The youngest of eight children, Neil Philip Iovino was born on the West Side of Chicago on Jan. 3, 1918. His parents, Domenico and Richetta Serpico Iovino, came to Chicago from Scisciano, near Naples. A graduate of Notre Dame Grammar School on Flournoy Street, he attended only one year of high school, but my dad was street smart. When people asked him where he went to school, he would say Notre Dame and they often thought he went to Notre Dame University.

His early life was marked by tragedy. His family lost their home during the Depression, and both of his parents died of strokes while he was a teen. Living with one or another of his two married sisters, he worked at whatever jobs he could find, including delivering telegraphs, shelling pecans, helping his brother-in-law sell produce and cutting out rain capes from sheets of processed rubber.