Judge Whelan, former bartender
Pub Date: 1/1/2003
When you go to see District Judge John W. Whelan, you put on your good slacks and dress shirt. You pat down your hair, check your nails for dirt and curse your dirty, scuffed up Addidas the only dark shoes you own.
When you greet him, you stand up straight, shoulders back, and try to give a firm handshake. You call him "Sir" a title he doesn't seem to find overly formal and hope your voice doesn't betray the pit in your stomach.
You decide, regarding this tall, distinguished figure sitting at his large oak desk, that if you can say one thing confidently about John W. Whelan, It's that you could never, in a million years, imagine asking him for a shot and beer.
Evidently, one shouldn't judge a judge by his cover.
The honorable John "Jack" Whelan was born to Laurence and Irma (Sansouci) Whelan at the Deaconess Hospital in Butte in 1930. One of nine children raised on a mechanic's salary, he attended Saint Ann's grade school, then Boys Central High School on the hill.
As soon as he was of working age, Whelan sought jobs around town to earn spending money. He worked as an office boy and occasional janitor (with another future judge, James Purcell) at the Montana Standard newspaper, made deliveries for the Coca Cola company and took, gladly, whatever other odd jobs he could lay his hands on.
"You name it, I've probably done it," he says with a smile.
When he graduated high school in 1948, instead of heading straight for college, Whelan continued to drive for the Coca Cola company.
In 1950, he enlisted in the service and served 13 months in Korea in the Marines' First Division.
When he returned from the service, Whelan went back to making deliveries for Coca Cola'; and it was this job, he says, that eventually led to his first stint behind a bar.
On Thursday nights, Whelan recalls, he would drive "the horn," a long route southeast to Ennis, making deliveries to many of the small river towns along the Ruby Valley.
One night, the owner of the Sportsman's Lodge in Ennis asked him to watch the bar until his regular server showed up. Fortunately, says Whelan, the regular never made it and for the rest of the summer, he was given the Thursday night shift.
"Every summer, the Sportsman was full of people," he recalls. "I enjoyed that. I liked talking and listening and watching people, and at the Sportsman's, you encountered a lot of different types."
Whelan headed to the University of Montana in 1954. On top of his studies, he worked long shifts at the Crystal Bar in the Missoula Hotel and hitch-hiked back to Butte on weekends to court his sweetheart, Bobbie, whom he married two years later.
Though the bar scene of the 1950's was a lot more "wide open" than it is today, Whelan says, "There weren't a lot of problems. The students would come in for a few beers, then head back to their rooms for their studies."
Of the 12 or 13 taverns in Missoula at that time, Whelan recalls, "It seemed like everyone was using Butte bartenders. One owner told me the Butte kids handled the crowds better than anyone else in the state."
Short of "m-o-n-e-y," and with a growing family to support, Whelan headed back to Butte in 1958 to drive a truck for Standard Brands during the day, and work shifts behind the plank at Howie's Supper Club and the Leggat Hotel bar at night.
He saved and returned to school the following year, regimen driving the truck during the day and tending bar in the evenings.
"I have to feel that bartending really supported me while I was going to school," he says. "I had a wife and five children to support (a sixth child was born two years after he graduated) but I'd come home and I could go to work in a tavern the very next day. The industry supported me no doubt about it."
Whelan received his Bachelor's degree in economics in 1963 and his law degree in 1965.
Besides providing a steady source of income during his lean school years, Whelan says working in the tavern industry also taught him lessons he later took into the legal arena.
"A bartender serves people from all walks of life," he says. "When you're behind the bar, you talk and listen and watch. If you're good, observant, you learn some things about human nature.
"I feel in the law profession, you're dealing with people in much the same way. The better you understand a person, the better you understand his problems, the better you can help him."
Whelan practiced law in Butte for the next 29 years, representing Butte citizens from all sectors.
In 1983, he was appointed part-time United States Magistrate Judge for the District of Montana, a position he held until 1992. In 1994, he was elected district judge for Butte-Silver Bow County.
Though the judge says he enjoys his position the regular hours, the sense of purpose and accomplishment in some ways, he seems nostalgic for his days behind the plank.
"Being a judge, you don't have the contact with people you do in private practice or behind a bar," he says. "But the way I see it, I've always earned my living in one bar or another serving people from behind the bar and, as a member of the bar, I'm still serving people from the bench."
Source: Special Reports II, published and distributed to 180,000 households state-wide, winter 2002 by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.