One of the most infamous mobsters to have ever lived is the legendary Al Capone. The Chicago gangster’s career, imprisonment, and eventual death due to syphilis are well-documented.
However, the details of his wife’s life are lesser known. Mae Capone stood by her husband’s side and was complicit in his crimes, although she never participated in violence herself.
She was born as Mae Coughlin on April 11, 1897, in Brooklyn, New York, to two Irish Catholic immigrants. She was one of six children. Mae was smart and ambitious.
She did well in school, but had to help financially support her family after her father died of a heart attack when she was 16. She took on a job as a sales clerk at a box factory.
It’s unclear exactly how Mae and Al Capone met. Some say that she met him at the box factory, just as he was starting to build up his side businesses with 1920s mobsters. She was 20, and he was 18 when they met, which she went to great lengths to hide.
Al quickly charmed Mae’s family. They even accepted it when she got pregnant out of wedlock. The couple got married in 1918, three weeks after Mae gave birth to their one and only child, Albert Francis “Sonny” Capone.
Al slept with many women while working as a bouncer for a big mob boss, which was how he contracted syphilis. Their child may have been born with the disease because he was prone to infections and eventually lost some of his hearing.
On October 17, 1931, Al Capone was convicted of tax evasion and was sent to Alcatraz for 11 years. Mae wrote him many letters and traveled 3,000 miles to visit him in prison.
She also protected him from the press, telling them that he would recover from his health issues soon, claiming that his deteriorated state was due to intense nervousness.
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Over time, his health started to decline due to syphilis. He was released early in 1939 for good behavior, but by then, the syphilis had caused him to have the mental capacity of a 12-year-old.
Still, Mae stayed by his side and made sure he received the best medical treatment. He was one of the first people to be treated with penicillin in the early 1940s. Sadly, it was too late for the medicine to do any good.
In January 1947, he had a stroke and caught pneumonia. On January 25, 1947, he died of cardiac arrest. After his death, Mae never went up to the second floor of their home again.
She slept in a different bedroom and didn’t have any meals in the dining room. She also burned all her diaries and love letters from Al, so no one else could read them after she died.
Mae Capone passed away on April 16, 1986, in a nursing home in Florida at the age of 89.
By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
