Leonard Brody

Leonard Brody recorded a 12-page autobiography on March 7, 1992 and later made some corrections and additions. The following is a condensed summary:

He recalls when he was about 4 his father teaching him the alphabet and how to read. They lived on 13th St. in Chicago; the apartment only had stoves in the "parlor" and kitchen, none in the bedrooms.

He attended kindergarten and started 1st grade at Clarke School on Ashland Ave, then in Oct. 1924 his family moved to 1644 S. St. Louis Av. and he transferred to Howland School. The new apartment had steam radiators.

When he was 6, his father packed up his few belongings, left the house, and never came back. This left his older brother Charlie, then 22, as head of the household. His father initially offered no financial support to the family, but later, Leonard would visit him on Sundays and each time he visited his father would give him $5. This money was taken home for household expenses. Leonard did not want to go on these visits but basically had to because the family needed the money. The sources of friction between his parents Leonard recorded at some length and I will summarize those under their respective profiles.

Leonard went on to complete grade school at Howland, Herzl Jr High, and John Marshall High School, graduating in 1935. He recalls the depression as leaving a deep and lasting impact, with his older brothers Charlie and Dave, the only family wage-earners, often unemployed. His brother Bernard, then living in a dorm at the U. of Chicago, was working for the Weather Bureau. He sent home a $25 money order every month, and that plus the $5 from his father each week was the entire family income from the early 1930s till 1935. Then Charlie and Dave got jobs as laborers in Armour Canning Co. for $12/wk. Leonard would go each Sat. to Goldblatt Dept. Store where his friend Melvin Berry was a "regular extra," with Leonard being in the on-call category. If they had work for him he might get to start around noon and then work 4-5 hours for 25 cents/hr, which he had to go back and collect on Thursday as they would not hold it till the next Sat. He recalls sometimes having to pay as much as his salary was in carfare to go on the streetcar and pick it up. He also sometimes worked the cash register, and at the end of his work shift might be told that his register was short and be docked almost all his pay. "I hardly felt sad when a few years ago Goldblatt went bankrupt."

Leonard spent the summer of 1935 looking for work, then Charlie decided he was to go to junior college, and he somehow scraped together the $6 enrollment fee. He went to Herzl Jr College, converted from the building where he had previous attended Junior high. He attended for 2 years, taking science courses in hopes of someday going to medical school, working Tues and Thurs afternoons and evenings and Sat selling in a men's wear store at $5 for all three days of work.

Even after completing jr college he could not find work until his cousin Ruth Hackner got him a job in the shipping dept at Phillips-Jones, maker of Van Huesen shirts. He started at a low wage but then the first minimum wage law went into effect and he made $11.99/wk afterwards.

Leonard now felt secure enough to enroll in law school and chose John Marshall due to night classes and an esay payment plan. He enrolled in February 1939 but in 1941 he was assigned a low draft number, was given a deferment to finish that semester of school, and ordered to report for duty July 16. He spent a month at Ft Sheridan near Chicago and was assigned to help with paperwork on new draftees because he could read and write. His rank was private and pay was $21/mo. He was sent to what later became Gardner Field near Taft, CA in August 1941. He and a group of Jewish soldiers went into town, and a friendly storeowner called Mrs. Dienstein who invited them over for dinner, where he met his future wife.

One Dec. 7 he heard news of bombing of Pearl Harbor and did not immediately realize this would lead to war as extent of damage was initially kept secret. Later that day he was with Isabel Dienstein at the Taft movie theater, and a message was flashed on the screen advising all military personnel to return to base immediately. He was assigned to guard duty protecting planes, with insufficient guns on hand to equip all guards so he did guard duty that night holding two rocks.

He next applied for aviation cadet and was sent to a flight school at Ventura, CA, where he found the hazing intolerable and quit after about 10 flight hours. (He wrote that he later regretted not having completed flight school, and in the 1960s he took flying lessons and eventually owned his own two-seat plane, until halth problems forced him to quit.) He was next assigned to Army Air Corps at Santa Ana, CA, was promoted to corporal and sergeant. He visited Isabel when he could in LA where she was doing a dietician internship. He applied for Air Corps OCS and was sent to Miami Beach in August, 1942, graduating as 2nd Lt in October, 1942. He was sent to Mobile, AL for training as supply officer, served a year at Venice, FL as personnel officer with some duty near Key West, then was sent overseas in 1943 to Pacific Theater; served 18 months in Fiji, sent to Hawaii to become part of Iwo Jima invasion force, spent the days of bombardment and the early Marine invasion on board ship then was sent inland when the area was secure to open up air fields, and was in Iwo Jima on VJ Day. He returned to US (near San Francisco) on October 27, 1945, just as Isabel was returning from European theater; they rejoined in Taft on Nov. 3 and went to Bakersfield where they were married on Nov. 5.

The newlyweds returned (first Leonard, then Isabel after Thanksgiving) to Chicago, where they had to live with his mother and brother Charlie for 2 years until they were able to rent an apartment a few blocks away at 7224 N. Clark. Leonard returned to John Marshall Law School which had changed its schedule to try to accommodate returning servicemen on the GI bill and he was able to take the bar exam early due to special rules and passed, being admitted to the bar on May 12, 1947. He completed his LL.B. degree that June, and as the dean was not sure that he had technically completed all the course work he needed, he agreed to stay in school and get the more advanced LL.M. degree which he obtained in 1948. He worked as a law clerk for McKinley & Price at 33 N. LaSalle St. in Chicago, initially paid $50/mo and then after being admitted to the bar got a raise to $75.

In July, 1950, Isabel returned to Taft to visit her family with their new baby. In their absence, Leonard, then a Captain in the Air Force Reserves, was notified that he was being called up by the Air Force to active duty as part of the Korean mobilization. He was ordered to report to O'Hare Field on Aug. 12, and was shipped to Sumpter, SC en route to duty in Japan. He was joined by Isabel and Howard in SC for a few weeks before he was sent abroad. He was stationed in Camp Hakata, near Fukuoka, serving as a Staff Judge Advocate for 20 months. They continued to pay rent on the apartment in Clark St. He returned to California in March, 1952, where Isabel had bought their first car, a 1951 or 1952 Chevrolet, which they drove back to Illinois. He was able to resume his old job at McKinley & Price. [I will add here recollections which are not part of Leonard's autobiography. He was quite dismayed to be called up in 1950. There were so many benefits being given to servicemen that many had come to see service in the Reserves as just one more federal benefit, paying a small sum of money, but without any real expectation of having to serve again. It was extremely frustrating to be called up just as he was finally starting to establish himself in law practice, and after already having served 4 years during WWII and having to put his law career on hold for that. However, his high sense of integrity did not permit him to accept another perk of service. Many non-flight Air Force officers took advantage of a loophole that if they made one flight per month, they were eligible for extra flight pay. They would ask their pilot friends to let them fly along as passengers one time per month. Leonard thought this was dishonest and refused to do this.)

In 1955 the family moved to 7344 Lake St., Morton Grove, IL, where they had a small bilevel home (3 bedrooms) and enough yard to grow flowers and vegetables. Leonard remodeled the basement and built a garage himself. He continued to work at McKinley & Price until 1958, then went into practice on his own, and later entered a partnership with two friends from law school, Knell and Lezak, later Knell, Lezak and Brody. He would commute daily to downtown Chicago on the Milwaukee Road commuter train from Morton Grove; Isabel would drive him to and from the station.

Leonard wanted to have more land and to try his hand at farming, and eventually the family moved to 6809 Bull Valley Rd, McHenry, IL, in 1963. This was a 20 acre property with a house that had been unoccupied for 18 months, and so was selling at a very low price. Leonard, now aided by his two sons, worked to fix up the house and turn the yard into a reasonable yard and garden; he again showed his construction ability by building an additional shed garage and then a barn. They tried keeping a horse and some goats, then planting corn, and finally he turned to raising sheep. He first continued to commute to downtown Chicago, this time on the Chicago and North Western commuter trains from McHenry, then opened an office in McHenry County part time, and in 1968 moved his practice completely to McHenry. He was appointed a magistrate in 1970, and all magistrates in Illinois were renamed aoosiciate judges of the circuit court on July 1, 1970. As associate judge he could only hear the least complex cases, and he tried running for judge twice on his preferred party designation, Democrat, losing both times. He realized that in McHenry County no Democrat had a chance to be elected to local office. In 1980 some Republicans approached him to run on their ticket and he reluctantly agreed, and was elected in 1980, serving as circuit court judge until he retired on July 1, 1984.

When Howard lived in Charlottesville, VA during his medical residency, Leonard an Isabel visited and decided they linked the countryside in the Shenandoah Valley area, so they bought a 21-acre tract near Weyers Cave, VA. He self-contracted for building a house and a bridge aross a small creek to reach the house, which was set on a hill and had excellent views. They moved in April, 1985. He planned to continue to raise sheep, but found several things he had not bargained for--the physical labor became increasingly dificult; the snow and cold was greater in the Valley than on the other side of the Blue Ridge in Charlottesville; and he was put off by the religious fundamentalism and political conservatism of the local community. On a visit to Venice, FL, to see what had changed since he served at the air base there in WWII, they came across a house for sale on a city-sized lot, and moved to FL on July 15, 1988.

Leonard had had a coronary bypass operation in 1973 (one of the first such operations to be performed) from which he had a good recovery. (He had been a smoker from his WWII days until the late 1960s, then quit.) He had to have another coronary bypass operation in 1990 but did not recover as well and by 1992 was describing himself as much less physically active, able to play golf, but having to hire out most house and yard work that he had been accustomed to doing on his own.

In concluding his 1992 autobiograghy Leonard described his most pertinent characteristics as 1) a life long Democrat [who probably most admired Adlai Stevenson of any poliician] who still felt guilty over having run as a Republican in McHenry County; 2) pro-labor even though he had never been a member of a union; and 3) religiously a nonbeliever but ethnically and culturally Jewish, and still resentful over the travails of his family in the 1930s when many firms would not hire Jews, and most colleges had Jewish quotas.

Between 1992 and 2000 Leonard gradually suffered worsening congestive heart failure, and was under hospice care during the last 1-2 years of his life.