A Madison legend shrouded in mystery
Snowball came to Madison in the early 20s, on a train. No one knew his exact age, or his
birthplace, or if he had any surviving relatives. He had never had a Social Security number,
nor had he paid any income taxes.
For a long time Riley lived above the Greenbush neighborhood tavern owned by Zack and Maxine
Trotter. Riley was a hard worker, construction when he was younger, a sharp dresser, a lover of
trains, horses, sports and women. Riley became a fixture on State Street, washing windows,
getting by day to day.
A man named Muhamed Mousouf Aziz did a pen and ink drawing of Riley that was turned into a
postcard that sold 2,500 copies in the first three months of 1976. Riley had died the previous
year. He was buried in Forest Hills. The Reverend Joseph Washington, the son of a slave and for
close to 40 years the pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church, gave the eulogy. Washington said that
after Riley's death, the funeral director at Joyce gave him 19 dollar bills. "What's this?"
Washington said. He said John Riley had insisted they be given to the minister at his funeral.
A drawing of Riley that was turned into a postcard.
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Snowball Made A Name For Himself On The Streets
With warmer weather, more of the homeless return to Downtown streets. "The poor you have with you always," said Jesus (John 12:8), and we tend to pass them by. But not always.
One of the most beloved Madisonians of all time must surely have been James "John" Adams Riley, known to most as "Snowball."
He was not a bum at all, not really. He worked, though he had no home. He may more accurately be described in that kindest of nostalgic terms, "hobo" - but a hobo who grew roots.
Today we have "Scanner Dan,'' not at all a panhandler or homeless, though he certainly is a part of the streetscape. Natives from the 1970s and '80s will also remember Art Nesson, who when he had been drinking perched his enormous overall-clad beer belly on corner mailboxes. But he worked, and because of that he became a favorite of philosophical art students. In and around the UW Humanities Building, home to the art department, they memorialized him in graffiti: "What is Art? ... Art is a window washer." The epigram also became a popular T-shirt.
The earliest Madison histories record the sad fact that we made the first residents into our first panhandlers: Ho Chunk, or Winnebago, who asked settlers for whiskey, or the money to buy it. Sauk Chief Black Hawk recalled, "I visited all the whites and begged them not to sell whisky to my people." Their successors very much remain urban hunter/gatherers.
In the 1840s, the new village of Madison already had its own bum, a man named Pinneo, who liked liquor too much. "People kept to windward of the unwashed man," states the 1877 "History of Madison and Dane County." "Pinneo was dirty as was possible to a life divorced from soap and water."
Snowball was a different sort. He had arrived in Madison by 1929. Until 1972, he was a familiar sight on State Street and Downtown University Avenue. The Wisconsin State Journal called him "the gentleman professor of philosophy and window washing." He would stop often to chat with passersby. Dozens of art students sketched him. Dozens of journalism students interviewed him. He revealed little.
Why he was nicknamed Snowball is unknown. Late in life it may have been because of his round head of white hair and whiskers, or perhaps it was because Snowball didn't stand a snowball's chance. He is best remembered wearing white boots, carrying a pail, a mop and a few shopping bags, his overalls crammed with pens. But early on, he was known as a sharp dresser.
"Some of the people used to tell him that he shouldn't dress so good, because the white people would think he was too uppity," recalled Charles Rengstorff, who ran a State Street bookstore. "I guess that kind of thing just wore him down over the years."
Snowball was tight-lipped about his early days. He allegedly came here from St. Louis. Before that, he told The Capital Times in 1968, he hopped freight trains and traveled the country. The life was not easy - he sometimes spent nights in jail - but he remembered those days with fondness. He remained a lifelong rail fan and, when Madison still had passenger trains, he collected railroad timetables. He knew so much about The Milwaukee Road that some suspected he must once have been an employee. He also had an extensive knowledge of geography and horse racing.
In his first years in Madison, Snowball found a job with John Cullinane, a contractor. Cullinane remained a friend for life. He recalled that Snowball used to "push a wheelbarrow, full as the handles would support, all day. And then he'd push it home at night." When he rose in the early hours to wash windows, Snowball checked for broken glass and unlocked doors, and reported these to police.
Snowball worked for a time as a kitchen helper. He scoured pots and pans, and in return was allowed to sleep in the restaurant. Later he slept at the Monroe Street Laundromat, today the site of Trader Joe's. In his off hours, he visited Madison bookstores to inexplicably study illustrated books on snakes and insects.
In 1972, Snowball suffered a mild stroke and heart attack in the Laundromat. Business hadn't been so good for him, since many State Street merchants had boarded up their windows to protect them during Vietnam war protests. "Now they're smashing all the windows," Snowball told the State Journal. "It ain't right."
He was found by his friend, the laundry's owner, Martin Albrecht. He took Snowball to a drugstore lunch counter, Rennebohm's, to eat. "He stayed there for a while and later they called the police," Albrecht said.
Snowball had eaten often at Rennebohm's, and the concerned staff had police take Snowball to Methodist Hospital. Later, friends - many of them State Street merchants - pitched in and got Snowball into the Madison Convalescent Center. He was visited often.
"I've never seen so many people at one time," Snowball said. He retired from the streets, but spent his days helping to care for other patients, pushing them around in their wheelchairs. If he found a broom, he'd start sweeping. Attendants took him for rides to State Street, which he loved, and to Maple Bluff, which he had never seen although he had lived here for decades.
Social worker Sherry Eckels helped collect all of Snowball's belongings, stored in many State Street stores. When all the packages were rounded up from merchants, they filled a whole room. Most were unopened boxes of clothing, probably gifts over the years.
On the morning of Oct. 11, 1975, Snowball died at Methodist Hospital, during an operation to remove his gall bladder. He reportedly was 73, but his birth date was invented. "We wanted to get (Snowball's) Social Security, but he'd never gotten a card," recalled Albrecht. With A.J. Hancock, vice president of Wisconsin Security, he invented Snowball's birthday. "Uncle Sam didn't even know his age. Well, we filled out a card and just filled in his age for him."
His contractor friend, John Cullinane recalled, "I could never get him to tell me how old he was. He'd just say he was born down in the swamps. But Snowball always had a smile for you, and he loved to laugh and talk."
There were no records that Snowball had ever married or had any living relatives. In 1976, friends urged that a memorial plaque in his honor be placed on State Street.
Snowball is buried in Forest Hill Cemetery. His friends Martin Albrecht and Kurt Pechmann, of Pechmann memorials, paid for the gravestone, which is engraved with Snowball's portrait.
RIP Snowball
