Harry and John Madigan Remembered

How exciting. I was recently contacted by someone whose family knew Harry and John Madigan, two sons of Patrick Madigan and Bessie Thompson.  She told me her mother used to pack up her and her siblings and take them over to Harry Madigan's Restaurant and Saloon at Madison and Crawford in the evening.  The kids would sleep in the booths.

She also told me her mother loved to play "26," a dice game. When Harry closed the restaurant, since her mother had been such a good patron, he gave the dice game to her.  She remembers the dice had Harry's initials engraved in them.  Although Harry and John died decades ago, it is really terrific that the memory of them lives on.

She has promised to write up a few stories.   When she does, I'll post them on this blog.


A little bit about the game of "26" from the Chicago Tribune, March 16, 1986.

The dice game of ``26`` was Chicago-born, Chicago-bred and eventually Chicago-banned. It never caught on much in the rest of the country, but it was a familiar sport all the way from elegant Gold Coast and Loop spas (the Palmer House had its ``26`` tables) to family taverns on the farthest reaches of the West Side. 

And as integral to the game as the dice were the estimated 5,000 ``26 girls`` or ``dice girls`` who kept score. According to a 1962 story in The Tribune, "The game is played on small tables behind which the `26` girl stands, smiling and cooing, with a cup of 10 dice in her hand and a score pad by her elbow. The customer engages her in small talk and rolls out the dice 13 times." The high-rollers could risk anything from 25 cents to $1 on the game of chance that paid off in merchandise--drinks, to be precise.