What would you do if somebody out of the blue informed you to anticipate a examine for about $100,000 within the mail, no strings hooked up?
In New Jersey, John Wisinger will pay down debt from his daughter’s wedding ceremony at The Park Savoy. It’s fancy. His wedding ceremony speech concluded with a mic drop that slayed. “My Woman” was performed for the daddy/daughter dance.
On Chicago’s Northwest Aspect, a development employee, who requested to not be named — coming into cash will do this — plans to make a large dent within the mortgage he took out for a luxurious German automotive.
Mike Griglak plans to retire to Florida, waving a remaining toodle-oo to Canada and its bitter winters.
Goals like these are set to play out across the globe. And if you happen to stick a thumbtack in every of them and hint with a string to their origin, they’d all lead again to a modest brick bungalow a few mile east of Halfway Airport in Gage Park.
It was the house of Joe Stancak.
The house on South Troy Road in Gage Park the place Joseph Stancak lived.
In 2016, Stancak, described as a hermit and a recluse by the few who knew him, died at 87, forsaking no will, no rapid family and $11 million within the financial institution — the biggest unclaimed property within the nation’s historical past.
His fortune remained forgotten for years.
Then letters started exhibiting up in 119 mailboxes all over the world — every belonging to a distant relative of the South Sider.
“Someday about two years in the past, my sister calls, and he or she says ‘Mike, did you get a letter about some relative who handed away, apparently there’s an inheritance,’” stated Griglak, 63, a retired Canadian oil sands employee who lives outdoors Windsor, Ontario. “I stated, ‘No matter. Most likely some rip-off involving the Prince of Nigeria or one thing the place they are saying you’re in line for some cash, however, in trade, they ask you to ship your private banking data.’ ”
It took a substantial quantity of persuading from the individuals who lastly positioned the cash and orchestrated the inheritance, however Griglak lastly accepted the weird circumstances as legit. And he grew to become excited. However not a lot due to the cash.
“I used to be extra within the household tree,” stated Griglak, who’s spent a lifetime questioning about his household historical past — particulars his late father, Anthony, who emigrated from Slovakia to Canada and labored as a press operator in a steel yard in Canada, by no means talked about.
“I at all times used to search for the identify Griglak in telephone books at any time when I traveled. When the web got here out I obtained on there and began sending emails to Griglaks. However it by no means amounted to something,” he stated. “And now right here’s this man in Chicago I by no means heard of. I want I may shake his hand, find out about his life. Ask him the way it was that he was considered one of seven siblings and none of them ever had any youngsters. However all of the siblings are useless. And I don’t know who to ask. So it’s form of a thriller.”
Particulars on Joe Stancak’s life are, certainly, laborious to return by.
“No person knew him. You’re chasing a ghost,” stated Joe Mallack, a longtime neighbor of Stancak’s on the 5700 block of South Troy Road.
Stancak lived on the block for many years and was one of many few residents who stayed as the realm modified from Polish, Irish and Italian to principally Hispanic.
Neighbors have been shocked to listen to of Stancak’s wealth. He was notoriously frugal. He recurrently tinkered along with his electrical garden mower and beat-up 1985 Oldsmobile.
“He requested me for a journey as soon as to resume his license as a result of his automotive wouldn’t begin, and I stated, ‘Joe, why don’t you get a brand new one?’ And he stated, ‘Oh, no, no, that is good, that is good,’ ” recalled Mallack.
“The one time I used to be ever at his home was as a result of his electrical energy went out and he needed a hand as a result of he was at all times making an attempt to work on all the things himself, however there have been wires hanging from {the electrical} board and I simply stated, ‘Joe, I can’t repair this.’ However apart from these two instances that he wanted assist, we by no means actually chatted,” Mallack stated.
Most neighbors primarily knew him because the little previous man who pushed a cart to the grocery retailer each day, normally with a newspaper tucked beneath his arm.
When Danny Salgado, recognized on the block as “Shaggy” due to his hair, went up and down Troy Road gathering signatures at hand in to Ald. Ed Burke’s workplace to get a block get together allow, Stancak put his identify down.
“And I might inform him to return out for the block get together however he by no means did,” Salgado stated. “I’d inform him: ‘I obtained a mechanical bull, piñatas, leaping castles for teenagers, folks cooking out, grilling, sharing meals,’ however he by no means as soon as got here out. He simply stayed by himself.”
Mirna and Jesse Guzman lived subsequent door to Stancak and knew him by means of a collection of temporary chats and over-the-fence observations.
Stancak was a staunch vegetarian who opened one can of greens each day and break up the contents for his lunch and dinner. And he picked raspberries from a bush in his yard that he tended with care, the Guzmans recalled.
“Joe didn’t just like the odor of meat once we would barbecue. He would knock on his window and say ‘Noooo. Don’t do this,’” Mirna Guzman stated, noting that they reduce on grilling out of consideration for his or her neighbor.
“He wasn’t disrespectful. Joe was simply Joe. You simply realized to dwell with Joe,” Jesse Guzman stated.
The furnishings in his dwelling have been humble, stated Mirna Guzman, who was inside as soon as. And he had a workshop in his basement and glued previous radios and even constructed his personal welding machine, the Guzmans recalled.
Not all the things about Stancak was frugal.
He owned a 38-foot fishing boat named “Simple” that was inbuilt 1973.
Karen Frainey, a niece by means of marriage of Stancak’s brother, John, stated she remembers as a younger lady attending household events and listening to Stancak’s absence at all times defined as “Oh, he’s on his boat in Hawaii.”
Mirna Guzman remembers Stancak saying he as soon as labored for Commonwealth Edison. An organization spokesman stated a search turned up no file of his employment. Others appeared to recall he maybe labored as a mechanical or chemical engineer. Inquiries to engineering commerce teams yielded no outcomes.
“He was a little bit of a hermit. I by no means actually noticed anybody go to,” Jesse Guzman stated.
Even discovering an image of Stancak was a tough process. The Illinois Secretary of State declined to share a comparatively latest picture used on his driver’s license. An image within the 1944 Gage Park Excessive Faculty yearbook reveals an undersized boy in a smile and a tie.
Joseph Stancak within the 1943 Gage Park Excessive Faculty yearbook.
Two days earlier than Christmas in 2016, Stancak was discovered useless in an empty bathtub inside his Gage Park dwelling. There was no warmth or electrical energy in his home. And he was totally clothed, sporting a sweater and jacket.
Neighbors seen his overstuffed mailbox and a stoop plagued by untouched newspapers and known as authorities.
Firefighters compelled open a rear door.
Authorities figured he tried to huddle within the tub for heat. Coronary heart illness was listed as his explanation for loss of life.
The Public Administrator of Cook dinner County, whose workplace is meant to type out the unclaimed estates of anybody with no family and possessions over $20,000, by no means took on Stancak’s case. A routine search mistakenly confirmed he had a sister, Helen, who was alive. So a letter was despatched to her final recognized handle. The identical one the place Stancak’s physique was discovered. She’d been useless for years.
The worth of his dwelling would have exceeded the $20,000 threshold, however the deed was in a belief so it wasn’t apparent that he was an proprietor.
Staff on the health worker’s workplace performed a routine seek for subsequent of kin however discovered none.
So protocol was adopted. And Stancak’s physique was cremated and interred at Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery on the far South Aspect throughout a burial ceremony together with others who died poor or forgotten. It was presided over by a Catholic priest.
It wasn’t till 2019, three years after his loss of life, that Stancak’s fortune started to return into focus.
That’s as a result of there’s a three- to five-year window that monetary establishments should notify state authorities of dormant accounts.
A collection of notifications went to Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs’ workplace in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. A complete of $11 million in unclaimed belongings. Principally within the type of mutual funds, some shares and different accounts, together with $21,000 in two Financial institution of America checking accounts.
The cash sat, ready for a rightful inheritor to point out up. The one clue of its existence was an merchandise in a database of unclaimed property maintained by the Illinois treasurer’s workplace that, to keep off fraudsters, merely signifies if the property related to any particular person is valued over or beneath $100.
Ken Piercey, a Barrington legal professional, gained’t precisely say how he pierced that veil and located the actual quantity.
“Commerce secrets and techniques,” he stated, noting he works with personal investigation corporations focusing on discovering high-value unclaimed estates.
Once they discover one, they set out searching for distant family. On this case, they discovered one in Minnesota who agreed to file a petition in Cook dinner County Probate Court docket to have Piercey named as administrator of Stancak’s property.
Investigators then combed by means of obituaries, church and authorities data in the US, Europe and Canada and got here up with an inventory of 119 heirs — principally second and third cousins. Stancak’s household got here from Poland.
The extraordinary case initially made headlines in October when Frerichs shared information of the largest-ever unclaimed property and heirs, a narrative that begged for particulars he couldn’t present.
John Wisinger, 66, who’d by no means heard of Joseph Stancak, is expounded by means of his late mom. He feels a kindred spirit to Stancak’s Southwest Aspect working-class roots.
“I grew up decrease center class in a row home,” stated Wisinger, an legal professional. “My mother and father doted on me and did no matter they might for me. Youngsters are a very powerful factor in your life and that’s the place the cash goes. Simply cross it on.”
Wisinger stated if he may converse to Stancak, he’d ask: “How did you spend your life? How did you make the cash? Why did the riches by no means actually affect the way you lived your life?”
A small portion of Stancak’s wealth seems to have come from inheritances from a number of of his siblings, in response to Cook dinner County Probate Court docket data. However the place all his cash got here from isn’t clear.
Piercey, who stands to make a portion of the inheritance for providers rendered, stated he just lately realized new particulars of Stancak’s life as a result of a buddy of his who’s nonetheless residing reached out to speak. However, he stated, the buddy needed to honor Stancak’s choice for privateness, and the data was shared in strict confidence.
“You’re searching for a needle in a haystack, however, sorry, I can’t assist,” Piercey stated.
Lt. Kevin O’Malley was overseeing the operation the day firefighters went into the house and located Stancak’s physique.
O’Malley, who’s now retired, stated Stancak’s dwelling was in disarray.
“Not rubbish and rats, simply stacks of magazines and letters and books all over the place,” he stated, questioning aloud the identical factor that a number of of Stancak’s neighbors had questioned: Had he gone senile?
“This one upset us as a result of we simply felt dangerous for the man. He may have been your grandfather. I thought of that man on a regular basis,” he stated.
Police data present 12 payments of assorted denominations totaling beneath $400 have been faraway from the house and inventoried.
Additionally taken from his dwelling by police: a Pink Ryder BB gun, private paperwork, a picket gun field, a black leather-like holster, three rifles, two handguns, 5 magazines and almost 200 rounds of ammunition.
Again in Canada, Mike Griglak, like almost everybody else, isn’t certain what to make of the life or lonely loss of life of his distant relative.
He hopes that if one thing good comes out of it, other than a wave of newfound wealth, will probably be a get-together of all of the distant family that may end in new friendships and a greater understanding of their shared previous.
“Possibly I’ll even make a journey to the previous nation and attempt to retrace my father’s steps earlier than he got here to Canada,” Griglak stated.
“It’s essential to grasp the place you got here from, I believe.”
