Obituaries

Remembering the Inventor of Lemonheads, Nello Ferrara

“Nello Ferrara, 93, invented Lemonheads, saw MacArthur in occupied Japan, sang with Sinatra.” That’s the Sun-Times’ headline on the obituary for the chairman of Ferrara Pan Candy Co. on the west side, and that’s a pretty cool way to sum up a life. But reading it, we were more amazed by a factoid that soon comes up: Ferrara invented another candy, Atomic FireBalls, after serving… in post-Hiroshima Japan. Man, that was another world than our exquisitely politically correct one, wasn’t it. And it’s not like he was some meathead GI; he was an attorney on the war crimes tribunals under Douglas MacArthur. Anyway, he grew up around Taylor Street, and practiced law in the Army and back home before joining the candy company his father had founded back in 1908, when Chicago was the candy capitol of the U.S. He invented Lemonheads in 1962. He also was a benefactor of the Villa Scalabrini nursing home, and used to invite friends of his to perform for the elderly residents… friends with names like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Jimmy Durante. “Every visit with Nello was filled with laughter and singing,” says a business associate. Giants walked the earth then, those mad men, and we have one less of them left. [Sun-Times]

Remembering the Inventor of Lemonheads, Nello Ferrara