Here is a great pic of my dad and his twin brother Frank that Val at Colouring the Past colorized for me. Dad is the one with lighter hair.
And Val colored it with blue coats and hats, too, because I wasn’t sure whether they would have been brown or blue, although felt sure they would have been one of those two colors. Which version do you prefer?
A Story of Chicago and My Uncle
I recently spent time with my uncle, and he told me a story about something that happened to him. Or rather, it didn’t happen to him.
In the sixties, Uncle Frank worked in Chicago at Fohrman Motors as a car salesman. Today, the dealership is gone and only the vacant lot is left. It’s in Chicago’s East Garfield Park neighborhood and is nearly 2/3 of the 2700 block of West Madison Street. This post takes a personal look at an event that changed the world for some Chicagoans.
On 7 January 1966, when he was 37 years old, my uncle was working at the dealership and had to use the restroom. He went there, only to find the facilities in use by a man making a racket with something or other. Uncle Frank couldn’t wait so he ran across the street to the body shop, but that bathroom was closed for maintenance. Used to being able to drive a car from the lot, my uncle grabbed the keys of a nearby vehicle and told one of his bosses that he had to run down the street to use the washroom.
Uncle Frank had several bosses, in a way, because Fohrman Motors was owned by Benjamin Fohrman and his four sons. An Illinois blogger, John Ruberry, says this about the company:
Forhman Motors was founded by Benjamin Fohrman, who was viewed as an innovative and pioneering car dealer. . . . . Older relatives of mine tell me that Forhman’s folksy television ads were common fare on local television.
The history of Benjamin Fohrman’s auto business is well-described in his obituary:
Mr. Fohrman, a native of Austria, founded Fohrman Motors near Michigan Avenue and 22d Street in 1912. He sold such cars as the Stoddard-Dayton, manufactured between 1905 and 1913, and the Rickenbacker, made in the early 1920s.
His strong influence on merchandising methods was felt in Chicago and elsewhere in the country. Before World War I, he was among the first to “import“ cars over dirt and often muddy roads from locations then considered far-off such as Lafayette, Ind.; Davenport, Ia.; and Kenosha.
He offered new cars on payment plans as early as 1914, and he was among the first to see that a secondhand car dealership could be successful. He bought used cars in small towns in the Midwest and sold them in Chicago.
At various times, he owned new-car dealerships that sold Chryslers and later Packards, and for many years Mr. Fohrman was a television advertiser.
Beginning in 1963, his agency at 2700 W. Madison St. sold used cars exclusively. Among its 80 employees were his four sons, Sidney, Edward, Sherwood and Cary.
My uncle worked for this family business, and he was pretty happy there. The neighborhood the dealership was in was primarily African-American. Uncle Frank tells me that that at least one of the Fohrmans went to bat in court often times for customers who lived in the area.
In other words, the family wouldn’t have minded that my uncle took off in a company-owned vehicle to use a bathroom down the street. And they seemed to have a decent relationship with the community.
When he got to his destination, a call came in for Uncle Frank. It was a woman employee at the dealership. All she said over and over was, “They’re all dead. They’re all dead.”
Imagine the shock he felt at her words. And then to discover that the man in the first bathroom had been making that noise by loading his gun! If my uncle hadn’t had to go so badly he would have waited for the bathroom instead of running across the street and then taking off in the car. He would have been the first person shot and killed. That day, Robert Jackson killed brothers Sid and Ed Fohrman and salesman Albert Sizer.
The Fohrmans were important in their community. In a 21 January 1966 article about their deaths in The National Jewish Post and Opinion, Sidney had been president of Niles Township Congregation, and Edward was vice president of the Park Synagogue.
I was ten-years-old when this occurred, but I don’t remember hearing about it. Quite probably my parents didn’t let me know. This is what happened as I can piece it together from accounts found online–and it all dovetails with my uncle’s account. What is different is how differently people perceived what had happened.
This is the account from the Chicago Crime Commission:
In this account there is no mention of possible motivation, and the murders serve as prelude for the Richard Speck case. He killed eight student nurses just a few months after the Fohrman massacre.
On the other hand, the article from Jet magazine blames the victims and builds sympathy for the murderer by calling him a “dying cancer patient.”
The difference between those two accounts points out for me the intensifying race relations.
Caught between these two views are the Jewish owners of Fohrman Motors, both Sid and Ed who had been killed and their father and other brothers (co-owners). The idea of businesses (sometimes Jewish-owned) preying upon the poor people of the inner city was starting to be noticed. The way people talked after this crime and the resulting focus on high interest brought out a lot of anti-Semitism.
Ebony took a more nuanced approach to the murders than Jet did. I am posting their photo of the dealership so you can see what it looked like, but please use it as a link to the Ebony article. In this piece by Alex Poinsett, credit is seen as a hidden “pitfall” to consumers.
The Fohrmans had the last word on this subject by addressing their truth about the issue of Jackson’s car in Benjamin’s obituary. This shows me how hurt they were by the blaming of the victims.
Rumors spread throughout Chicago that the man had been cheated on the car and had been paying an exorbitant 51 percent interest rate. Documents showed, however, that the interest rate was 15 1/2 percent, the price he paid was average and the problems with the car resulted from a major accident.
Even then, the car was insured through the agency, and the firm had agreed to pay most of the damages. Chicago`s American columnist Jack Mabley, noted for exposing shady auto dealers, wrote: “I`ve worked on most of the schlocky auto dealers in Chicago and never heard a whisper about Fohrman Motors.“
What a tragic story. I am so glad that my uncle really had to go to the bathroom. He’s almost 90 now, and we’re lucky to still have him. The Fohrman and Sizer families were not so lucky.
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BENJAMIN FOHRMAN OBITUARY:
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