceau)

Saving my butt as a teenager.

You can read more about this in an article I wrote entitled ”Send Lawyers, Guns and Money” (http://uncletommyonline.com/send-lawyers-guns-and-money-2/. The gist of the story is this: I screwed up as a teenager (robbing a parked train with some high school buddies) and Jimmy got me out of the jam.

Jimmy the cook for the masses.

Jimmy loved to cook for his family, for a family wake, holidays and all that. But let it never be aid that anyone left hungry, as I think his Navy experience dictated to him the size of the meal to prepare. His lasagna would come in epic size, often two or more pans. Italian beef would arrive in a small swimming pool of gravy. His fried chicken would make you believe that somewhere an entire coop had been destroyed.

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Every family should have an Uncle Jimmy, I think. Not the actual Uncle Jimmy who graced my immediate and extended family, but that special person who helps define the best things to be found within a family. That quiet, dependable, and perpetual shoulder on which to lean. The one who serves as a sometime guide, not in the center of your family, like your siblings, but on the side, and always ready to play the role as needed. 

Glad you passed our way, Uncle Jimmy!