A Remembrance of Sam Venturella

Crissa Shoemaker

[Reprinted from the Chicago Tribune, 9 June 2000]

For Sam Venturella, the answer to society's problems lay in the philosophy of Henry George, a 19th Century social reformer and journalist who believed in the abolition of all other taxes in favor of a single tax on land. For almost 60 years, Mr. Venturella remained committed to the Georgist philosophy, serving as Chicago branch president of the Henry George School of Social Science for 20 years and opening a facility for the school in 1986.

Mr. Venturella, 78, died Sunday, June 4, in his Northwest Side home of cancer.

Mr. Venturella was first introduced to Georgist political philosophy by a customer in his brother Joe's barbershop in 1942. Without a high school diploma -- he was forced to drop out during the Depression -- he struggled through "Progress and Poverty," the movement's textbook, diagramming each sentence one at a time to understand its meaning. During a 20-year career as a planner for the City of Chicago Planning Department, Mr. Venturella wrote lengthy memorandums arguing that adopting George's single-tax philosophy would cure many of the city's ills. His memos largely went unanswered, but he continued to push his views -- though never forcibly on others. "He always was open-minded," said his daughter Sara Seagren. "If you had a differing point of view, he would discuss it with you. He could discuss somebody else's views with them without it turning into an argument."

Mr. Venturella, a lifelong Chicago resident who served briefly in the Army before World War II, retired from the city in 1986 to pursue his dream. He opened the Henry George School in a storefront on North Ravenswood Avenue, using the bequest left by Samuel Leonard, a former Chicagoan and Georgist who was also a Hollywood writer. Since 1964, when the school's downtown location closed, the organization was kept alive through study groups. Reopening the school remained Mr. Venturella's crowning achievement, his daughter said. The school moved several times, settling in 1997 at 417 S. Dearborn St. Mr. Venturella served as executive director and teacher at the Chicago location, and was elected president of the board of trustees in 1979, a position he held until last month. He was also editor of the school's newsletter.

Mr. Venturella never completed high school or college but was committed to teaching himself. He received his master's degree in social science from the University of Chicago in 1956, after petitioning the university's graduate degree program.

Mr. Venturella, who was a substitute elementary schoolteacher for many years, never stopped learning. He was enrolled in Spanish 101 at Northeastern Illinois University before he became ill this spring. "All his life, he just always kept reading and learning new things," his daughter said. "He was never stagnant in anything. That was one of those things that kept him going so long." In his spare time, Mr. Venturella sang with the choirs at Our Lady of Lourdes and later St. Timothy's Church in Chicago. He was a member of the Knights of Columbus.