A Death in Pilsen

Epilogue

The preceding is entirely a work of fiction, and any instances in which historical figures interact with fictional ones are solely the products of the author’s imagination. The people and events discussed below were researched by the author in regard to specific dates and occurrences. In addition, some of Frank Lloyd Wright’s quotes were taken from biographies. The comment by Wright about fellow architect Eero Saarinen was recounted by the author’s father, himself an architect, who attended a talk Wright had given. A bibliography of volumes read as part of that research follows this epilogue.

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) was without question the best-known architect of his era, a period that spanned an amazing seven decades. Early on, in Chicago, his work was influenced by his mentor, the great Louis Sullivan. By the early years of the Twentieth Century, while still in his thirties, Wright made a national name for himself with his revolutionary “Prairie Style” houses, which sprang up in his hometown of Oak Park, Ill., as well as in numerous other Chicago suburbs, and then spread throughout the country.

In the ensuing decades, the flamboyant and controversial Wright saw his career undergo numerous peaks and valleys. His greatest works include Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel, which withstood a tumultuous earthquake in the 1920s; his daring 1937 masterpiece, “Fallingwater,” cantilevered over a waterfall in Pennsylvania; the Johnson’s Wax headquarters complex in Racine, Wis.; and New York’s Guggenheim Museum. The Guggenheim, his only New York City building, was completed after his death in 1959, just short of his ninety-second birthday.

Unity Temple, in Oak Park, Ill., is an iconic Frank Lloyd Wright work. Constructed from 1905 to 1908, it is a historic landmark and has been honored by the American Institute of Architects for its design. Built for a Universalist congregation, the temple now serves as a Unitarian-Universalist place of worship, the two denominations having merged in 1961.

World War II War Brides. Following the end of the Second World War in 1945, U.S. servicemen by the thousands brought home brides from Europe and Asia. Although specific figures are hard to come by, it has been estimated that more than 100,000 American soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen married women from the United Kingdom alone during and immediately following the war. Thousands of other GIs married and brought to this country women from France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Australia, the Philippines, Japan, and other nations that had an American military presence during the war.

The Naperville, Ill. train wreck. On April 25, 1946, a Burlington Route streamlined passenger limited, the California-bound Exposition Flyer, crashed at high speed into another passenger train, the Advance Flyer, which was stopped in Naperville, a suburb some 30 miles west of Chicago. A total of 39 passengers and six Burlington employees were killed, and another 110 persons were injured, making it one of the deadliest railroad mishaps in U.S. history.

The Suzanne Degnan murder investigation was brought to a conclusion in August 1946 with the arrest of 17-year-old University of Chicago student William Heirens. After intense and likely brutal interrogation and an injection of truth serum, Heirens confessed to the murders of the six-year-old Degnan girl and two Chicago women, Josephine Ross in June 1945 and Frances Brown in December. It was in the Brown apartment after her murder that the killer wrote in lipstick on a mirror: “For heaven’s sake, catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself.” This resulted in the newspapers referring to the murderer as “the Lipstick Killer.”

The confession was part of a plea bargain that guaranteed him immunity from execution. Heirens, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence and has numerous supporters, said that “I confessed to live.” A prisoner for 60 years as of this writing, the 77-year old Heirens is an inmate at the Dixon Correctional Center in Illinois.