BIOGRAPHY

 Produced by Natalie Cheung

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Chicago May- //The farmgirl who became Queen of crooks//

 * ~ Name ||< (Chicago) May Duignan later also known as 'May Churchill Sharpe' ||
 * ~ Birth&Death ||< 1871-30th of May, 1929 ||
 * ~ Birth Place || Edenmore, Longford Co. Ireland ||
 * ~ Age at Death ||< 59 Years Old ||
 * ~ Family ||< Three younger brothers, one younger sister, mother and father ||
 * ~ What she did ||< <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Became a name and big figure on the mean streets of America ||

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**<span style="color: #9f1b1b; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Contents **

 * 1) ====<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Family,early Life and influences ====
 * 2) ====<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Life of a crook in America ====
 * 3) ====<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Travelling the world ====
 * 4) ===<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Back Home ===
 * 5) ===<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Her Final Crime and Death ===

<span style="color: #da3737; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">__Family, early Life and influences__
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Christened as May Duignan and born in Edenmore, Longford County in Ireland (1871) and came from a poverty striken background. At Edenmore, May took care of her three younger brothers, dressing them, feeding them and taking them to school each day, her mother was expecting another sibling that May was to take care of. The thought of living in poverty and the burden of responsibility was perhaps what drove a young May to leave her little Irish county and family.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">In 1890 while her mother was giving birth to May's little sister, a 19 year old May with her fiery red hair and bright blue eyes set off with her family's hard earned savings (60 sovereigns) bound for adventure and freedom. SHe bought a new clothes and a luxurious first class boat ticket. May was heading to the 'promised land', America.

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<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #da3737; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">__Life of a crook in America__
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">May arrived in Castle Garden dressed to the nines (an island just of New York city) around days later upon leaving Liverpool, England. Life in New York was tough and due to financial problems and she took a train to Nebraska to stay with her Uncle. Life in Nebraska did not appeal to May as much as the fast lane life in New York but May soon fell 'in love' with Dal Churchill. Dal was a crook all around, May bragged that could do just about anything 'a robber, highway man, safe cracker, cattle rustler and just a cook in general'. Dal taught May his 'trade' and tricks and she soon partnered with Dal and they robbed banks together and pilfered. May soon married Dal but the marriage lived short, when Dal went to rob a train he was lynched by angry locals and May at that time was waiting for him in Chicago, she was devastated.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">While still in Chicago, May was low in finances again, this time she decided that the only way to make easy money was through prostitution. The time was 1892 and Chicago was at it's peak of the dangerous and excitement, May began teaming with fellow 'colleague' and friend, Dora Donegnan as a 'double act'. While one of them would have sex with the 'customer', the other had the responsibility to steal from his pockets. May was intrigued by the criminal life, she preferred to call herself a 'badger' than a prostitute and she kept a certain confidence to her trade. Though the problem was that women could be taken more advantaged off <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">-they were often drunk of drugged- by 'customers'. May made her stand and she became known as the toughest, no hesitation in punching out a man's teeth or use a hot poker to 'brand' an unpleasant pimp. Her aggressiveness and over confidence made her a name in Chicago's criminal fraternity. Although she had many nicknames, she became known as 'Chicago May' primarily. <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">After crime Chicago, she moved back to new York in the Tenderloin district of Manhattan. She used her criminal mind to steal and make her way in New York this time. One of her niftiest tricks was to affectionately put on a show with her customer while she bit the precious stones off his tie pin. She later wrote of a time when her 'friend' accused her off stealing off him using her tie-pin trick, she apparently was so devastated that she downed some cockroach poison (though this incident could have been fictional). As time passed on, more women began to find work on the streets and the competition grew, May decided she needed a career change. The Broadway musical //New York Belle// needed a chorus girl and May managed to secure the part as hers. May loved her time as a Broadway actress but she soon faced her first prison sentence when she stole a wallet from a church minister. Though her time in prison was short as a small part time acquaintance (Jim Sharpe) offered to marry her to keep May off the streets. She later quotes //"I had visions of escaping from the life I was leading"// but the man May was marrying had a few deadly secrets. While living in the Manhattan suburb of Belleview, New Jersey she found that Jim had an unstable obsession of trying to murder his brother. May soon wandered off to travel the world, hoping to put her psychotic husband behind her.

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=<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">__ Travelling the world __ =

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">May travelled to particular places in the world such as Rio De Janeiro, Cairo, Paris and London. In Cairo she made more profit by using her trades as prostitute and crook in gambling dens. In Rio De Janeiro she partied and flirted with important men, she even managed to gain the fancy of the Consul-General though he soon gunned himself. Though May soon set her sights on South America, London and Egypt where May wanted to work as a prostitute or as a 'badger' (her preferred name for prostitute).

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">In 1900 the World Fairin Paris caught May's attention and she soon started to make her way across to Paris, the city of love. May also fell once again in 'love' with Eddie Guarin an Irish-born gangster. Once again, May partnered up with a lover, indulging in crime sprees together. Though the love affair was about to end, in April, 1901 during May's assistance in a (successful) robbery at the Parisian American Express office, Eddie was captured during the boat ride back to London. May headed back to Paris, in hope that she could bail her l <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">over out of jail by 'forging' his 'innocence'. In June 1902, May was found guilty, along with Eddie, she was imprisoned in<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-size: 13.3333px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> La Roquette women's prison but then sentenced to 5 years of hard labour at 'Montpellier Prison' in the south of France while Eddie was sentenced to 10 years at Devil's Island. Though with good behaviour, May was released 4 years later in 1905.

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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">__ Back Home __
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">After her release from prison, May went back her life as a crook to try and raise funds for Eddie's escape plan even though she had a slight paranoia that Eddie suspected her of betrayal. She decided to return home to Edenmore in Ireland. May was only 34 years old yet she had done many things that the Catholic folk of Edenmore would not forgive her for. Her family found it in their hearts to forgive her but she saw that the little community was judging her ways of life and despising her disgraced sexuality. May soon left Edenmore once more and she set sail for London again.

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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">__ Her Final Crime and Death __
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Back in London, May coincidentally ran into Eddie at a bar, May still had a certain paranoia towards Eddie and she saw that he had turned into a more bitter and cold man. Eddie demanded that May team up with him again, May accepted and she later quoted in her book //"I was always afraid of him even when we were friends"//. May's paranoia soon grew and she was entirely convinced that Eddie was going to murder her, so she set of for Argentina with the cash she had made as a prostitute. Several days later, the <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">headlines read 'Betrayed by a Woman', Eddie had been picked up by police in England and again charged a prison sentence in France. Eddie was out for revenge and he soon befriended Charley Smith (real name Robert Considine) a young American burglar. Charley was instructed by Eddie to 'maim' (murder) May but upon meeting 'Chicago May', Eddie fell in love with her. In 1907, Eddie was released and he began to sought out May in a plot to kill her, Within 24 hours of Eddie's release, Eddie was shot in the foot. May and Charley were prime suspects and charged with attempted murder. In the 'menage a trois' May was imaged as the 'temptress' and sentenced to 15 years of hard labour while Charley was sentenced to life imprisonment.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">In 1917, after 10 years into her sentence, May was 46 and she was allowed to be released but she was to be deported to America. While in Manhattan again,May found another young lover but he soon betrayed by taking off with her money and furs. May tried to tracked him down but was not successful. She moved to Detroit, her kidneys failed during the hard winter months and she was sent to hospital, there she met August Vollmer who encouraged May to write her life. For the whole year of 1928, May published an autobiography //'Chicago May Her Story: A Human Documentary by the Queen of Crooks'// though also known as //'////Ch////icago May: Her Story// //by May Churchill Sharpe'// (New York, The Macaulay Company, 1928)//.// The book received good reviews though May found that the money was not enough to keep her off the streets. In January,1928 May caused another sitrring contrevorsy, this time she had managed to become engaged to a man named 'Lucas Netley'. Lucas was an infamous fraudster, plagirst, conman, theif and biographer. He was much younger than May (she was twice his age) and he was 'fascinated by her'. Although, Netley had published several statements on the story of him and May, the stories were most likely fabricated and fictional. The engagement turned out to be a publicity stunt and soon it was called off quickly.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">At the age of 58, may was once again hospitalised but in Philadelphia this time. At Philadelphia, May met Charley again who intended to marry May//.// On the 30th of May, 1928 (the day of the wedding), May passed away and her funeral was an empty one with no one attending even Charley had disappeared and had sent a nun to represent him. Charely was never found again and Chicago May was buried alone.

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