For more than seventy years, Riley's Trick Shop has been a source of fun for generations of families who live on the south side of Chicago. Founded in 1937 by Jim and Eleanor Riley, the shop stocks joy buzzers, whoopee cushions, and fake vomit; they greet their customers like old friends. In Oh Really, Riley?, the owners' son, Jim Riley, details the true story of his family's long-time business. In 1937, the Riley's dream was simple-to eke out a living during the Great Depression. From before World War II to the dawning of the new millennium, Riley shares how the business managed to survive through dedication, perseverance, pranks, and laughs amid the cornucopia of gags, party items, and costumes. Riley narrates the fascinating story of how one kernel of popcorn somehow expanded into a trick shop that would become the center of a community, serving as a gathering place for amateur magicians and jokesters alike. In the spirit of the continued success of every small family businesses, Oh Really, Riley? spans seven decades as it shares the compelling story of one man's dream and how he made it come true.

OH REALLY, RILEY?

The Story of Riley's Trick Shop and the Family Behind ItBy JIM RILEY

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Jim Riley
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-6547-8

Chapter One

IN THE BEGINNING

James Joseph Robert Riley was born on Chicago's East Side on September 16, 1908, and grew up in the area near 92nd and Commercial, a gritty neighborhood of steel mills, docks, and taverns. His parents, James Riley and Anna Malloy, arrived from County Mayo, Ireland, sometime in the 1890's. He was the youngest of three children. His brother, Martin, would go on to work at the water filtration plant near Rainbow Beach on Lake Michigan. His sister, Mary, taught in the Chicago Public Schools for 42 years. Jim started working at an early age, selling The Industrialist, the organ of the International Workers of the World, also known as the Wobblies. It seems strange that this future entrepreneur would hawk a paper that espoused the overthrow of capitalism but, hey, a buck's a buck.

He didn't talk much about his early years except that he was an altar boy at St. Patrick's Church on Ewing Avenue and graduated from St. Pat's school in 1925. That's what it said on the roadmap-sized diploma we found among his things. Not everyone graduates grammar school at the age of seventeen but he never liked school anyway. After a semester at Mt. Carmel High School he was expelled for shooting dice in the hallway. From then on it was work, work, work. His mother once told him he'd never die in bed.

It was around this time that his father died in an accident involving a Chicago Transportation Authority street car. Depending on which relative you ask, he either walked in front of the car where the motorman didn't see him and ran him over or he slipped going out the door and had a fatal head injury. For that, the CTA paid Anna the princely sum of $600. Anna passed away in 1944.

Jim made friends wherever he went but his life-long pals were from the South Chicago neighborhood. In most cities they're called gangs but in Chicago they're referred to as "social clubs." His was called "The Chevaliers." As adults, they dispersed around the country but always kept in touch. On our summer road trips, we made stops in places like Albuquerque, San Francisco, Seattle, and Ft. Lauderdale to stop by and say hello. Sometimes that hello would result in being put up for three days or more.

Jim Riley, seated at left with The Chevaliers, late 20's. Jim knocked around a series of jobs in the 20's and early 30's eventually winding up in the grocery business at the Piggly-Wiggly. Their stores had a unique setup: once the customer entered, she had to traverse a serpentine path to the checkout which required her to pass every item on the shelves. This clever piece of marketing probably led to more things in her grocery basket than were on the original list. These were not the warehouse-sized super megamarkets we frequent today. Grocery stores occupied one or two storefronts on a busy street. There were no parking lots. If you were lucky enough to own a car, you parked on the street. Most people walked, carrying their purchases in a grocery bag or dragging folding two-wheeled carts behind them for larger orders. A shopping cart never left the store. Jim worked himself up to manager of a National Tea store and that's where he met his future wife.

Eleanor Virginia Borgeson, the only child of Nathaniel (Nate) Borgeson and Ellen Ahlin, was born in Chicago on March 3, 1915. Nate emigrated here from Goteborg, Sweden, in 1905. Total cost for the ship to New York and train to Chicago was $48. You can bet it wasn't first class. Eleanor was an avid historian and the original documents were in the papers she left. Nate and Ellen married in 1913.

The family moved to Lockport, Illinois, where Eleanor grew up. Like Jim she was a hard worker who got up at 4 a.m. to walk from her house at Jefferson and Division down the hill to a bakery on State Street to help start the baking for the day. From there she went to school.

The same year that Jim's father died, Eleanor's mother succumbed to food poisoning after eating an apple from a tree that had been sprayed with insecticide. Nate died in 1948 while my mother was carrying me. I never got to meet any of my grandparents.

Eleanor graduated from Lockport High School in 1932 and moved back to Chicago with her father. She eventually went to work in the grocery business. It was at the National Tea where she met Jim.

Being Irish, Jim was always quick with a story but it was hard to tell if he was telling the truth or just making it up for effect. The story of how he and Eleanor got engaged is typical. One evening, so the story goes, he was having dinner with Eleanor and Nate at their place. Nate asked Jim if he wanted another pork chop. At the same time Eleanor asked him if he wanted to marry her. When he said "yes" he got a pork chop and a fiancee.

Jim's sister had purchased a piece of property west of Twin Lakes near Dowagiac, Michigan, in 1929. She originally wanted to build a cottage near the lake but her mother suggested she build on a hill to get the breeze. The summer humidity could be stifling. The cottage had two bedrooms with two beds each in back and a combination living room, dining room and kitchen in front. It had indoor plumbing but water had to be pumped from a well by hand. The dining/living room had sofas and chairs but the centerpiece was a huge, round wooden table, the kind supported in the center by a heavy pedestal with ornate carved feet. It was the gathering place where many a poker hand was played, story swapped, meal enjoyed, and beer consumed. Mary covered the outside of the cottage with a unique shape of shingle in shamrock green. They named the place WeLikeIt.

Like it they did. Jim and Eleanor would close the National at 8 p.m. Saturday night and pile whoever could fit in his Oldsmobile to head up there to enjoy a summer Sunday. Some even made the four-hour trip standing on the running boards when the seats were full. It's a good bet that not much sleeping went on but everyone was back at work Monday morning.

RHODES AVENUE

A Store Is Born

Chicago is based, thanks to Daniel Burnham's master plan, on a grid of major streets a mile apart. East and west there are 16 streets to a mile, north and south, eight. Store fronts and offices are at ground level on the major streets with apartments or more offices above. On side streets there were sometimes stores between the main street and a parallel alley. It was next to the alley on the east side of one of those side streets in the Chatham neighborhood (or St. Dorothy's parish if you were Catholic) between Cottage Grove and South Park, south of 79th Street, that Jim Riley and Eleanor Borgeson opened their store on Sunday, March 21, 1937. The address was 7909 Rhodes. Their first customer was Irene Keller, the wife of Joe Keller who owned Keller's Tap around the corner on 79th Street.

By today's standards it wasn't much of a store. It seemed big to me when I was a kid but I was only eight when we left. By looking at some old pictures and making some very uneducated guesses I estimate it couldn't have been more than 20 feet wide and 30 to 40 feet deep. The front was two display windows flush with the sidewalk. Two more windows angled toward a door in the middle. Inside the door to the right were glass and wood showcases. That was the counter where business was transacted. Behind them against the wall were...