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By Heidi Paster
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My father always said, “Don’t do anything you don’t want on the front page of the paper.” I thought it was his way of telling me to be proud of what I did. But that changed when I Googled my grandfather’s name, looking for a wedding date for a family tree I was making.
Just below my grandfather’s name was a link to the Minnesota Historical Society’s Criminal History Files. There I saw his fingerprints, mug shots, a portion of his FBI file and clippings from the front page of the newspaper about the night he was murdered. This was all new information to me. As a child, I knew he had been in jail a few times, periods my grandmother referred to as the time he was at “summer camp.” My family said he had done some minor questionable things, but because he was Jewish, authorities had made an example of him. I also knew he was murdered when my father was a teenager, but I did not know by whom, why or any details of that day. But there were his fingerprints dating back to 1933. His mug shots. His FBI file. And a newspaper clipping with the headline, St. Paul Police Figure Slain in Gangland Shooting. In the accompanying black-and-white photograph was my father, standing outside his Tudor home as a policeman pushed him back.
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I thought of my own children. My middle son was about the same age my father had been in that photograph. I felt powerless and overwhelmed with emotion. For the first time, I felt compassion for my father. And suddenly, his warning about the front page of the newspaper made sense. That photograph sent me down a long, winding road to find the truth about my grandfather, the man I was named after. I wondered: If I could know my grandfather, maybe I could understand my own father. My father had been dead for 12 years so I began reaching out to other family members who might be able to help.
“Your dad tried to keep the reporters off the property. The police began to push your father around,” my father’s cousin told me, explaining the photograph on the front page of the St. Paul Tribune. “We never talked about that night,” she continued. “It was too painful. We were left to wallow in our own sorrow.”
My father’s oldest brother, the only one alive, told me more. “When Dad was shot, the newspapers were relentless. The media destroyed us. We got death threats. Everyone sneered at us: ‘You’re the gangster’s son.’ Your dad did not want to go back to school. Mom made him go the Monday afterward. Your father saw Dad murdered in front of his own eyes, and no one talked about it.” Hearing that, I cried for my father, for myself and my children. It was unfathomable to think that my dad had to carry that pain in silence.
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All my father ever told me about that night was that he regretted not staying with his father until the ambulance arrived. From the newspaper article, I learned that my father, just a few weeks shy of 17, had been in the room when three bullets from a .38-caliber pistol came through the back window and struck my grandfather.
But who was my grandfather, the man I was named after? And why was he killed? “He was so generous and loving. He took care of everyone. People wanted to be in his presence. He would command a room with stories and jokes,” one cousin told me. Just like my father, I thought. She also remembered how my grandfather compared my father to her. “Arnie, why can’t you be more like Junie?” he would say.”
Another relative described him as “larger than life, an entertainer, a charmer,” but said his personality could change in an instant. “Anything could set him off, and a smile would turn to anger.” My father inherited that trait as well.
I had spent much of my childhood afraid of my father’s anger. He exploded at me when he had heard enough of my singing. My siblings and I were punished for fighting over the front seat of the car. My feelings for him vacillated between love, reverence and fear.
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As I continued digging, I heard theories about why my grandfather had been murdered. One cousin said he had made promises while in jail that he broke when he got out. Maybe he had been selling slot machines in someone else’s territory, or was he having an affair with the wife of a Chicago capo? I still don't know if any of those stories are true and I don't know who killed him or why.
My father had grown up with every material luxury, but at 16 he watched his father die. Then his family's grief became public when reporters descended on their home. The murder, his funeral, and the ongoing investigation were published on the front page of all the local papers for weeks following his death. Instead of being given the space to grieve, my father was sent back to school on Monday.
When I first saw my father in that photograph, I didn't see the difficult man I had known. I saw a boy who had witnessed the unimaginable and was expected to carry on without talking about it. For years, I blamed my father for his shortcomings. I blamed him for his anger and for the ways it affected me and my siblings. But the more I learned about his father, the more I understood mine. I had started searching for the man I was named after, hoping to understand why he was murdered. Instead, I finally began to understand my father and 12 years after his death, I was able to forgive him.
Heidi Paster is a photographer, filmmaker and freelance writer living in New York City.
All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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