Still More Nostalgia

I was going thru the photographs I have uploaded to my computer over the years, and found several featuring my grandfather, William (Bill) Spillard, my mother Mary's father.  He came from a fairly well off family in Elgin, Illinois, but ran away from home at the age of 14  (somewhere around there) to become a song plugger on Tin Pan Alley in Chicago.  He later became a federal narcotics agent, worked for the OSS during World War II, and finished his career as an arson investigator in Chicago.  He wrote a book called Needle in a Haystack, which told about his life as a narcotics agent. He is seen in the photograph on the left with his brother Bert (on the right in the photo) in front of our house in the south suburban community of Country Club Hills.  Bert was a very gentle man who married a younger woman laterr in life.  My grandfather took bets on whether they would have children, and lost big time when their son Danny was born.  Tragically, his wife Marie died many years before him, a truly unexpected and sad turn of events.

The photograph on the right, taken in the late 1960s, shows Grandfather Spillard with his two sons (my mother Mary's brothers) - Jack on the left, and Bill on the right.  Uncle Jack was quite the tease, and my sister and I always shied away from him, although he was a really nice and generous human being.  Uncle Bill, who moved from Chicago to Cleveland to work for an insurance company, frequently made business trips to Chicago, and was a truly funny and gentle soul.  How I wish they were all still with us today. The passage of time can be truly cruel.