Page 40 - April 2017 Newsletter

Tickets to the past
Lodge receives a note of appreciation
n BY AMBER RAMUNDO
Just before the Christmas holidays, Chicago Lodge 7 FOP headquarters received a rare but rewarding piece of mail from a Chicago resident looking to share a token of historic sentiment. Enclosed in the envelope was a neat- ly typed letter and two sets of glossy event tickets, each etched with the words, Fraternal Order of Police Chicago Lodge No. 7 Holiday Ball.
The letter started with the words:
“Here are the FOP Holiday Ball tickets from 1967 and 1968 that I found among my late father’s many papers. If I find anything else that might be of interest, I will certainly get it off to you. Then you can decide what’s worth saving and what to toss...”
At the bottom of the note, Ann Toland Serb signed her name in blue ink. The FOP tickets belonged to her father, Joseph Anthony Toland, a man who dedicated his life to his family, his career and the work of FOP members.
“The police were always very involved in raising mon- ey for worthwhile causes and every year they would have some kind of raffle or dance,” explains Ann, the only daughter of Joseph’s four children. “Of course, my dad always bought tickets. It mean a great deal to him just thinking about supporting the work of policemen.”
Ann was reminded of her father’s allegiance to Chica- go FOP when cleaning out her childhood home in Rogers Park after her mother and father passed away years ago. In the midst of sifting through her father’s papers and pos- sessions, Ann came across a folder with the four tickets to the Holiday Balls neatly tucked inside. They were pre- served in perfect condition, like artifacts of a time when the community appreciated the FOP as the heroes of soci- ety and would do anything to support their efforts.
Surrounded by boxes of old paperwork labeled “sort through later,” Ann couldn’t help but smile at the crisp condition of the tickets, knowing that it was part of her father’s character to take care of the mementos that had special meaning. She was also not surprised that the tick- ets were untorn, because though her father was happy to spend $20 for a pair of tickets (a lot of money at the time), he never attended the event.
“He wasn’t a big party person,” Ann describes. “He thought it was an awful lot of fun on a Friday evening to instead go over to the police station and play some cards with a couple of the guys if things were quiet.”
Between his unwavering boosting support and his fre- quent visits to the police department for causal card games and chitchat, Joseph was a well-known and respected pa- tron of the FOP. Members trusted Joseph enough to ask him to become a “Big Brother” for troubled teens in the
Joseph Toland
community. The Big Brother Big Sisters program was es- tablished in 1904 as a way of pairing caring adults with kids in need of guidance to stay out of trouble.
“My dad was a firm believer in second chances, which, of course, is also true of most police,” Ann shares. “Over the course of many, many years he dealt with hundreds of boys. Only one of them was ever arrested again.”
This mentality to support the presence of law enforce- ment who keep neighborhoods safe has transcended through the generations of the Toland family. Ann has passed along her father’s will to participate in the com- munity to her eight children, three of whom have careers in public service.
So, when Ann happened upon her father’s Holiday Ball tickets, she felt as if she were holding on to a little piece of the FOP’s history and a strong symbol of her father’s appreciation for Chicago Lodge 7. She could have thrown the tickets in the trash, but instead decided to pass them along to those who could appreciate them as much as her father had.
“I think that it’s part of the police department’s history at a time when there was a lot more support for the de- partment than there is today,” Ann stressed. “I’m sure my father is probably now laughing, thinking, ‘They’ve finally found a home.’” d
40 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ APRIL 2017