Mae Capone

[1] Mae Coughlin married Alphonse Capone on December 30, 1918, at the St. Mary Star of the Sea Church in Brooklyn, New York.

[1][2] They either met at a party in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn, or their marriage was arranged by Al's mother, who knew Mae from church.

[1] It is speculated that Al's parents were probably in favor of the union, because an Irish partner was seen as higher status than an Italian at the time.

[5] Three weeks before their wedding, Mae reportedly gave birth to a son, Albert Francis "Sonny" Capone.

Other sources claim that she contracted syphilis from Al, which caused each subsequent try for another child to end in miscarriage or stillbirth.

[1] When Sonny developed a mastoid ear infection, Al and Mae Capone traveled from Chicago to New York to ensure he got the best care.

[4] Mae remained a devoted wife, frequently sending letters to her husband, referring to him as "honey", and expressing her longing for him to return home.

[4] She visited him in person as well, traveling up to 3,000 miles from the Capones' Florida home to Alcatraz, usually going to lengths to obscure her face in order to avoid the paparazzi.

[2] When Capone's Palm Island home was burgled, an estimated $300,000 worth of Mae's jewelry (equivalent to $5,471,713 in 2023) was stolen.

In 1937, she filed a lawsuit against J. Edwin Larsen, the collector for the Internal Revenue Service, on claims that the tax lien money had been collected illegally.

In 1960, Capone, her son, and Al's sister, Mafalda Maritote, sued Desilu Productions, Inc., Columbia Broadcasting System and Westinghouse Electric Corporation, for $6 million in damages.

Sonny Capone claimed that his children had been made fun of in school, so much that he was forced to pick up and move his family to another city.