Michael T Tracy

A Chicago Musician Michael T Tracy

He called himself "Pat" when he obtained a job at the coal yards in Chicago, Illinois as he considered his given name not tough enough during his early youth. Throughout his life he was interested in music and learned to play the clarinet and saxophone before he was 16 years of age. He would play in the Hull House Boys Band and later would have a band of his own which played on the radio in the early days of radio broadcasting. He played with James "Mad Dog" Petrillo who would later become a famous Chicago musician and eventual prominent leader of the American Federation of Musicians, and other musicians of the era. He would meet his next-door neighbor, a young red haired girl named Florence who he fell in love with during the summer of 1918 and in two years married her. The couple would have four children and together they would travel around the country during the height of the Great Depression. Working for the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad and finally the Bowman Dairy Company, Pat Tracy's life would become short lived due to illness and eventual death at the young age of 34. This then is a tribute to the life and times of John Peter Carroll (Pat) Tracy.