Joseph Leone was as much a fixture at Arlington Park as the famed turf track, the statue in the paddock and the grandstands’ soaring cantilevered roof, racetrack officials say.
If you went to watch the ponies at any track around Chicago between the 1930s and the 1980s, however, there is a good chance you bought a program or tip sheet from Mr. Leone.
Mr. Leone, 92, died Sunday, June 11, in his Zion home from heart problems, according to his wife.
Mr. Leone began sneaking into Homewood’s Washington Park racetrack as a boy and made money selling tip sheets along Michigan Avenue, family and track officials said.
Horses and the allure of the track consumed Mr. Leone, and he soon began to spend his days and nights there, said William Thayer, senior vice president of racing at Arlington Park.
“He was the first guy to show up and the last guy to leave every day,” Thayer said. “He’d sell programs, tip sheets, racing forms at Arlington all afternoon. Then he’d go to Maywood [Park] or Washington Park and he’d keep going until midnight. You had to run to keep up with him walking.”
Throughout his life, Mr. Leone devoted much of his time and money to helping others.
During World War II, he set up a “teenage canteen” in Chicago for children who had fathers in the war and mothers who worked in factories, said his wife, Geraldine.
He quit school early to work and helped to put his brother through college, she said. He went back to school at age 27 to complete high school, she said.
When they first met, Geraldine was a nurse who sat by Mr. Leone’s mother as she lay gravely ill in a hospital, she said.
She held one hand and Mr. Leone held the other, she said.
Mr. Leone was so taken by the gesture, he offered to top her hospital salary if she would care for his mother full time at home.
She accepted.
Both divorced, Mr. Leone was 21 years older than Geraldine, then 37, she said. But in the early 1980s, he asked her to marry him.
“I said I’ve got three kids and they are my life, can you handle that?” she said. “He said right off that he knew I was living for them.”
All three of her children worked the tracks during the summer, and Mr. Leone paid for their education after high school.
“My job was different from what anyone else was doing,” said stepson Jim Peters. “I learned about handling money, met a lot of people,” he said.
At Arlington, Mr. Leone held various jobs, from walking horses around the paddock at race time to appearing on after-race television shows in a red jacket, riding pants and black boots as he led victorious horses to the winner’s circle.
“Everybody knew Joe Leone,” Thayer said. “When you walked through the gates, there was Joe, always in a necktie and sport coat, always on the move. He moved a mile a minute.”
Those who knew him, however, say that nothing matched Mr. Leone’s devotion to his wife.
Mr. Leone was unhappy with the work a dentist had done for his wife about 25 years ago, and he asked Thayer if he could recommend another dentist.
“I told him the best dentist I know is in Omaha, and I thought that was that,” Thayer said.
Mr. Leone drove his wife across the country for several visits, his wife said, and flew on a number of occasions.
“He said, `I don’t care if he’s in China, I want the best for her,'” Thayer said.
Mr. Leone is also survived by stepdaughters Lori Cashbaugh and Kim Rittenhouse and 11 step-grandchildren.
A memorial service is scheduled for 7 p.m. June 29 at Christ Community Church, 2500 Dowie Memorial Drive, Zion.
