Chicago Bears matriarch Virginia Halas McCaskey, who died in February, was not the first woman to become principal owner of an NFL team. Yet the woman who was lived nearby.
Violet Bidwill was entrusted with the leadership of the Chicago Cardinals after her husband and team owner Charles Bidwill died unexpectedly in 1947. And though she, too, later died suddenly, the Bidwill family still retains ownership of the team due to her efforts.
But wait — who are the Bidwills, you may say? And it’s understandable why.
“No profiles of them have been written for newspapers. Their names do not pepper gossip columns. Indeed, so reluctant have they been to toot their own horns that on the rare times when the family name is printed in the paper, it is sometimes misspelled as Bidwell,” Tribune columnist Rick Kogan wrote in 1993.
Yet, the family carried an impressive sports portfolio in the Chicago area during the 20th century — even after George Halas and his Bears emerged as the Monsters of the Midway.
Here’s a look back at Chicago’s original professional football team and its matriarch.
Chicago Cardinals
The Cardinals are the oldest pro football franchise in the NFL — yes, older than the Chicago Bears.
The Cardinals began in 1898 as the Morgan Athletic Club on Chicago’s South Side, then became the Racine Cardinals — named after Racine Avenue, where their home venue was Normal Park and not for the city in Wisconsin — before becoming the Chicago Cardinals in 1922.
Even the team’s color has a history — the Cardinals played in maroon jerseys from the University of Chicago and since then the color and name stuck.
Charles W. Bidwill
Charles Bidwill, like the Cardinals, was also born and raised in Chicago — the son of Joseph Bidwill, once an alderman. He attended St. Ignatius High School and Loyola University then became an ensign in naval intelligence during World War I. Bidwill served as court clerk, first assistant prosecutor for the city of Chicago and corporation counsel under Mayor William “Big Bill” Thompson before sports took him in another direction.
And Bidwill’s exploits into Chicago’s sports scene were vast and varied. His biggest move outside football came in 1932. The Illinois legislature outlawed dog racing in the state, and Bidwill was part of a National Jockey Club group that took over a dog track Al Capone had operated in Cicero. The facility was converted into a thoroughbred track and reopened as Sportsman’s Park.
In 1933 — at the height of the Great Depression — Bidwill became president of the Chicago Stadium Operating Co., which had the exclusive rights to promote boxing and wrestling matches, bicycle races and other events at the venue.
Simultaneously, Bidwill also was:
- Secretary, Illinois Turf Association
- Secretary, Hawthorne Race Course
- Owner, racing stable
- Half owner, Chicago Bears
- Stockholder, American Turf Association
- Owner, Bentley-Murray Co. that printed nearly all the pari-mutuel betting and race track admission tickets used in the U.S. and Canada
With him overseeing the operation, the Chicago Business Men’s Racing Association ran Hawthorne Race Course from 1924 to 1937, when Bidwill bought enough stock to own it outright. Bidwill also was a director of the American Turf Association; co-owner of dog tracks in Miami Beach, Tampa and Jacksonville; had stock in Churchill Downs; and in the 1940s he started a women’s professional baseball team, the Chicago Bluebirds.
Supposedly the Cardinals transaction took place aboard Bidwill’s yacht, the Ren-Mar. The guest list for the informal dinner party included Bidwill’s wife Violet, Bears owner George Halas, city physician and Cardinals owner David J. Jones and Tribune sports editor Arch Ward, a journalist/promoter responsible for baseball’s All-Star Game, among other ventures.
Not surprisingly, football entered the conversation. Jones complained that the team he had bought three years earlier from its financially depleted founder, Chris O’Brien, was a draining investment he wanted to unload. A handwritten agreement listed the purchase price as $12,500, but Halas and others later were quoted as saying it was $25,000.
Bidwill was interested. As the story goes, they settled on a price of $50,000, and Bidwill sealed the deal with $2,000 down and a handshake.
The ownership change was announced in the Tribune on Sept. 6, 1933. One month later, the Tribune reported Bidwill sold his interest in the Bears to Halas.
Tragedy strikes
Bidwill’s life, however, took a tragic turn in early 1947. He was hospitalized at St. George Hospital and treated for pneumonia. Despite the use of penicillin and other drugs, his condition didn’t improve. Bidwill died April 19, 1947, at 51.
Despite the shock, Ray Bennigsen, a longtime Bidwill employee, said business would continue as usual.
“All of Mr. Bidwill’s enterprises will be carried on by his present organization,” Bennigsen said. “All of us who have been working with him will continue without any change.”
Bidwill’s funeral — in which the owners of at least six NFL teams were present — took place April 22, 1947, at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Oak Park. Halas was one of the pallbearers and he also presided over a memorial service before the start of the Bluebirds’ season.
Bidwill was also honored posthumously with the $25,000 C.W. Bidwill Memorial handicap race.
Violet Bidwill became principal owner of the Cardinals after her husband’s death and Bennigsen said the team would remain family-owned.
“Charley aimed at one goal during his life. That was that Stormy (Charles Bidwill Jr.) and Billy (his younger brother) would eventually come into control of all of his interests.”
An unbelievable season
According to Cardinals Hall of Famer Charley Trippi, Bidwill predicted in February 1947 that his team would win a title.
He was right — but the Cardinals had to get past their crosstown rivals first. On Dec. 14, 1947, the Cardinals beat the Bears 30-21 at Wrigley Field to get into the championship game two weeks later at Comiskey Park against the Philadelphia Eagles. The Cardinals won 28-21. Violet and her sons treated the team to a dinner at the Edgewater Beach Hotel, presenting each player with a miniature gold football suitable for a charm bracelet.
It was one of only two championships the franchise has won. The other was in 1925 (though it is still controversial). The Arizona Cardinals made it to Super Bowl XLIII on Feb. 1, 2009 in Tampa, Fla., but lost 27-23 to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The 1947 team was honored with rings during half-time of the Bears-Cardinals preseason game on Aug. 17, 1997.
The Bidwill sons join their mother — and stepfather — in team roles
Violet Bidwill married her financial adviser St. Louis native Walter Wolfner — who denied they were wed shortly after he became divorced in 1949 — and he became the Cardinals’ managing director. Bennigsen resigned employment, but Violet Bidwill denied there was any “dissension.”
At a board of directors meeting that summer, “Stormy” Bidwill, an outgoing, 23-year-old Georgetown University law student, was named the Cardinals’ president, and his brother Bill, 20, was named vice president.
Halas, another longtime Bidwill family associate, butt heads with Wolfner over turf. When Wolfner tried to move the Cardinals to Northwestern’s Dyche Stadium in January 1959, Halas blocked him, citing an old territorial agreement calling for the Bears to play on the North Side and the Cardinals on the South Side. The NFL sided with Halas.
There were rumors since the early 1950s that Wolfner had been exploring the possibility of a move, and groups in Miami, Houston, Atlanta and Buffalo were said to be interested. Wolfner denied the relocation rumors and it seemed the Cardinals were staying in Chicago after he cut a deal with the Chicago Park District to remodel Soldier Field. The massive lakefront facility became the Cardinals’ home in 1959, although they played only four home games there and two in Minneapolis.
Then in March 1960, the NFL granted Wolfner’s request to move the Cardinals to St. Louis.
Another sudden death strikes the Bidwill family
Violet Bidwill went to a doctor’s office in Miami on Jan. 29, 1962, complaining of a throat infection. She died during treatment. Like her first husband, Violet Bidwill had been administered a dose of penicillin. The Miami-Dade County medical examiner later ruled her death was caused by an allergic reaction to the drug. She was 62.
Following a funeral Mass at Holy Name Cathedral, she was interred next to her first husband at Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside.
A three-day auction in Chicago of her wardrobe — dresses, shoes, hats and accessories — brought in more than $40,000 (or about $400,000 in today’s dollars).
A stunning secret is revealed during Cardinals’ ownership lawsuit
Plans were always in place for the Bidwill brothers to inherit their parents’ multimillion dollar estate — including ownership of the Cardinals — after they died. Yet Wolfner contested Violet Bidwill’s three-page handwritten will, which left the bulk of her estate to Stormy and Bill.
Wolfner’s cut only included the income from five Oklahoma oil wells, estimated between $250 and $400 per month.
That’s when the disgruntled widower brought a long-held secret to life. In Cook County Probate Court, Wolfner not only revealed the Bidwill sons were adopted, he asserted the adoptions were illegal, shocking the brothers who had grown up believing Charles and Violet Bidwill were their biological parents.
Judge Robert Jerome Dunne, however, ruled the adoptions were legal. After the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the ruling, the dispute ended with an out-of-court settlement.
The Bidwills defeated Wolfner and retained control of the Cardinals, which Stormy ran. But the co-ownership arrangement strained the brothers’ relationship and Stormy sold his share of the team for a reported $6 million, making Bill, who had moved to St. Louis, the sole owner and operator of the franchise.
“His idea of how to run the team and mine were different,” Stormy once told the Tribune in a rare public comment on the rift. “The leaving wasn’t easy for either of us.”
Bidwill family moves West, but stays in charge
Bill Bidwill moved the Cardinals to Arizona in 1988 and ownership remains with the family.
Violet Bidwill was honored by the Pro Football Hall of Fame when the team hosted Super Bowl LVII in 2023.
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