| abstract | - Roger Touhy was born in September 1898 in Chicago to Irish immigrant parents. His father, James A. Touhy, was a policeman on Chicago's Near West Side. James Touhy and his wife Mary were the parents of six sons and two daughters. When Roger was a small child, however, his mother died in a house fire. Roger Touhy grew up to be 5'6" tall, with curly hair and a beak nose. He was highly intelligent. Unfortunately, James Touhy could not properly raise his sons by himself, and five of them would eventually turn to crime. James Touhy, Jr. was shot and killed by a policeman during an attempted robbery in 1917. John Touhy was killed ten years later by gunmen belonging to gangster Al Capone's Chicago Outfit. Joseph Touhy was shot dead by Capone gunmen in 1929. Tommy "The Terrible" Touhy became a major organized crime figure in Chicago and was named "Public Enemy Number One" in 1934. Only Edward Touhy managed to stay out of trouble by becoming a bartender. The youngest of James Touhy's sons, Roger Touhy tried to remain on the right side of the law. He dropped out of school after the eighth grade, not unusual for the time, and worked at various jobs including as a telegrapher, an oil field worker, and a union organizer. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War I. Discharged from the Navy at the war's end, Touhy married Clara Morgan in Chicago in 1923. Determined to remain honest, he became first a cab driver, then an automobile salesman. His auto sales career was successful, and he made enough money to form a trucking company in Des Plaines with his brothers Tommy and Eddie.
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