My family in the past has had its share of contact with somewhat famous people, if by famous we’re talking about outlaws. 

One such legend includes my Uncle Hugh, who had a farm in NE Iowa that bordered on some caves, where it was rumored that Jesse James and his gang hid when traveling to and from Minnesota, where they held up several banks on different occasions. But with Uncle Hugh’s ability to make even a free lunch at the farmer’s elevator sound glamorous, I’m not too sure of the credibility here.

However, Aunt Leah, my mother’s sister, was a different story. First, a brief description of McIntyre, Iowa, a small town in NE Iowa that had one school, two churches, three bars, and what seemed like dozens of automobile junk yards. It was hard to tell when a junk yard was “officially” deemed a junk yard, because most of those families had several inoperable motor vehicles parked or crashed around their yards and farms. (When school consolidation melded McIntyre with my school, me being a car builder meant this was second heaven.  They could tell you what to do to your car to make it go faster, and I was in second heaven. Plus this bunch could wear their pants lower and spread more Brylcream on their hair than anyone ever!  Role models, I tell you.)

McIntyre is important to this story because not only did my mother and most of her relatives grow up either there or around there, but it was on a railroad that ran from Chicago to Minneapolis. The folks around there grew up in tough depression conditions. It was hard scrabble for most.

Pretty Boy Floyd was one of many criminals to develop their careers in and around mobster Chicago in the Prohibition days of the ‘30s and ‘40s—Dillinger, Machine Gun McGurn, Capone, Baby Face Nelson, and many more–and when things got too hot for them in Chicago, it was easy to ride the railroad out of town. Some of these gangsters had friends and relatives living on farms around McIntyre, Mitchell, Little Cedar, and Riceville—where I grew up. A good place to hide out. The Lee Bosteter farm regularly harbored Chicago gangsters, and Bosteter himself was later convicted and sent to prison for robbery and murder. This general area, full of small banks and part-time police, was ripe pickings for this bunch of criminals.

Uncle John, another of my mother’s brothers, got involved in this story when he was deputized to help arrest some of Dillinger’s gang members, who were hiding out on one of these farms. “Several of us showed up with deer rifles, and the sheriff positioned us alongside the long driveway up to the farmhouse, behind some large rocks.” So, Uncle John, what did these gangsters look like, I asked him. “I don’t know. They came down with a guy on each side of the car, standing on the running board, firing Thomson submachine guns.” He added: “I never lifted my head.” Neither did the sheriff, it turned out.

McIntyre had a big late summer celebration, called McIntyre Days. It was in August, and everyone looked forward to it, especially because it looked like the depression was ending. There was dancing and booze. In those days, a lot of illegal booze came from Chicago, likely with various gangsters. Aunt Leah, the oldest of my mother’s sisters, danced a dance —dancing was a big deal back then–with a small, good-looking guy who had a bandage on his nose. When she asked him what had happened, he said: “Oh, some darned fool tried to shoot it off!” She laughed, thought he was kidding. He wasn’t. That was Pretty Boy Floyd himself, and in fact, someone in Chicago had indeed tried to shoot it off. He had fled to the countryside until things settled down.

Mom and her sisters were good looking, but Aunt Leah was a bombshell. Mom said everyone tried to dance with her.

So likely this last story is true.

It’s my story, as they say, and I’m sticking with it.