Joseph Tolitano; owned shoe repair chain Left Italy for U.S. at 12; former Mayor Daley was a loyal customer

In a success story that might have been written Horatio Alger, Joseph Tolitano started out as an immigrant shoemaker and ended up owning a famous chain of Chicago shoe repair shops.

He was 12 when he came here from Italy and 18 when he bought his first shop, in the Loop. Eventually he owned six locations-- including one where Mayor Richard J. Daley got a daily shoeshine-- plus a South Side shoe factory.

Mr. Tolitano, 87, died Sunday at Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village.

In a 1986 interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, he recalled his arrival here in 1929.

"We came from the mountains of southern Italy and when we got to Taylor and Loomis in …