Whistling Through the Graveyard
Chapter 1 - Stumbling into the Battle of Jenkins' Ferry
Chapter 2 - The Mobster With No Marker
This particular article was sparked by a comment I made in the last one, about a mobster who was buried in Forest Lawn with no grave marker. I got a bee in my bonnet about finding him again and was able to do so pretty quickly once I set my mind to it. I did get a few of the details wrong (he was murdered in 1935, not the 1920s) but I got the gist of the story right.
By the way, just because I am writing an article about this guy doesn't mean I condone his lifestyle. He was a mobster and a hitman for the North Side gang of Chicago, a group of thugs who went toe to toe with Al Capone's mob for control of the lucrative illicit activities that Chicago was (and still is) so well known for. When I read up on them paying off the cops to turn a blind eye to their activities and even cutting them in on the action, all I could think of was, the more things change, the more they remain the same ...
But there is something fascinating about the Capones and Bugsy Siegels and Dutch Schultzes of the world. Why did Anthony Hopkins finally win an Oscar for playing Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs -- is it because the best roles aren't heroes, but rather monsters? (Thank God that particular one is completely fictional!)
There is nothing particularly weird I have been able to find out about Leland Arligh Varain's life in the paper records, no obvious trauma that could have made him into a prolific murderer under the aliases Louis (or Louie) Alterie, Two Gun Louie, Diamond Jack, Three Guns, etc. I started researching him just to find out some basics; his real name (which Wikipedia has listed correctly and Find A Grave has garbled), who his family was, and what the paper trail looked like for someone who became a notorious killer.
Leland was most likely born in 1885 or 1886. His WWI draft registration paperwork filled out in 1918 listed his birthday as 2 August 1885, as do the Chicago and Illinois death records noting his passing in 1935. The birth date is also approximately confirmed by paperwork for his marriage in 1913 in San Francisco, to Carolyn Samuel Cowes. They were married on 26 September 1913 and he lists his age as 27. That would support a birth year of 1886 rather than 1885. The spelling for the middle name of Arligh also comes from his WWI draft registration.
Unfortunately the 1900 census is no help in this regard, it lists him as being nine years old with a birth month of August 1891, as of the census date of 1 June 1900. The only other census record I have found for him shows a birth year of around 1886. A majority of sources support the 1885/1886 date, and it's possible the information in the 1900 census was just garbled.
His 1913 marriage paperwork also lists his birthplace as Merced, California (shared with his father) and his mother's birthplace as Lodi, California. His father's surname of Varain (of French extraction) is unusual enough to make researching it somewhat easier, although his mother's maiden name of Brown is so common that I have not had any luck finding her family in the 1870 or 1880 census records before she married his father. She listed her father's birthplace as Maine and her mother's birthplace as Kentucky enough times that there is no reason to think this information is wrong, but I have been unable to find a good match in the census records. I have Browns in my own family tree, and let me tell you, it's a bitch to work with a surname that common.
I started hunting around on the web after I wrote that last paragraph and there are some Varain descendants who think they know more about who Leland's maternal grandparents were. I'm not going to hold this up on account of that but will do more research later and update the pages on family search dot org if I find out more.
He was the second son of Charles Varain, a California rancher, and Mary Lincoln Brown. He had one older brother, Charles Albert Varain, and four younger sisters, Ida, Edith, Hazel and Nellie. In addition he had a half sister Dorothy Lane who was born in 1913 after his mother married John Arthur Lane from Philadelphia.
After 1900 there is a gap in the census records for most of his family, the only one I've been able to find in the 1910 census is his older brother Charles, who was living in San Joaquin County at that time. The rest of the family is just missing. My guess is most of the kids were still at home and the census missed their house -- probably not the case with Leland as there is the marriage record from 1913 placing him in San Francisco.
The marriage to Carolyn Cowes must have been short lived, as his draft registration paperwork from 12 September 1918 shows his wife as Mabel. I haven't found any paperwork to support this but her maiden name is supposed to have been Hayes. In the 1920 census he and Mabel were still together, her birth year is listed as around 1896 and her birthplace was listed as Colorado. At that time they appear to have been living at 624 West Fourth Street in Los Angeles.
In 1913 Leland listed his occupation as a machinist. In his draft registration paperwork from 1918 he wrote that he was an unemployed detective. By 1920 he listed himself as a private detective. He was also supposed to have been a cop in Venice, California -- if this was the case I don't know when it was, although between 1913 and 1918 seems most likely. If he was indeed a cop it makes his later choice of occupations rather ironic. In any event, after 1920 the official records I have access to dry up, until Leland's life ended in a hail of bullets fifteen years later in Chicago and he appears in the Illinois death records.
Leland's wikipedia article says that he moved to Chicago as a "young man". I guess that is open to interpretation because it seems he was fairly well grounded in California up to 1920. Of course, he may have been ping ponging back and forth between Los Angeles and Chicago at that point, but the paper trail I've seen doesn't show any of that. It is clear that by 1924 he was firmly ensconced as a member of the North Side gang in Chicago, and he also owned a ranch near Sedalia, Colorado. Among other things, the ranch was used to entertain fellow mobsters who would come out from Chicago to visit.
In addition to his activities as a gunman for the mob Leland formed the Theatrical Janitors' Union and used his position as the president of the union to extort money from movie theatres.
Things really got hot in Chicago during the mid 1920s. Leland's boss Dean O'Banion was murdered by rival mobsters. George Moran suggested Leland leave town for a while since Leland's not terribly subtle threats to avenge O'Banion's murder were bringing unwanted attention to the North Side Gang. Leland apparently spent most of the next several years in Colorado. He was unable to stay out of trouble there, either, and after a shooting in Glenwood Springs in 1932 he made a deal with the authorities in 1933 to leave Colorado. After that his "official" residence switched back to Chicago, although it is known that he visited Colorado several times within the next three years in violation of his agreement with the Colorado authorities to stay out of the state for five years.
Leland kept a low profile after moving back to Chicago, but in June 1935 he was forced to testify against Al Capone's brother Ralph in a tax evasion case. It's not clear if this was what led to his murder on the 18th of July by gunmen who ambushed him at his apartment on the north side of Chicago. Whether it was or wasn't, he had certainly made more than enough enemies to make the list of possible suspects in his death a long one.
Leland's body was shipped to California and he was buried in an unmarked grave in the Whispering Pines section of Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. His mother was living in Burbank, California at the time (next to Glendale) and that might have influenced the choice of where he was buried. The cemetery records listed him under the name "Leland A Deveraigne"; the find a grave page for him suggests that this was an alias, but the surname is clearly a variant of his actual surname of Varain (which find a grave has also garbled as Verain).
As for the lack of a grave marker, there are several plausible reasons for why one wasn't placed. Whether or not anyone with an axe to grind with Leland would have bothered to dig up his grave and mutilate his corpse is unknown but I would hope far-fetched. My guess is his notoriety combined with being gunned down by the mob in Chicago probably convinced the cemetery, his family, or both that the whole thing should be handled discreetly, and that's why there is no marker. There was certainly no lack of funds to buy one from what I can see of his family and his personal finances.
A little tidying up is in order under Leland's personal affairs for the last 10 years of his life. He apparently filed for a divorce from Mabel in 1926, and remarried to a woman named Erma or Ermina Rossi. Erma is listed as his spouse in the Illinois death records.
There is an anecdotal story that on a train ride from Chicago to Colorado in the 1920s or 1930s, Leland and his travelling companion, a blonde woman, got into an argument and he threw her off the train to her death. I have found nothing concrete to back up this story, but it is certainly plausible considering Leland's background and tendencies.
That story may have something to do with this last bit. Leland is supposed to have been the father of a girl who was born in late 1926 in Chicago. The girl was subsequently raised by Leland's sister Nellie and her husband Earl Ballard.
There are paper records for this girl that show her to be the daughter of Earl and Nellie. If she was actually the biological daughter of Leland it is unknown who her mother was, apparently it was not Mabel or Erma. Nellie Varain Ballard died in 1942 in California, her husband Earl died in 1965 (also in California) and their daughter (?) Mary Lou Ballard died in 2011. Information I've found indicates that Mary Lou was convinced that Leland was her father and she was raised by her aunt and uncle. She was still trying to find out who her biological mother was up until her final years, and I've seen nothing to indicate she ever found out. If she has any living descendants they may be able to do some kind of DNA test and see if they make any headway on that front. The speculation I found online was that Mary Lou's mother might have been a dancer or showgirl in Chicago. If she was someone Leland was dating or a mistress that might explain why Mary Lou ended up with Leland's sister Nellie and her husband.
Sources:
Wikipedia article on Louis Alterie (Leland Varain)
Leland Arligh Varain on Family Search Dot Org
Louis Alterie on Find A Grave
Diamond Jack Alterie (Uncle Leland A. Varain) of Sweetwater Ranch, CO (Rootsweb Message Board)
Chapter 3
Chapter 3 - Albert Fountain Must Die!
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