Episode 11: The Insiders (season 1 Finale) Transcript Pt 1
I thought I would try to create transcripts for you. But honestly, this took me two days (and I even used a program) so if it's not beneficial to anyone I probably won't keep doing it.
Let me know if it's helpful!
~Amy
PS I can fit the whole thing in one blog post, so there will be a part two as well.
[Intro Theme Song]
Amy
Welcome back to Volsteadland and thank you for joining us for our season finale.
For once, we're not going to suggest that you go back and listen to the other previous episodes because this one kind of is a standalone. However, if you have no idea who Kid Cann is and this is your very first listen, you probably will be a little lost, so Google Kid Cann or Isadore Blumenfield or Blumenfeld before you start otherwise…I hope you still enjoy it.
We are your hosts, I'm Amy.
Heather
And I'm Heather and we're so excited to have you here. OK tonight we are drinking the Fancy Free. It is a cocktail with 2 ounces of rye whiskey, 1/2 an ounce of maraschino liqueur, a dash of Angostura bitters, a dash of orange bitters, and an orange twist for garnish. We don't have any oranges, so there's just some extra bitters.
Amy
No, but we do have these fancy cherries. These are the cherries that Heather's father…
Heather
Yes
Amy
…gave her and she brought them over. And we've been enjoying those.
Heather
It is delicious. It's quite some potent.
Amy
It's potent, yeah, because it's all booze, right?
Heather
Pretty much, Yep.
Amy
I don't think there's anything in there that's not booze, so yeah, I can feel the heartburn starting already.
Heather
So we got a five star review on Apple Podcasts and that is excellent. We love five-star reviews.
Amy
Yay!
Heather
TaigaRaider wrote, “So focused. I always love finding a show with such a laser focus on a specific time and place. The depth of exploration here is impressive because it's such a specific slice of history, handled brilliantly. Recommend 10 out of 10.”
So thank you so much, Tiaga Raider.
Amy
Yes, thank you, that's amazing and I don't know who that is. You know a lot of times I'll be like that's my cousin or whatever, but I don't know who that is! So whoever you are thank you, we appreciate it.
We also hit a nice milestone on October 25th, 2021. We surpassed 1000 downloads of the show. So that's exciting.
Heather
That is great. Let's get 1000 more.
Amy
Yes, so thank you everybody for listening and downloading and hopefully enjoying the show. Once we get… (laughs) so this makes it sound like it's not actually that great, but once we get 500 downloads per week, we can start doing ads.
Heather
So tell your friends!
Amy
So tell your friends 'cause we need some podcast money. Anyway, uh, yeah, so we can't…we need 10 times what we have. I guess is. What it comes down to…I think, I don't know. I can't do math. We've discussed that.
Heather
Yeah, math is bad.
Amy
Yeah, math’s hard.
Amy
So also I registered us on a website portal called GoodPods, which I think is kind of like Goodreads is for books you know.
Heather
Oh OK, that makes sense.
Amy
You sign up and then you put in all the podcasts you're listening to, and then you share it with your friends. And then you're, you see what once your friends are listening to, and then you can recommend the podcast to each other and stuff so. I got an email from them saying that, we were ranked in the top 100 listener charts in three categories.
Heather
Excellent!
Amy
I know. So in indie history, independent podcasts history, we ranked #37 out of 100. In indie True Crime, we ranked 57, which I think is pretty good because there's a gazillion true crime podcasts out there, so that's pretty good, I think. I'm happy with it. And then in top 100 history podcasts, not just Indie, we rank 73. So that's not bad, not bad at all.
Heather
Excellent, So after this airs, we'll be taking a small break, celebrating holidays, etc. and this will serve as the end of season one, right now what we're doing. And then this focused on Kid Cann and his reign in Minneapolis during the 20s and 30s. And we are working on a season 2 which will be called Single Barrel Theory. We kind of came up with that name, kind of based on 2 themes from this season: Guns and booze, right? So there's single barrel shotguns. And then there's single barrel Bourbon and bourbon is something we like here over in Volsteadland, right?
Amy
Umn-humn.
Heather
So yeah, each episode in Season 2 will be a standalone deep dive based off of maybe something we talked about in season one. Yeah, we're really excited about.
Amy
That yeah, yeah I want to give Heather appropriate props because she came up with that name and I really like it. So yeah, we're going to be taking turns researching and telling the stories, and we'll cover them one at a time. Like she said, each story one episode, unless there happens to be something that's really big and we want to break it into 2, maybe we'll do that. But for the most part, it'll be each episode, a standalone story, and we're going to trade off doing one.
So like I think we talked about last time, Heather is already working on one for Machine Gun Kelly. And I am working on one that is the story that we talked about last time, with Kid Cann’s White slavery Trial, which is…yeah . And because that is there's so much stuff in there and there's a lot I haven't even uncovered yet.
Heather: and I have an idea for another one as well that I haven't even told you about yet.
Amy
Ohhh
Heather
So we'll talk about that later. It's a secret.
Amy
Yeah, I have a couple other ideas too. Yeah, so that’s going to be super fun.
So while you're waiting for those, I'll just wanted to let you know that I do have a couple other podcasts. One of them is called Collected Sounds, and that's where I just read stories and up to now they're just ghost stories. And I talked to my mom yesterday and she said, “I tried to listen to your story…” but first of all, she had trouble understanding me because I trail out at the end of my sentences apparently, and I'm sure I do. But she also said, “then I realized it was about ghosts and I didn’t want to listen to it anyway.”
Heather
(Laughs) Oh Barb.
Amy
And I'm like it's not even scary. I mean, it's a little creepy, but it's not scary. You know, I, I don't want to give away anything, but it's not scary. It's just a cool story. And then I'm also working on another podcast that is called “Tales from the Shift”, and it's going to be about people’s work experiences, like weird jobs they've had, or regular jobs where they've had weird experiences, funny stories, sad stories, scary stories. I have next week I'm interviewing somebody who worked overnights at a convent.
Heather
Oooh, where did you find that person?
Amy
Well, I'll tell you later who she is because I'm not sure. I don't know if she wants to be anonymous, or not.
Heather
Amy
So I I won't, I won't tell you yet who it is, and then I'm going to talk to a nurse. I'm going to talk to a sex worker. I've got like a bunch of people lined up, so that's going to be fun. I've done one interview so far, and then I've got this next one next week and then so if anybody has any cool stories about your job.
[sound of a loud car going down the street]
We have drag racing outside I guess.
If anyone listening has any cool stories about your job or anything that happened to you while you're at work that you want to discuss, we can do it over Zoom like this, or we can do it on the phone and I can disguise your voice. You can be anonymous or you can be credited. However you like.
So hit me up at the number in the show notes (612-424-1684) or Volsteadland@gmail.com so check the show notes for the contact info and let me know if you want to be on the podcast. Oh, I plan to launch that early next year like January, February maybe depending on how many I get done, I want to try and get them all In the can and wrapped up before I release because I don't want to be struggling to get something out every week and I do want to have that one be weekly instead of every two weeks.
OK, so oh uh, did you want to say something?
Heather
Oh I was going to say that can go on forever I mean. Yeah, like you can. I mean there's a lot of people with jobs, right?
Amy
As long as I get people. There's a lot of people without jobs too, some by choice.
But yeah, I mean I'm not working right now, but I have some crazy stories that maybe I'll interject and weave mine in too.
Amy
Our friend Melissa, who runs the Skylark Bell podcast. She just finished season one or book one of the Skylark Bell and she's now working on book/season 2, but she's releasing some fun short stories in between, while she's on hiatus, which… she's not really on hiatus if she's still writing stories and [laughs] recording them and putting them out, but in between seasons she's doing that. The other day she sent me one to read because she was like, “I don't know. Is it too weird?” And actually, I'm like I'm probably the wrong person to ask 'cause I like weird, so she sent it to me and I loved it I totally had something in my eye. [Heather laughs] It was it was really good so I'm really excited for that. She's recording it this week. It's going to come out just two days after this one comes out. I think it's coming out on the 12th and this should be out on the 10th. So look out for that. It's in the Skylark Bell podcast and it's called “The Wedding Dress”, and it's going to be super good.
Heather
Awesome
Amy
yeah
Heather
All right, so Amy, let's dive in. And you spent a lot of time researching this and you put out a lot of asks for people to reach out to you and give you personal stories they might have had about Kid Cann and you know or things they've heard of him and you actually came up with a lot more than. I realized you did looking over some of the notes earlier today. So, let's let's hear about what you learned.
Amy
- Well the first one I want to tell you about is, I'm just going to call her Source One.
I found her on Next Door. I actually had posted about how I was doing this and did anybody have any stories about Kid Cann and she called me and the first thing she said is, “Well, he is a friend of the family.” And I was like, “What? I struck gold!” [both laugh] And I did. She's amazing, so uhm, she called him Fergie.
She knew him in later years she met him when her father was on the jury of the transit scandal trial in 1960, so that's when she met him and that's when her father met him. And then after the trial they became friends and they would go down to Miami together and hang out together in Miami.
And during that transit case, she was working at City Hall and she would go out to lunch with her parents at, when they had breaks in the trial and they'd go to Sheik’s Cafe, she said, which I do believe ended up being Sheik’s Disco in the 80s and then it was a strip club after that.
Heather
Yep, a gentlemen's club.
Amy
Yes, yeah, that's probably the more PC way to say it, but I used to go there in the 80s for dancing, and it was a blast. It was called Graffitis.
Heather: Oh wow!
Amy
it was super cool. It was so 80s. So 80s. Everything it was like the black light so that your eyeballs would shine and everybody had their fingerless gloves and everything. It was amazing. Amazing, I loved it. We, my friend Rachel and I, used to go there all the time all through college.
Anyway, Sheik’s Cafe, and so then they would all go out there and her parents would be like “there's the attorney for Kid Cann” and “there's the attorney for the other guy” and all that she didn't really…She was a kid, really, It wasn't that impressive to her, but they were like real excited about it. Uhm, then she also mentioned that she would sometimes go to Charlies and I'm like Charlie’s? she goes, “Don't you know Charlie's?” and I'm like, “I don't think so.” And then I was like wait Charlie's Cafe Exceptional?! Yes that's the one.
And she actually told me that she had her engagement dinner there, when she got engaged to her husband, her family took her there. So I gotta, I'm going to talk to her again 'cause we had such a blast.
We actually ended up meeting and she we sat down together and she gave me a bunch of pictures to look at and stuff, she even let me take some of them home. Now I'm gonna meet her, meet up with her again and return them to her. But anyway, back to Charlie's. I know we talked about having the potato salad while we were doing this one. But I didn't plan ahead and I did not make the potato salad, but I'm thinking that if I can get enough about Charlie's, we could do a whole deep dive on Charlie's and we can eat the potato salad.
Heather
Ooh, and use the potato salad. Maybe we could even cook it. Together as a podcast.
Amy
We could do a cooking demonstration. That's a good idea!
OK, so during the trial…this is one thing I thought was kind of fun... During the trial, she noticed that when she and her boyfriend were outside her house in his car, necking as she said, they noticed that someone was watching them, kind of like she didn't say she said they weren't exactly like following them all around town, but there was somebody in a car watching her and she thinks it was maybe to be sure that nobody was approaching her or family too because her dad was on the trial (jury).
And she thought maybe it was like to make sure that there was no jury tampering or anything. Which you know, there were stories about that afterwards that that is indeed what happened, and that's why he got away with everything and everybody else went down.
She doesn't think that's what happened. She didn't say that's what happened. She doesn't believe that's what happened but she did say there were people watching her and she said they probably just wanted to know what…you know…the daughter of a guy on the trial who she was with who she was talking to, who she was seeing, you know?
Then I asked her to confirm that he hated the name Kid Cann and she said she didn't know because it was never used. They always just called him Fergie. And she knew his name was Isadore Blumenfeld, and he was called Mr. Blumenfeld at restaurants and stuff, but that she only knew him as Fergie and they never talked about the name Kid Cann, if he liked it or not.
And so she told me also that during his real estate years when he was involved in developing real estate -- buildings and stuff, he had to wear a hard hat when he was on the site and somehow she ended up with that hard hat, and it's it actually said Fergie on it. She doesn't have it anymore. She doesn't know what happened to it, but she got it after he died when his wife Lillian was giving away and/or selling his stuff so she had it.
Heather
Interesting, now what I find is really confusing and strange is that her father was friends with him and then her father ended up on the jury. I don't understand how that could happen.
Amy
She said that he was friends with him only after the trial, they became friends.
Heather
Oh as a result of it. After the trial OK, OK OK yeah OK. I missed this.
Amy
Yeah, maybe I didn't say that, but that's how it, that's how that's how she remembers it. That's what that's what she knows.
Heather
Amy
However, she didn't tell me that her dad was a bootlegger back in the prohibition days,
Heather
Right.
Amy
…and I was like, “are you telling me that your dad didn't know him back in the day?”
Heather
Then, right!
Amy
When they were bootlegging and she's like, no, I don't. As far as I know, they didn't know each other. Who knows, maybe they did.
[Heather laughs]
But he still got on the on the jury, so. Uhm, no I I think either he did not…They did not know each other or they hid it very well and it would be hard to hide that. You know?
Heather
I would think
Amy
Everybody knew who is he was hanging out with I think. I don't know.
She also told me a story about how when they would go to dinner and the host would call “Mr. Blumenfeld”, or Blumenfield. I don't know if they said his name right or not, “Your table is ready” and she said there would be a whole lot of people like standing. around and being like that's him, that's him right there. She said he did not like the attention. He is not somebody…and I kind of got that from all the stuff we talked about, and all the research I did, that he really didn't like the spotlight shone on him and a lot of times people who are doing shady shit, you know, that makes sense.
“Look the other way, don't look at me” and I know that he was also very upset when he would get in the papers and then his family would get upset because you know he has all these brothers and sisters who all had children who had children and he said every time that he got in the paper it would upset them and he felt terrible about that. He just wanted to be left alone. So that's that makes sense.
Uhm, she said that he gave her son a dollar once. [laughter]
I don't remember what the circumstances were there I he probably said something like don't spend it all in one place or something.
And then whenever they would go, whenever he and Lillian would go out with her parents, he would, he would say to the ladies, “You broads get in the back.” He wanted the broads in the back of the car.
So here's one thing I don't know if this is going to work, but this is a picture that she gave it to me to take home.
Heather
Oh yeah, umn-humn.
Amy
I have to give it back to her, but this this is Izzy (Fergie) and this is her dad and I'm leaving it far enough away so hopefully nobody can see him and then…
Heather
I think my parents had a car like that when I was like 6.
Amy
That was his car.
Heather
It definitely looks like it was taken in like the early to mid-70s.
Amy
Yeah, it might have been. It might have been and so, somebody wrote on the back, let's see if I could get that, I’m covering his name. It says “Kid Cann, AKA Isadore Blumenfeld” crossed out “field.”
Heather: Oh yeah.
Amy
And then she also sent me home with this, which I have to give back to her. This is a letter from the United States -- United States District Court from the Court clerk. A letter to her father and I have covered his name, but….I don't know if you can actually read that or anything,
Heather
Oh wow.
Amy
But it says “I want to thank you for forgoing your usual pursuits and serving as a juror on the so-called Twin City Rapid Transit case.”
“I am sure nobody believed the trial would be so time consuming. I know the remuneration you received is not at all adequate to compensate for the disruption of your personal affairs and the really valuable service you rendered the court. Should you perchance be called on for jury duty in the future, it would certainly be proper to ask to be excused on the grounds that you have already served longer than a person should be expected to serve in a lifetime. I know your experience on the jury has been a value to you and that you have gained real knowledge of the administration of justice in our courts and the personal satisfaction of knowing you have had a place in so vital a branch of our government on behalf of Judge Norby as well as myself, I want to express our sincere appreciation.
Sincerely, Frank A. Massey clerk.”
Heather
Wow, I didn't get a letter like that when I was on jury duty!
Amy
Those are some things that she gave me and I'm gonna meet with her again and I can't wait 'cause she was a delight. Oh, I did ask her if kid can, if he knew Kid Cann before the trial. She said no, not as far as she knew. But she did say that a lot of this stuff, whenever I'd ask her like for details she'd be like, I don't know because this was not stuff we talked about. You weren't supposed to ask. Don't ask, don't tell.
Heather
It is so you got the sense that she kind of knew that something wasn't right or going on.
Amy
Either she knew or she suspected but wasn't sure and just didn't want...
Heather
Just knew better than to ask.
Amy
yeah. So she also told me that she remembers that when Fergie died it was because he had gone into the hospital for a surgery and they botched it and they left something inside him when they sewed him back up. I don't know what sponge or scalpel. I don't really left something inside of him and he got a bad infection and that that's what he died from, not heart failure as the papers said, but I don't have his autopsy report. If there even is one, I don't have a coroner's report. I don't know. Maybe somebody does, but. But, and that's just what she remembers, or at least her family knew to be this story so. But they said he died of heart failure, which of course everybody dies of heart failure eventually, I mean. That's what happens. Your heart stops and you're dead. She also told me that she remembers that Fergie took the fall for somebody in one of these cases that was going on in 1961.
And she thinks it was one of his brothers. And I told her that his brothers were both also indicted and convicted in the liquor probe, so he couldn't have covered for them in that way. And she said, “no, I think it was the white slavery case.”
So then I'm thinking, well, neither of his brothers had anything to do with that as far as far as I can tell, as far as what was in the papers. I mean, the woman testified that it was you know is Izzy she was having the affair with, so I don't know. I guess we'll dig into that when we do the deep dive on that, so there might be a little bit more there.
Heather
Interesting, OK.
Amy
And then remember how at the sentencing in 1961, his lawyer made him out to be like super frail and sickly? And we talked about like how Robert Durst and Harvey Weinstein and all those guys pull that shit? So I asked her if she remembers him being sickly 'cause she knew him after that and she said no, not at all.
Heather
Hmm, Yep.
Amy
She said he seemed like to be a very healthy guy and she said she.
Heather
And he certainly looked healthy in that picture you just showed
Amy
And yeah, right.
Amy: And he lived another 20 years after the sentencing where he was, you know, according to his lawyer falling apart at the seams and then he lived another 20 years. And she does not remember him being sickly. She thinks it was probably something that the lawyers just made up
Heather
for sympathy.
Amy
Yeah, yeah.
Heather
Maybe it worked, maybe that's…
Amy
Maybe maybe. So if you're listening to this and not watching and you didn't see the pictures I put up, don't worry I'm going to. Put them on the blog and on all the socials.
So this woman, she was a delight. I can't wait to meet her again. She's had a really interesting life herself. We spent most of the time actually talking about her. And she's really, really interesting. And I told her that maybe she should have a podcast about her life and she kind of just looked at me and went …”mayyyybe….”. [laughter] So we'll see. Maybe I can convince her.
All right, so then source #2 is one that sort of disappeared. We spoke the first time back in May and I haven't heard from her since and I have reached out, but I haven't heard back. It's fine, I get it.
She mentioned that she had been working for a government agency, which I won't name.
Back in the 70s and she did want me to make sure to point out that it was very gender biased.
It was men did not like her having the job. She was a special agent. And the men thought she was taking a job away from a man and then she was also Jewish, which made them, you know, rank her down a little bit lower too, which is awful. She was assigned to look for cases where people weren't paying their taxes.
You know, like how we talked about, that's how they get those guys is on tax evasion so. She said she doesn't remember if she was given it or if she offered to do it because she was interested in it.
She was Jewish, so she thought she could get in with the people that were doing it, not that they're all Jewish. But enough of them were, and this was in the 70s, so it was long after Kid Cann’s people were around, but there were some other restaurants, bars that continued these practices gambling and mostly they had bookie rooms or whatever. So like in the there'd be a secret room upstairs where they did all their accounting and stuff.
She also told me about how when the Jewish immigrants came from the old country like Romania in the 1900s, they would sell their wares by wagons. They put all their stuff on wagons and then when the wagons went away and the trucks started coming out, these same guys are now needing a job. And they would drive those trucks. They'd be delivery drivers. So, which I thought was kind of interesting and they were the ones that opened up the Army Navy surplus Stores and I remember there being a big store downtown over by.
Heather
In the warehouse area, right?
Amy
Yeah, in the warehouse district.
Heather
Yep, I've been there.
Amy
Yeah, I think I went there for Halloween looking for stuff and then yeah, you know when I was in in College in the 80s it was. It was really a big deal to wear all those fatigues and all that stuff and combat boots and everything and that's where everybody went to get their stuff. And she mentioned that her grandfather had a vegetable and fruit stand …produce stand. And it made me made me wonder if she was related to those guys in the episode, The Bumbling Crew where the night of the murder of Walter Liggett and Kid Cann was doing his rounds all over the town, and one of the places he stopped at was a produce stand.
Heather
Oh, I bet it was.
Amy
Run by two guys, Max Levine and Robert Lindgren.
So I don't know. I didn't know about that when I met with her so I didn't.
I didn't ask her about that, but I, but she did say that she's pretty sure that her grandfather, new kid can. But she didn't have any real stories. She also said that it was well known back then that the City Council members would go to the police and erase any infractions that the syndicate and combination types had on their record.
She also talked about being a mob wife, and she said those ladies they had it great. [Heather laughs] She's they treated their women very well and she said, like the men would go off and do their killing and then they'd come home and bring diamonds to their wives. And she’s like, who wouldn't love that lifestyle?
Heather: Well, I've watched The Sopranos and Yeah, I mean Carmela had it pretty good except for all the cheating And you know abuse, but right?
Amy
I mean, aside from that…That reminds me. Also, the first, my first source? She told me that Fergie and his wife Lillian were madly in love with each other.
Oh, and I was like oh 'cause remember last time I was like I don't know why she's married to him.
He's obviously having an affair with this 20-year-old girl. Well, I forgot about the diamonds, and she was madly in love, so yeah.
Yeah, so this woman. She knew a lot of people who knew the family, but she wanted to reach out to all of them before giving me their phone numbers. And then she actually never got around to reaching out to them, and so I never heard from her again except for her to tell me that she hadn't done it yet and she's like, “I don't know why I haven't done it yet, I guess I'm just procrastinating.” and then she just ghosted me so it's fine. I get it. Uhm, if you're listening lady who helped me out, I don't blame you at all. It's all good. I get it why you wouldn't want to get too involved.
OK, and then the third person that I spoke to is a guy who's family member, we talked about him before, his family member was supposedly one of the alibi witnesses at the Liggett murder trial.
And he says that this family member saw Kid Cann, at the time of the murder drinking and gambling in a bar, and that's what he testified to.
Heather
So he couldn't possibly have been present at the murder right?
Amy
OK, well right and he said, “he could have had it done but he didn't do it.” OK yeah, I mean, yeah, there's a lot of people that wanted to shut up Walter Liggett. So yeah, it didn't really matter if it was him or not. I mean, I don't know that he would have been the one to make the call. I don't know, maybe he was.
Anyway, this guy was great. He had a lot of good stories about Minneapolis in the 40s through sixties, 70s, so if and when we cover those stories, I'm going to reach out to him again.
He was really fun to talk to. He had some great great stories that don't pertain to this realm at all, but they were still interesting and I I'm keeping those in the back of my mental file cabinet.
He did say that he met JFK when he was in the city campaigning to be president.
Heather
Wow
Voiceover of source (altered)
Yeah, I sold flowers to a guy named, a, you might know this name, Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy? Kennedy was campaigning for president and he came though in a limo- um convertible.
And he stopped in front of the house and he asked me how much the flowers were, I says “would a dollar for 2 dozen red roses be too much?”
“No, I'll pay ya that.”
That's before, it hada had been around 1960 or 61. I would think that was when he was running for President.
But I thought he was one of the nicest guys I ever met. And he went back to the car and I think if Jackie was with him, uh he give ‘em to somebody, I don’t remember if it was Jackie or who but he give the flowers to somebody in the convertible. Probably was his wife Jackie.
Heather
Oh!
Amy
thinks it was his wife, but he's not.
Heather
Sure, oh, wouldn't it be great if it was Marilyn.
Amy
I know I was thinking that too! So he was super fun, uhm, and I I would like to talk to him again too. I don't know if he's listening, I don't know that he even knows what a Podcast is but he was great.
Heather
How old was he? I mean, if he was a kid in the, I guess early 60s…
Amy
60s yeah yeah. I mean, I think he's…all these people were in their 70s. All the three I'm talking about they were in their 70s.
Heather
So we are going to talk about some of the leads that came from the various Facebook groups. Would this be a good time to stop and refresh our cocktail take?
Amy
A break, sure, yeah, let's do it.
[break]
Heather
So Amy posted looking for information on various Facebook groups and got a variety of people weighing in and different responses. We have one here on the name. The Bloom name. This is from a woman who actually wrote an article about his family for a local website. She was also a source who sent Amy some articles.
It says “his brother changed his name to Harry Bloom and his other brother to Yiddy Bloom, but I've never heard that Kid Cann ever went by that except when he got arrested for the Cotton Club murder and gave his name as Harry Bloom. First I thought the reporter made a mistake then someone. Said he did it on purpose.”
And then there was a response that said “yes, during the legit murder trial he was asked about the spelling and he replied that he had a complicated name and that sometimes he went by Bloom. His siblings all changed their names. Yiddy was born, Isaac went by Jake and then legally changed his name to Yiddy.”
And then another person replied. “On that topic, I may be asking this question a couple of decades too late. I've read that in his later life in Florida his friends called him Fergie. Apparently short for Ferguson.
As someone pointed out, this name could be a play on the Yiddish,” and I'm going to bastardize this: “Ikh fargesn which means I forget” and I do apologize to our Jewish listeners. “It could have been a play on the Yiddish for I forget. Many years ago I” this is still somebody replying, “Many years ago I heard an old northsider refer to him as Izzy Bloom, which made sense as both his brothers Yiddy and Harry used Bloom, sadly that old guy died before I could ask him more about it. Which brings us to the question what did his friends and family members call him? Does anybody remember?”
And someone answered to that they just said “yes it was Blumenfield, but he changed it and so did his brothers.” No one answered the Fergie question, but we know from Amy’s source that we were just talking about, that this is true. Especially during his time in Florida.
So there were some other people who responded to different things, saying that they knew him.
One guy wrote, “I worked in a brokerage office where Kid Cann had an account. This was in the late 60s.
He came in one day accompanied by what I assumed to be a bodyguard. This guy was huge and right out of central casting. Blumenfeld was chatting up a secretary, a blonde bombshell. He offered her a trip down to Florida with him since it was cold up here. The little voice in my head suggested that I say, are you bringing a heater, but I deferred to common sense and shut up. “
Amy
[laughs] I love that.
Heather
Then on a different thread the same person said “he had an account at the brokerage firm I worked at in the 60s. He would come in with his huge guy right out of central casting who just stood there, looking menacing. We had a receptionist who was this wonderful blonde. He was chatting her up talking about how cold it was here in Minneapolis and how nice it was in Florida where he was. Going, I was tempted to ask if he was bringing his heater with, but decided considering the big guy, not to.”
Amy
That's probably wise.
Heather
And then here's another story from a person whose father knew Kid Cann, a nice story.
Amy
This one was on Next Door, actually.
Heather
She says “My parents were both blind. And there were eight children and very little money.
My dad started the world most dangerous polka band at Nye’s,” which I have seen. “Everyone knew Joe, the Blind drummer one night while walking home from knives, Dad got jumped in what used to be called Bum Park, but is now known as Chute Square. Dad had his head cracked open and had to go to the hospital. He was robbed of the couple bucks he had on him. Not very long after that, my mother would receive envelopes with cash in them to help her get by. I was really young but I remember the man coming up to our house to tell my mom that Mr. Cann would be looking out for her and he did.”
And then Amy, you responded to her and you said, wow, interesting, I have seen that band at Nye’s.
I used to go there in College in the late 80s. Thanks for the story!
Amy
Yep
Heather
You got around a lot. You were quite the social butterfly in your college days.
Amy
I was way more than I am now. That's for damn sure
