When Gus Bowe died on February 6, 1966, it wasn’t just headline news in the Chicago Tribune. The New York Times reported the news as well. And over at the Chicago Daily News, Mike Royko took time out from his usual piece about a politician run amuck to recall and note Gus’s passing with regret. Royko said of Gus, “He made it the hard way, first building a reputation as a fine lawyer, achieving financial independence, being active in civic affairs, and then being elected as a blue-ribbon candidate to head the Municipal Court.” For Royko, Gus was one of the few men in public life who always said what he thought. For him Chicago had just lost a rare bird, a public official given to calling things the way he saw them. He ended his column with the lament, “The town is already duller.” Tony Bowe was only nine in 1966, but he still remembers Mayor Daley at his grandfather Gus’s wake, the packed crowd at Holy Name Cathedral, and the police escort to Evanston’s Calvary Cemetery where Gus was laid to rest.
