Individual Details

7/7/1972: The Motley Crew - Lunch Hour Has a Split Personality - Out on Grand Ave W. of the river there is no shortage of places selling poor boy sandwiches. But there is only 1 place where you can get a "railroad" sandwick and that is at Millie's Sugar Bowl, 1473 W. Grand Av. where Millie Anadeo, 88, invented it back in 1928. That was 4 years after Millie bought the small candy, ice cream and school supplies store directly across the street from the James Otis Elementary school, a store that over the years evolved into a small neighborhood grocery. Legend has it the railroad sandwich - a one yard long loaf of French or Italian bread stuffed with American and Provalone cheese, boiled ham, minced ham, Salami and capacola - got its name because railroad men who worked in thee vicinity would order such a sandwich, along with a bottle of pop, and would sit on the curb outside and have their lunch. Millie was launched into the sandwich business accidentally and on a smaller scale. A bright young school boy told her one day, "Millie, if you make me a sandwich I'll eat it during recess and tell all the kids where I got it and they'll all come to you for sandwiches." That is just what happened. The school boy's sandwich, originally 5 cents, now costs 25 cents. The railroad sandwich, originally $1.50 is now $3.00. A half-loaf sandwich, originally $1.00 is now $1.50. Millie appears to have done a better job fighting inflation than most food purveyors. Millie's is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. six days a week. Early in the morning the phone orders start coming in - from the factories on Hubbard St., from former neighborhood residents who have moved to the suburbs or the far reaches of the city, from others who have one way or another become fans of the railroad sandwich. It keeps Millie pretty busy, so much so that she has a helper every day the store is open. She seldom trusts a helper with making the sandwiches, however. But Millie does not want to talk of sandwiches particularly. She will take you into her living room behind the store - a room whose walls are covered with pictures - her husband Nick and their son, Frankie, both now dead, her daughter and seven grandchildren, etc. And there is a picture of her with her brother and parents and her mother's brother taken at the Columbian Exposition when Millie was 10 and the family was not long here from Italy. But the remarkable thing about it all was that the picture marked her mother's reunion in America with a long lost brother - the one in the picture - who had been brought to America by a child labor exploiter when he was 9, had run away and eventually became a brother in a religious order and a professor. it was, Millie avers, a miracle, that chance reunion. ____ because Millie closes at 5 p.m. we left an order in advance and she had the sandwich made up when Bob Knetan, Marela Opp, and the M. C. scrivener rang the doorbell at 6 p.m. We got the sandwich - it was 38 inches long; we measured it with a ruler we brought along - and since we did not care to sit on the curb and dine we took ourselves and our sandwich to Angie's Restaurant, 1201 W. Grand Av. Readers may remember Angie's as the restaurant where the business is so good they haven't bothered to put up an outside sign announcing it is a restaurant. Tom Sansone, who with his wife operates the place, made us welcome and we got a table and each of us ordered a salad [60 cents] and coffee, the price of which has been forgotten, and we divided up the sandwich.

Birth	Aug 1883	Italy
Death

Father	Joseph Porto (1856 - )
Mother	Teresa Volina (1862 - 1941)
Sibling	Felix Porto (1880 - )
Sibling	Dominicum Porta (1892 - 1949)
Sibling	Mary Porto (1893 - 1986)
Sibling	Lucy Porto (1896 - 1981)
Sibling	Louisa Porto (1899 - )
Sibling	Rose Magdelan Porto (1900 - 1967)