A small-town waitress in North Dakota recalled the night she served steak to Al Capone

Editor’s notice: That is half two of a three-part particular report “The Capones in North Dakota.” Half one examined how Al Capone’s oldest brother Vincenzo grew to become a legislation enforcement officer at Standing Rock.

Stella Hildre was being an excellent daughter that evening. Her mother and father ran the cafe in Petersburg, North Dakota. To provide her busy mother the evening off, she volunteered to cook dinner and wait tables that evening. Her good pal Agnes Asleson, a pair years older than Stella, agreed to assist.

“I bear in mind it was a gorgeous day and night,” Hildre advised Mysteries Journal in 2002.

She definitely wasn’t afraid to be within the cafe alone that evening. It was her residence away from residence. Her mother and father had bought the cafe in 1925, and she or he helped when she may. Fairly mundane stuff, actually. Serve the purchasers a sizzling roast beef sandwich, a cup of espresso, and a chunk of pie, they usually’d be on their approach.

However the younger girls had no thought what they have been in for that evening — what would change into probably the most memorable nights of their life — a narrative Hildre would inform nicely into her 90s of the time she served supper to Al “Scarface” Capone.

The story begins when an uncommon automotive (or perhaps two) — black and fancy, with tinted home windows — drove ever so slowly down Petersburg’s quiet downtown streets.

The automotive(s) pulled up exterior the Hildre Cafe.

Then, “they got here in sporting effective garments to have dinner,” Hildre advised William Jackson for his e book,

“Extra Dakota Mysteries and Oddities”.

The occupants of the automotive then instructed Hildre and Asleson to inform anybody else who got here to the cafe that it was closed, they usually requested the kids to lock the door.

Hildre stated they weren’t scared, as a result of oftentimes individuals having non-public events on the cafe needed to have the doorways locked.

However then the boys drew the shades.

“That appeared actually odd to me,” Hildre stated.

To make it even odder, among the males stood guard exterior with Tommy weapons, whereas others climbed the steps between the cafe and the ironmongery shop subsequent door to perch themselves on the diner’s roof, additionally with weapons in hand. On the time, Petersburg had a inhabitants of simply round 300, so the younger waitresses have been in all probability puzzled, questioning what was so regarding to the boys.

However what may they do? They wanted to make meals for these males who clearly weren’t locals. However have been they big-city mobsters? Was it Al Capone? They weren’t fairly positive, however that they had their suspicions. Regardless of who they have been, all of them ordered steak and the younger waitresses began cooking.

“They have been all very good trying and well mannered,” Hildre advised the journal.

They took up two tables, and one man even went as much as play a couple of in style tunes on the piano.

“We by no means heard it performed that good earlier than,” Hildre advised Jackson.

Better of all, Hildre recalled that Capone and his males preferred their meals.

“They loved our cooking. They couldn’t recover from how we two ladies may cook dinner the steaks,” Hildre stated in Jackson’s e book. “They have been all very good. This one, particularly. I’m positive it was him (Capone). He was very good to us. They only appeared like a gaggle of people that got here in for an excellent time.”

The mobsters didn’t keep lengthy. Once they left, the person believed to be Capone left every of them a $5 tip. In as we speak’s cash, that may equal about $87. The women have been thrilled.

With small-town gossip being what it’s, phrase acquired across the subsequent day that it was Capone’s crew driving via Petersburg that evening. Hildre stated individuals requested them, “Weren’t you scared?”

She stated they weren’t positive whether or not they need to have been “scared” or “thrilled.”

Karen O’Neil, who’s married to Stella’s son Marty, stated she remembers her mouth being “agape” when her mother-in-law talked about her brush with gangster greatness. Karen additionally requested Stella if she wasn’t simply “just a little bit afraid” that evening.

“I bear in mind she stated, ‘Effectively, I assume we did not have time to consider it. We have been too busy cooking their steaks,’ ” Karen stated.

And even when they have been scared, no less than that had a heck of a narrative to inform.

No matter occurred to Stella Hildre and Agnes Asleson?

Stella ultimately married a widower named John Leland O’Neil. Collectively, they raised his two kids from his late spouse and 6 of their very own. Agnes married George Goodrie and had two kids. Each girls remained within the area till their deaths.

Agnes died in 1991 and Stella in 2007, giving them a long time to inform a tremendous story of serving steak to Scarface.

“She talked about it lots. At one time, she did a handwritten story of her life and included it,” stated Jo O’Neil, who’s married to Stella’s son Bob. “A few years in the past, earlier than she handed away, she took us to Petersburg and confirmed us the place the cafe was.”

It did not shock Bob O’Neil in any respect to listen to that his then-teenaged mom wasn’t rattled by the presence of gangsters in her household cafe.

“My mother was the oldest of six children. She was so mature as a result of she type of needed to take cost,” stated Bob.

It additionally would not shock Stella’s sons and daughters-in-law that Stella would say that the gangsters have been “good” and “well mannered.”

“She would all the time assume that. She was like that,” stated Jo.

“My mother taught us that if you did not have something good to say, do not say something,” Bob stated.

At this level, there is no such thing as a definitive proof that it was Al Capone and his crew driving via Petersburg that evening. However given the secrecy of the mob boss and his efforts to put low when he traveled, proof (and definitely photographs) can be laborious to return by. However via the years, he had been noticed by many individuals touring alongside a route that included what’s now North Dakota’s Freeway 2 that goes via Petersburg. His bootlegging pursuits in smuggling whiskey in from Canada would give him purpose to be close to the border.

To have any hope of verifying that Capone and his males have been in Petersburg, it would assist to know precisely when it occurred.

It is not clear precisely what 12 months Hildre and Asleson’s dinner with Capone occurred. Stella’s son, Marty O’Neil, believes his mom was about 16. Printed tales merely point out Stella and Agnes as “teenagers” and “excessive schoolers,” so given the lady’s birthdates, it more than likely occurred between 1926 and 1929.

It’s attention-grabbing to notice that in accordance with Capone’s biography, he went into hiding for 3 months in 1926 after he and a few of his gunmen inadvertently killed a prosecutor in Chicago.

Was North Dakota thought-about distant sufficient to be his hideout spot for these three months? Or was he right here for an additional purpose?

As talked about in

Half One in all “The Capones in North Dakota,”

Al Capone’s older brother, Vincenzo, was working as a federal agent in North Dakota throughout this time. Is there an off-chance he was stopping by to say “hello” to his massive brother and even discuss enterprise?

That’s in all probability not going, because the brothers, from opposing sides of the booze battle, had informally agreed to remain out of one another’s territories. Additionally, whereas Vincenzo was working in North Dakota, he was stationed on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, greater than 4 hours south of Petersburg.

And eventually, Capone was recognized to go north from Chicago to trip

close by in Minnesota and Wisconsin

, so a visit to japanese North Dakota is inside the realm of chance.

In actual fact, rumors have swirled within the Grand Forks space for years, about shut relationships between Capone and a few bar house owners in East Grand Forks. It was additionally rumored that he visited and even had houses on lakes together with Lake Melissa, Bass Lake, Little Bemidji and Fish Hook Lake, simply to call a couple of.

We’ll deal with Al Capone on the lake partly three of “The Capones in North Dakota.”