Phil Stanford wonders today, as he has done before, whether Lenore “Babe” Winter is still living; apparently her second and much younger husband isn’t forthcoming with the information. Mrs. Winter’s first husband was Al Winter, a Portland gambling and racing kingpin of the 1940s and 1950s.
Mrs. Winter is no longer with us, having died in August 2003 four months after her 99th birthday, but the memory of Al Winter is still with us. One of the Stalwart Secretaries of the past worked for Mr. Winter at the racetrack, and told me that she obtained a job for a relative at the track also. Mr. Winter explained that he was happy to employ the relative, but as he was taking on the relative on the Stalwart Secretary’s say-so, she would be responsible for the relative. The relative engaged in what we would today call “accounting irregularities” with the petty cash, and Mr. Winter invited the Stalwart Secretary to stop by his office for a conversation. He explained without exactly threatening anything that the Stalwart Secretary could pay back the company with a few dollars from each paycheck and collect from the relative on her own, or he could have his staff talk things over with the relative and use their own collection methods.
She chose the first alternative, and he agreed that she had made the sensible choice.
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Wow, this sounds like an interesting story…I’d like to hear the rest of it? Know any good resources?
Sometime in the next few months, Phil Stanford should be publishing his book on the Portland rackets of the 1950s, in which Al Winter played a large part. Portland was a fairly wide-open town for gambling and other things through the 1940s and most of the 1950s. Gambling devices that we today think innocuous, things like pinball machines and pull-tabs or punchboards, were things of scandal and prosecution then. He ran a series of eight (?) articles in the Portland Tribune maybe a year or 18 months ago in which he told the story in a very lively manner. They’re probably still on line, and well worth reading.
The Oregon Historical Society quarterly ran a story a few months ago about the 1950s investigations which gave a lot of background on the gambling war between James “Big Jim” Elkins, who was backed by the city government, and Stan Terry, who was backed by the county government. This came to a head with the Petersen-Schrunk mayoral race of 1956.
I have a personal interest in finding all information about Stan
Terry, could you point me in some directions? I have already read Phil Stanford’s book on Portland.
Thanks so much
L.Pringle
Please check my e-mail to you for one idea that might help.