A day in the life.......
A little over two hours southeast of Des Moines, Iowa, and less than twenty minutes from Readlyn, where Mike lived, sits Fairbank, Iowa.
Fairbank is split by two counties—Buchanan and Fayette. The town has a population of just over 1,100.
Fairbank has three things: Costa's Sports Bar and Grill, the beautiful Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, and a gangster who was a member of Al Capone's gang.
Louis "Louie" George LaCava, a Lieutenant, a Bookkeeper, and sometimes a Hitman for Al "Scarface" Capone, is buried in the Immaculate Conception Cemetery in Fairbank, Iowa.
Rumor had it that LaCava "hid out" in Fairbank after his testimony helped to put Capone in Federal prison for tax evasion. LaCava kept a low profile after his time in court, and he often visited Fairbank, the home of his wife Josephine.
He's buried in Fairbank because that's where he and Josephine chose to spend the remaining years of their lives in the late 1960s.
Once I read the book, "A Gangster in Our Midst" by a local Fairbank author, there was nothing left to do but find the cemetery and LaCava's grave.
Of course, I took a photo of his tombstone, which was easy to find, but that photo was nowhere to be found when I needed it for this post. The one I've attached is from Find A Grave.
One never knows the stories that are hiding in small towns everywhere
