Childhood
Throughout his childhood and adolescence Victor slept with his five brothers in one bedroom in three sets of bunk beds. Like all of his brothers, he was short in stature. Through his brother Anthony he became friends with Frank Cullotta and spent as much time at the Cullotta house as his own. He attended Burbank Elementary School in Belmont Cragin, Chicago, and entered Charles P. Steinmetz Academic Centre in 1946, the same school his brothers Michael, Vincent, Anthony and Pasquale would attend but only Pasquale would graduate. He was a thief with his brothers and Frank and they would ride around frequently in stolen cars. At seventeen and eighteen years old in 1951, Victor along with his brothers were making roughly $25,000 a week each. He was a close associates of Jimmy Torello, Charles Nicoletti, Phil Alderisio, Joseph Lombardo and Joseph Aiuppa. He shared dreams with his brothers Anthony and Michael of not only being a thief, but of one day being a racketeer. He remained very much on the sidelines while his three brothers, Anthony, Michael and John relished in the media attention with their criminal activities in Las Vegas. He did not remain close to his younger brothers, Anthony, Michael, John and Vincent who all moved from Oak Park, Illinois in the 1970s to Spring Valley, Nevada. His brother Anthony would later drop out of high school during his sophomore year and transferred to a trade school with Frank Cullotta. It is thought that Victor dropped out of school shortly after his brother Anthony and Michael.
Victor's brother, Pasquale, became an oral surgeon and dentist in the Chicago area, and Vincent lived a law-abiding life. Tony, John and Michael became criminals like Victor. Pasquale Sr. owned Patsy's Restaurant located at the corner of Grand Avenue and Ogden Avenue. It was a small place famous for its homemade meatballs that attracted people from all over town including Anthony Accardo, Paul Ricca, Sam Giancana, Gus Alex and Jackie Cerone. As a child he and his brothers grew up in a two-story wooden bungalow just a few blocks from Frank Rosenthal's childhood home. His mother Antoinette was a domineering mother. He did not move to Las Vegas like his brothers and decided to stay in Northbrook, Illinois instead. He married an Irish-American woman, Mary-Ann who bore him two children, a son who he named after himself Victor Michael Spilotro, and a daughter Maria.
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Famous quotes containing the word childhood:
“Indeed, my mother’s beautiful face still shone with youthfulness that night when she so softly held my hands and sought to stop my tears; but, precisely, it seemed to me that this should not have happened, her anger would have saddened me less than this new sweetness that my childhood had never known; it seemed to me that, with a hidden and impious hand, I had just traced the first wrinkle and made appear the first grey hair in her soul.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
““O what unlucky streak
Twisting inside me, made me break the line?
What was the rock my gliding childhood struck,
And what bright unreal path has led me here?””
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Oh! mystery of man, from what a depth
Proceed thy honours. I am lost, but see
In simple childhood something of the base
On which thy greatness stands; but this I feel,
That from thyself it comes, that thou must give,
Else never canst receive. The days gone by
Return upon me almost from the dawn
Of life: the hiding-places of man’s power
Open; I would approach them, but they close.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)