My Great-Grandmother may have worked for the mob?

Recently, my great aunt Nancy, my grandmother’s sister who our family is so close to we all just call “Aunt Nancy”, started getting into genealogy and finding old photographs of our relatives. Last Christmas I remember her sitting us all down in front of our computer while we looked through some of the photos she found from her own childhood. Some of the photos of her own mother intrigued me and I recently called her and asked her to tell me more about her, my great-grandmother.

Me and my brother with Cele in 2005

Cele in 1921 aged 9

My great-grandmother's full name was Mary Cecelia Loftus Dole, but she always went by Cele Dole. She was born June 20, 1912, and died in February of 2007, both in Cincinnati, Ohio, and she is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery. I was able to meet her a couple times before she died, but I don’t remember much of it because I was so young. She died when I was 6 and in a sad twist of fate, she died just months before our family moved from Phoenix, Arizona to Cincinnati where she lived. I’m sure I would have gotten to know her better if she had lived a little longer since we would have been living so close.

Cele on the far left

According to my Dad, people who met her apparently “would have met a very feisty and opinionated woman”, which according to him “wasn't always a good thing for a woman in the mid-century midwest”. She stood at a solid 5”9 and, as you can see in the photos, towered over her friends. She played basketball in high school and, as a woman in the 1930’s, that was almost unheard of. She had a lifelong love for sports, especially UC Basketball and Cincinnati Reds baseball, and one of the only memories I have of her is of her wearing a Red’s baseball hat in her retirement home.

Some of the fun stories I have of her is that when she first married my great-grandfather in the 1930s, they lived in New York City. According to Aunt Nancy, the trash hauler company Cele worked for at that time may have had mob connections. Nancy says that “business like that usually had “connections” although (Nancy) did not think Cele realized this at the time. She would make bank deposits by carrying the money in a paper bag to the bank. Whether it was mob-related or not, I think it is so cool to think my great-grandmother could have been involved in something as exciting as the mob scene in New York City during the height of organized crime.

Another fun story from my aunt is in the mid 30’s, Cele worked for the fledgling American Airlines at the Lunken Airport in Cincinnati. Apparently, the company ran into financial difficulties (this was during the height of the Great Depression) and could not afford to pay her. They, instead, offered to pay her in flying lessons but, sadly, Cele needed the money so she had to leave the job. 

Cele and Harvey with my Grandmother

As a mother to my grandmother and great aunt, she was apparently very conservative and strict. She even banned my grandmother from listening to The Beatles, which I always thought was quite funny. She was very religious, attending her methodist church regularly, but she wasn't pious or crazy, according to my dad. I have no idea how Cele handled my aunt, however, as my aunt is quite younger than my grandmother and is a generic hippie woman to this day, as she never took her husband’s last name and keeping her maiden name of Nancy Dole. I’m sure that probably drove Cele crazy, but I think it was just her daughter taking after her headstrong mother, a trait I think I inherited

I chose to do my great grandmother because I was curious about the woman who I never got to know, the woman who raised my grandmother and aunt, two women I respect and admire greatly. I’m glad I chose her because now I know some facts about my family from a time before I was born, and I have stories I can pass down to my children someday.