Banker Earl Patch lived to tell of famous heist

Since 1932, banking colleagues and friends asked Earl Patch about the infamous, violent robbery he and others endured at the hands of the Karpis-Barker gang.

Patch, who rose from messenger to president of the Third Northwestern National Bank and later became a plastics company owner, died Feb. 4 at his St. Anthony Village home of congestive heart failure.

He was 101.

On Dec. 16, 1932, Patch was a bookkeeper when several gangsters entered the bank at 430 E. Hennepin Av. and ordered everyone onto the floor.

He and a colleague pushed silent alarms to alert police. Patch's colleague was pistol-whipped because he told the gangsters he couldn't open the vault, according to the account of the robbery in the book "John Dillinger Slept Here: A Crooks' Tour of Crime and Corruption in St. Paul" by Paul Maccabee.

"Freddie Barker was running the show," Patch said in the book. "He had some false teeth stuck in his mouth, but he didn't look much better when he took them out."

Two police officers driving to the bank were gunned down by the gang. The bandits made off with $22,000 and $100,000 in securities.

When some called Patch a hero, he would laugh and deny it, said his daughter, Carrie Sample of St. Anthony Village.

He had comforted a terrified female employee, and told her "I'll protect you" as they hid behind a desk.

"It became a fun story to tell, but it was not fun at the time," said his daughter, who said her father was once interviewed for an A&E documentary on Ma Barker and her sons.

Patch attended Central and Edison High Schools in Minneapolis, and in 1923 began work as a messenger at the East Hennepin State Bank.

In 1957, he became president of the bank, then named Third Northwestern National.

In 1971, he retired from the bank and became a stock broker. In the mid-1970s he took over a failing plastics firm. He continued to work until his death, remaining president of REO Plastics Inc. of Maple Grove.

Roland Curtis, an executive of REO, said Patch's fiscal conservatism served him well at the firm.

"He said you can't spend money that you don't have," said Curtis. "He never leveraged himself where he got into financial trouble."

Patch was an avid golfer, making a hole in one at the age of 71.

"It was 193 yards, too, with a lake and a hill," said his daughter.

His daughter, his only survivor, said his athleticism and religious faith kept his mind sharp until his death.

His wife of 42 years, Gladys, died in 1975.