Meet Don Izban: Part Two
Gael Stahl's interview for the Nashville Scholars

GS: Why did you major in psychology?  

Izban: The dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at that time, Dean William 
J. Finnegan, S.J. had the practice of calling students in and asking why they selected their major. Were they happy with their major? What did they intend to do with their major after they graduated? He asked me why I picked psychology, I said, “Well, Father, it was strictly a matter of expediency. I checked through the catalog and saw all the disciplines. The accounting major was 10 courses, and a philosophy major was 10 courses, and a chemistry major as nine courses. Psychology was the only discipline I could find that required only eight courses to graduate. That’s why I picked it. Father Finnegan told me to get out of his office. 

GS: What did you do with your psychology degree after you graduated in 1954?  

Izban: I took it home and put it somewhere in my house. I don’t know where it is right now. I never used it professionally. In 1955, I went into business for Commerce Clearing House (law publishers) and that’s where I stayed until I retired in 1992 at age 59. 

GS: What hobbies did you enjoy before Holmes?  

Izban: Oh, I was into all kinds of hobbies: stamp collecting, coin collecting.  I used to play squash quite well but gave that up. I was a squash referee at the national championships a few years. And I did the usual boy type hobbies playing some softball, some intramural football at Loyola. A lot of golf. 

GS: What did you do for Commerce Clearing House?  

Izban: Well, I started out as a correspondent in the Customer Relations Department. I worked my way through the Book Department, then I became the  company’s administrative vice president. That was in 1971 or 1972, I think. I was in that job   kind of a dead end job for the next 20 some years.  

GS: Until you retired and moved to Streamwood recently, where wee you living?  

Izban: In Chicago, northwest side, not too far from where I went to grade school, actually. 

"I guess if I sat down and really thought about it, there would probably be five or six groups." (D. Izban)

GS: What door did you pass through into the world of Sherlock Holmes?  

Izban: I was watching a news show one night when they had a telecast of a 
Sherlock Holmes birthday party. I said, “Hey, this looks like fun.” I  contacted a few of the people I knew who were running the birthday party, started to go to meetings, and got involved. 
        Most people I hear tell about their Sherlockian careers — having been at it  since they were 12 years old — well, that’s not true of me. I probably was in 
my 40s. I remember reading The Hound of the Baskervilles when I was a junior 
in high school. We needed it for a book report. But that was the only story I 
remember reading in those days. And the rest I read as I evolved — as an adult. 

GS: Was that birthday party in the 80s? 

Izban: It must have been then or thereabouts. They had part of the birthday party televised on a newscast. Then they ran a little article in the Chicago Tribune about the party. It gave names and addresses of people to contact to become involved in the Sherlockian movement, and that’s how it all began.. 

GS: Could that have been his 125th birthday in 1979 when we Three Pipe  
Problems started?  

Izban: I don’t think so. I couldn’t be sure. Time goes by very quickly when you’re enjoying yourself. 

GS: Are you more interested in Sherlock Holmes or the scion activities that  
promote Sherlock Holmes?  

Izban: Well, I’m not what you would call a student of the Canon, if that’s what you mean. I’m more on the people end of this,  the different organizations, and what they do and the activities. I’m sort of an action kind of person as opposed to somebody that sits around and reads the stories and discusses what color of tie Sherlock wore in The Creeping Man. 

GS: After the festivities last night, Elliott Black ran through for me all the  various scions you got started or were involved in.  

Izban: There’s an awful lot of them. The Torists International, S.S., was the first one. The STUD Sherlockian Society was one of the last ones. I was instrumental in forming the Colonel Sebastian Moran Secret Gun Club that sponsors the hunt for the mongoose named Moriarty every leap year. I did the Rache Road Rally for several years (and again in 1998, ending it after a memorable tour of Graceland Cemetery in the rain — at Vincent Starrett’s beautiful grave site. 

GS: What’s the more recent one Elliott said you and seven BSI members on the   East coast have occasionally?  

Izban: Seven people? Oh! Well, that’s kind of a spoof. Tom Stix, Bob Thomalen,  Richard Wein, Ted Friedman, Peter Crupe, Joe Moran, and I get together and have dinners just about every time I come into New York. We sit around the dinner table and shoot the breeze for a couple hours, and kind of burlesque what scion meetings are supposed to be like. We usually order desserts like Napoleon slices. One time I remember we had only five guys at the dinner table — a few couldn’t make it — and I ordered Six Napoleons for dessert and the waiter couldn’t understand why we were going to eat six Napoleons for five guys and I explained to him, “There is no explanation, because if I try to explain it, you’re not going to understand it.” 

GS: What is that group’s name? I’ve heard it referred to.  

Izban:  I’m trying to think of it. It’s in the Baker Street Journal because they write us up. Oh, it’s the ... ah, ahh... The Lucca Gang of New York City. Its a variant based on “The Red Circle” (Gennaro and Emilia Lucca) and the reason we call it the Lucca Gang ... thank you, my sweets, (accepting money for one of his books) the reason we call it the Lucca Gang is  because our very first meeting was at a pizza joint in Greenwich Village, Pizzeria Uno franchise, the famous pizzeria in Chicago located pretty close to Loyola University where we used to pick up girls and have good pizza. 

Izban: No. I was on the original board of directors of the Scotland Yarders along with a lot of other notable people like Dennis France and Tom Wilshire and Fred Levin, but I was not responsible for starting that group. I guess if I sat down and really thought about it, there would probably be five or six groups. The Solar Pons Breakfast Club is another one. 

GS: What was the very first scion you attended after you saw the televised  
birthday celebration?  

Izban: Hugo’s Companions, and almost immediately thereafter, the Criterion Bar  Association, which was in existence about 10 years when we started going. Of course, Hugo’s Companions had been going 30 or 40 years. 

GS: Who were some of the early influences on you in the Sherlockian movement?  

Izban: Bob Hahn, of course, was a great influence. I remember that at the Hugo 
Companion meetings, he was always dressed kind of informally having come all the way from Sheboygan. He’d be sitting kind of far off in the corner, and at every meeting he would have something to say.  I leaned over the dinner table to Tony Citera, who was exploring the Sherlockian societies in the Chicago area with me, and I said,  “Who the hell is that guy?”  
Tony Citera says,  “I don’t know but he sure knows what he’s talking about." 

GS: How far do you and Tony Citera go back?  

Izban: He stood up to my wedding. We’ve been friends for 35 years. 

GS: Whom did you marry? 

Izban: Georgiana Quick (who worked at Commerce Clearing House and had to leave there when they married and became a homemaker) was her name. We have two children. Both daughters. Both unmarried. Probably never will be married because their father spoiled them.  

GS: I take it Georgiana’s not a Sherlockian since she was not at the Canonical Convocation and Caper?  

Izban: No. She loves the Jeremy Brett Grenada series on PBS and watches all 
those. Conversely, they used to put me to sleep when I watched them. I couldn’t stand ‘em. I was never one for Jeremy Brett. I didn’t think he was a good Sherlock Holmes. The stories were pretty close to the Canon, particularly the early ones. I thought the sets were great. The costumes were great. But Brett was no Sherlock Holmes in my opinion. 

GS: Is there anyone you do like?  

Izban: I like Basil Rathbone. I thought Basil Rathbone was a great Sherlock 
Holmes. But unfortunately those stories, those movies were all bad. None of them were Canonical. “The Hound” was even sort of divorced from the real story.