John F. Gembara, grandson of the founder of Washington Federal Bank for Savings in Bridgeport, was found dead, reportedly of suicide, in a client’s home shortly before the bank was shuttered.
1913 was a good year for European immigrants and their children seeking home ownership on Chicago’s Southwest Side. That year saw the creation of two savings banks just three miles apart, one in Brighton Park and the other in Bridgeport.
I know about the first one, Grunwald Savings, because it was founded by my grandfather, Edward Obrzut and associates, to bring home ownership to their many striving, industrious fellow immigrants. Obrzut had several other business ventures, including building a number of the solid brick bungalows that still stand stately today on the Southwest Side. My mother grew up in one of those bungalows, with her six siblings, on South Komensky Avenue. I have a single memory of being in that house in about 1949. A year later, in 1950, my parents secured a loan fr