Augie Palmisano, Milwaukee man killed by a car bomb in 1978, remembered for act of kindness

Robert Gegios knows that many in Milwaukee may remember my cousin, August "Augie" Palmisano, as the man who was killed by a car bomb in 1978 — a murder that shook the city and changed how people here thought about the threat of organized crime.

But Gegios, a prominent Milwaukee attorney who grew up in Whitefish Bay, said he will never forget Palmisano because of his act of kindness one Christmas when Gegios was a young child.

I spoke to Gegios earlier this year for my podcast, “My Cousin Augie,” which documents my investigation into my cousin’s murder and what led to it. The second episode , available Tuesday, delves into who my cousin was — and who he wasn’t.

Gegios told me that in the 1960s, Palmisano used to deliver produce to Kailas' Milshore Restaurant, which was owned by Gegios' parents, and would typically stop to talk with the boy and see how he was doing. Then, in the summer of 1963, Gegios' father died suddenly.

Gegios said he only learned years later, long after Palmisano was murdered, about something he did to help him and his grieving family.

Here is an excerpt of Gegios telling that story, edited for length and clarity.

Gegios met Palmisano through his family's restaurant

I would have been a very young child, younger than 9. And it would have been at my family's restaurant. They had a very, very nice restaurant by Strachota’s (Milshore Bowl), to the side of that. It was a very, very busy area at the time. There was American Motors and a lot of factories and businesses in the East Capitol Drive area.

And I would meet the people who delivered to the restaurant, and one of them was your cousin.

Gegios remembers Palmisano as hard-working and kind

He was a very busy, obviously hard-working person. [He delivered] mostly vegetables, things of that nature, maybe some fruits.

And my recollection was that on occasion he would eat something at the restaurant. And so if I'm at the table at such an occasion, then I would have an opportunity to speak with him. I remember him being very friendly to someone that young.

I don't remember him ever in a bad mood of any sort. He was a smiling person, doing his job, joking around.

Palmisano was killed when Gegios was 24

I was shocked. Very shocked.

It was an upsetting thing. First of all, the way it occurred. And just the fact that it was somebody that you had known and had liked, and had liked us.

I can't speak to all these other incidents. I have no reason to distrust the the authorities and the prosecutions and the like, and I know this was a difficult time for your family while that was going on, but in terms of this gentleman, he was, to my mind, marvelous to me.

Years later, he learned about Palmisano 's act of kindness

When I was 9, in the summertime, my father passed away suddenly. He had a cerebral hemorrhage. And my mother assisted as best she could at the restaurant, and it was difficult.

I grew up in a very religious Greek Orthodox family. My mother observed the traditional customs of wearing black. It was a period of mourning that was supposed to go on, I believe, for a year.

At Christmastime that year, I came home at some point (to find) a white, flocked Christmas tree. We'd never had such a tree before. I understood that it was kind of expensive at the time. They were extremely fashionable in the early ‘60s. And my mother didn't say anything to me about it. I was just happy to have it. It was a tough time for everybody that Christmas.

Years and years later, I don't remember when, my mother told me the story — this is a long time after your cousin passed away — that it was Augie Palmisano, Mr. Palmisano, who had asked her about what she was planning to do with the Christmas holiday. And she had told him, nothing, that she was still in this mourning period.

And he apparently didn't have another conversation with her about it, but he showed up at the house one day with this flocked tree and told her, “The boy needs to have a tree.”

For Gegios, Palmisano was not defined by his gambling charges or death

Sometimes I can well up when I think about [the story of the Christmas tree]. It’s not a small task to spend that kind of money — considerably much more money than an ordinary tree — to bring it to a home in which you've never been before and surprise somebody.

I think of this not just as a story about your cousin and what I saw, or what maybe other people saw, but it's a bit of a microcosm, just in general, about people. That they can have questionable aspects to their lives, but there's a lot of good and a lot of warmth and a lot of positive things within them, too.

We get to know people over the years, sometimes for a little while, sometimes not so well. But we remember things, and there's no way that I wouldn't remember this as long as I live.

Mary Spicuzza is an investigative reporter with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She can be reached at mary.spicuzza@jrn.com .

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Augie Palmisano, Milwaukee man killed by a car bomb in 1978, remembered for act of kindness