COME INTO MY PARLOR Charles Washburn LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN IN MEMORY OF STEWART S. HOWE JOURNALISM CLASS OF 1928 STEWART S. HOWE FOUNDATION 176.5 W27c cop. 2 J.H.5. 4l/, oj> COME INTO MY PARLOR ^j* A BIOGRAPHY OF THE ARISTOCRATIC EVERLEIGH SISTERS OF CHICAGO By Charles Washburn Knickerbocker Publishing Co New York Copyright, 1934 NATIONAL LIBRARY PRESS PRINTED IN U.S.A. BY HUDSON OFFSET CO., INC.—N.Y.C. \a)21c~ contents Chapter Page Preface vii 1. The Upward Path . _ 11 II. The First Night 21 III. Papillons de la Nun 31 IV. Bath-House John and a First Ward Ball.... 43 V. The Sideshow 55 VI. The Big Top .... r 65 VII. The Prince and the Pauper 77 VIII. Murder in The Rue Dearborn 83 IX. Growing Pains 103 X. Those Nineties in Chicago 117 XL Big Jim Colosimo 133 XII. Tinsel and Glitter 145 XIII. Calumet 412 159 XIV. The "Perfessor" 167 XV. Night Press Rakes 173 XVI. From Bawd to Worse 181 XVII. The Forces Mobilize 187 XVIII. Handwriting on the Wall 193 XIX. The Last Night 201 XX. Wayman and the Final Raids 213 XXI. Exit Madams 241 Index 253 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My grateful appreciation to Lillian Roza, for checking dates John Kelley, for early Chicago history Ned Alvord, for data on brothels in general Tom Bourke Pauline Carson Palmer Wright Jack Lait The Chicago Public Library The New York Public Library and The Sisters Themselves TO JOHN CHAPMAN of The York Daily News WHO NEVER WAS IN ONE — PREFACE THE EVERLEIGH SISTERS, should the name lack a familiar ring, were definitely the most spectacular madams of the most spectacular bagnio which millionaires of the early- twentieth century supped and sported. Grandpa could tell you a few things about the Everleigh Sisters if he would. He would call them the Ziegfeld of their profession, if he dared to speak. Instead, Grandpa will fidget in his chair, blush, stammer and carry on something dreadfully if you bring up the subject. It is advisable not to ask him any questions should any details in this book lack clarity. However, if the reader should forget himself and pester the aging gentleman for a pointer here and there, don't let him get away with the reply, "I wouldn't know. It was before my time." Both the Everleighs were living and both were about sixty years old when this chronicle was written in the summer of 1936. Men of the world knew the Everleigh Sisters and boasted of exploits in their resort. But most of the boasting was done in the backroom of the corner saloon—to "the boys". "It cost me a hundred smackers and what did I get?" Grandpa would say. The jolly crowd laughed and some wisecracker would reply : "If you only spent a hundred you were lucky you got a kiss." Those were the happy hours. "Whatever became of those two sisters?" became a common query. All of which leads up to a problem that confronted the Everleigh Sisters when they decided to shake of! an unholy past. They bought a residence in Chicago's West Side, and the neighbors yelped to the skies. They sold it at a sacrifice. Next they moved to New York where they bought another vii — PREFACE home, and again the neighbors registered a great hullabaloo. But the sisters fought—and won. A book of verse finally was dedicated to them under their assumed name. It wasn't easy, climbing into a "respectable" bandwagon. Grandpa, you see, wants no part of a retired madam. Even so, he and too many puritanical disturbers opposed the Everleigh right to live privately among the "nice folks". The fact that the sisters had a million dollars, no mort- gages on their residence and a matronly dignity did not prevent the neighbors from lampooning them until time alone healed the breach. It's an American custom and you cannot escape it. This is mentioned principally to explain why no satis- factory biography ever before has been available. The sisters, having buried the past in 1911 when the Everleight Club of Chicago was bolted and shuttered, had refused to talk about their night life. This is the first time they ever "opened up". And, don't mistake, they wanted no book for at least another five years—never, if possible. They "lived down" their voracious vacation from a tedious treadmill and today tremble at the thought: What would our friends say if they knew? To have been a fallen woman is a blot, but to have been a madam—horrors ! Nobody has yet discovered what to do about a retired—or should we say reformed? madam. The sisters are at last convinced that sooner or later a report on their share of Chicago's social history was bound to break the spell of silence. We hope and pray that no prying eyes seek them out. They are regenerated souls and they rate secrecy. One cannot say they are sorry for their "first false step" because they are not. They merely did not wish to be bothered; no longer have they the strength to combat further annoyance. Live and let live and keep the hell out is their slant. ••• vui PREFACE The Everleigh Sisters gave more lustre to a shabby evil than all the other madams in this country combined; they uplifted a natural outlet and they paid the penalty of the misunderstood. Madams, we bow and we are sorry—sorry that you retired. THE AUTHOR. IX Chapter I THE UPWARD PATH "We are a part of all that we have met and we've met them all." Ada Everleigh THE MISSES MINNA and Ada Everleigh were born in Kentucky—in the blue grass regions of Kentucky. Benedict Arnold, during the capture of Richmond, Virginia, in 1781, compelled their antecedents along with the governor and legislature to flee beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains, but a hill-billy contagion never caught up with the sisters. They were Big City girls from the start. Their family finally settled in Kentucky. Minna was born on July 13th, 1878, exactly nine days after George M. Cohan first had fire-crackers in Providence, R. I. Phineas Taylor Barnum came into this world on a July 5th and James Anthony Baley, his partner in a noted circus merger, was born on a July 4th. Joyce Heth, an aged freak who paved the way for the Barnum fortune, gave her birth as July 15, and the first Bearded Lady to attain acclaim was hauled into court in July. Minna, one therefore learns without the aid of a horoscope, was destined for the show business on the grand scale. Ada was about two and one-half years older than Minna, which shall be illuminating to many because the latter always was the ruling force in their enterprises as well as the spokes- man. Ada was born in February, 1876. The name of the home town is of little consequence and is witheld principally because their brother was alive in 1936 and because several of their kin were doing right well down among the magnolias. There is no particular point in embarrassing those who did not interfere with the careers of the sisters. 11 : COME INTO MY PARLOR As a matter of record, the general belief always has been that they came from Evansville, Indiana, and that their southern accent was part of an act. This conjecture emanated from a carboned answer to a common question in houses of ill-repute. A chump never failed to ask "What made you enter a life like this ?" The Everleighs had a neat reply competently rehearsed: "The farm in Evansville—we couldn't stand it. The mortgage, or, that mortgage, and the suffering, the hardships. Ve always liked nice things." A few tears; wine for the house. A chump had been admitted into their confidence. Three orchestras, scattered in the various rooms, were bidden to strike-up "On the Banks of the Wabash" (Evansville is on the Ohio) —geography and dull care were obliterated. Two lost sisters were mak- ing up for an unhappy childhood! Pop went the corks! Lift that old mortgage, men! The furnishings in the Ever- leigh Club could lift the mortgages on a half dozen farms. A chump never thought of that. The Everleigh pater was a prosperous lawyer, affording his two favorite children a finishing school and lessons in elocution. "Born actresses," he used to say, which was nearer to a summary of their talents than he suspected. Their ancestry was a little mixed—Scotch, Irish and English. There was patrician blood in it and a trace of shepherd, so flighty were their notions. They were tutored privately and properly, emerging as debutantes in a blaze of pulchritudinous and social fireworks. Modistes of Paris and New York created shimmering, mermaid-like gowns for the girls so subtly lined that immediately their slim figures shaped them into precise perfection the eligible males came from miles around. They were not boy crazy. Two alert girls, they doubted if any husband could make them as contended as they were at home. There were servants to answer their call and 12 THE UPWARD PATH their every wish was fulfilled. They had an aristocratic heritage and they live up to it—even in Chicago. They were devoted to each other. From the time they were able to walk until this was written they were pals. They grew up together and they remained together. After mare than fifty-eight years they were willing to die for each other.