My Life with Bonnie and Clyde (40 page)

14.
Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 15.

Chapter 1.
View from a Cell

1.
In the original manuscript Blanche first wrote, “me as I did him,” then crossed that out and replaced it with “as a woman does.”

Chapter 2.
Marriage

1.
Blanche Barrow, letter to her father Matt Caldwell, November 11, 1933;
Dallas Morning News
, November 11, 1929.

2.
Fortune,
Fugitives
, 24;
Dallas Morning News
, November 11, 1929.

3.
On “Black Thursday,” October 24, U.S. Steel dropped from 261.75 to 193.5 and General Electric went from above 400 to 283. A consortium of bankers, including J. P. Morgan then tried desperately to drive stocks back up by deliberately paying above-market value for U.S. Steel and other stocks, but to no avail. On “Black Tuesday,” October 29, there was such a sell-off of stocks that it was humanly impossible to keep up with the trading. The ticker tape flowed for hours after the market closed. By the day of Blanche and Buck’s first meeting, American Can was down 54 percent, AT&T had dropped 35 percent, General Motors had lost 50 percent of its value, and U.S. Steel had sunk 63 percent. And it was only the beginning. Arnold, “The Crash, 217.

4.
Dallas Morning News
, July 3, 1931.

5.
Procter, “Great Depression”; Marie Barrow interview, September 15, 1984; U.S. Census, 1920 and 1930. The population of Dallas, Texas was listed at 158,976 in 1920 and 294,734 in 1930. Although cities like Dallas would reach unemployment numbers in the double digits, the rate remained far below the national average of 25 percent. And the Barrows were actually able to open a small business in 1931, the Star Service Station at 1620 Eagle Ford Road (Singleton Road today) in West Dallas.

6.
Procter, “Great Depression”; Cabell Phillips,
New York Times Chronicle of American Life
, 54, 34; Watkins,
Hungry Years
, 105, 126; Andrist,
American Heritage History
, p. 185; Kennedy,
Freedom from Fear
, 192.

7.
Procter, “Great Depression”; Fults interview December 5, 1980.

8.
John Callaway was Blanche’s first husband. This was Buck Barrow’s third marriage. At age seventeen he had married Margaret Heneger. During the marriage twin boys were born, one of whom died at five months of age. Barrow later divorced his first wife and married Pearl Churchley, by whom he fathered a girl. Eventually that marriage also ended in divorce. Blanche Caldwell Callaway was still married to her first husband when she met Buck Barrow, but the month after her divorce was finalized, she married him. Cumie Barrow, unpublished manuscript.

9.
In the original manuscript, “shadow” was written here, then crossed out and replaced with “sentence” by Blanche.

10.
It may have been true that Blanche did not know of Buck’s record. In a letter to her father dated November 11, 1933, she reminisces about having met Buck exactly four years earlier to the day. However, Blanche couldn’t
have remained ignorant for long because on November 30, 1929, less than three weeks later, Buck was wounded and arrested following a burglary in Denton, Texas.
Denton Record-Chronicle
, November 30, 1929. Furthermore, Blanche definitely knew Buck was tried, convicted, and sent to prison. Buck mentions Blanche in a letter he sent from the main prison in Huntsville, Texas. Buck Barrow, letter to family, January 16, 1930. If, as Blanche states, the revelation of her husband’s escape came after she had married him (July 3, 1931), it would mean that Buck Barrow had kept his secret since March 8, 1930, the date of his escape. State of Texas, Texas Prison System, letter from William Thompson to Doug Walsh, May 17, 1932. There is evidence to suggest Blanche may have actually known all along of Buck’s escape. Cumie Barrow makes it quite clear in her unpublished manuscript that she knew her son had escaped when he arrived at her home in March 1930. She described the white prison clothes Buck was wearing, how he changed out of them, and how he told her to burn them. Cumie Barrow, unpublished manuscript. In addition, in a memo from the Justice Department Bureau of Criminal Investigation to Doug Walsh of the Dallas Police Department, Jim Muckleroy told investigators that his nephew, Buck Barrow, hid at his farm near Martinsville, Texas, following his prison break. In addition to the November 30, 1929, burglary for which he was sentenced to the Texas penitentiary, Buck Barrow had a number of prior arrests. On December 21, 1925, he was arrested in Houston under the name “Elmer Toms” for stealing tires.
Dallas Morning News
, April 14, 1933. This Houston arrest may be the source of some stories that Buck’s younger brother Clyde had a criminal record in Houston. According to Marie Barrow, her brother Clyde neither lived in Houston nor committed any crimes there. Marie Barrow interview, August 24, 1984. By 1928, Buck Barrow was suspected of auto theft in a number of Texas cities, including Dallas, Waco, Uvalde, Waxahachie, and San Antonio.
Dallas Morning News
, April 14, 1933. Most of the charges were dropped, but San Antonio authorities arrested Buck in August 1928 after a local police officer caught him in the act of stealing a car. Cumie Barrow, unpublished manuscript. His younger sister, Marie, ten years old at the time, remembered that she and her parents traveled to San Antonio for Buck’s trial. She described traveling by horse-drawn wagon and that for some reason W. D. Jones, his mother, and a couple of brothers traveled with them. The trip took a long time and the group worked their way to and from San Antonio as migrant farmhands. Marie Barrow interview, September 15, 1993. In January 1929, however, the San Antonio charges were also dismissed. Later in the year, October 13, 1929, Buck and Clyde Barrow and a friend named Frank Clause were arrested trying to burglarize a lumber company at 2521 Florence in Dallas. They were released due to lack of evidence.
Dallas Morning News
, April 14, 1933. Then on November 30, 1929, the Barrow brothers along with yet another friend, Sidney Moore, burglarized a service station in Denton, Texas. The Denton police chased them and opened fire, wounding and capturing Buck. Clyde and Sidney escaped.
Denton
(
Tex.
)
Record-Chronicle
, November 30, 1929. Despite what Blanche may have known or when she
knew it, by all accounts she did press him to return to prison and finish his sentence.

11.
Readers familiar with the old Walls Unit in Huntsville, Texas, with its distinctive red brick walls, may be puzzled by the reference here to gray walls. However, at the time of Buck Barrow’s return to prison the original gray sandstone walls, dating from the nineteenth century, were still the only things separating the inmates from the outside world. In the 1940s those walls, by then seriously deteriorated, were encased in the red brick we see today. From atop the walls at almost any point it is possible to still see the cap of the original gray wall sandwiched between the two layers of brick.

12.
In addition to Cumie and Blanche, the group traveling with Buck included sisters Marie and Nell, and Nell’s second husband Luther Cowan. Marie Barrow interviews, September 25, 1993, and April 19, 1995. Cumie Barrow mentions only one sister in her unpublished manuscript. Nell is the sister implied by Fortune. Fortune,
Fugitives
, 89. The date and voluntary nature of Buck Barrow’s return to prison are officially confirmed in a letter from William Thompson, chief of the Bureau of Records, Texas Prison System, to Doug Walsh of the Dallas Police Department, May 17, 1932. There is, however, a bit of confusion as to whether it was Nell’s second husband, Luther Cowan, or her first, Leon Hale, who accompanied the family to Huntsville. In the two interviews mentioned above Marie interchanges the names. However, at the time there is no mention of Hale in the city directory, Nell’s last name is listed as Barrow not Hale, and she’s not only working at the same beauty and barber shop as Cowan but is also living in the same apartment building. Thus it was probably Cowan who went to Huntsville.
Worley’s Dallas City Directory
, 1931.

When Henry and Cumie Barrow first moved to Dallas in 1921, Clyde did not live with them at the free campground but with Nell and her first husband, Leon Hale. Clyde attended Sidney Lanier School for “no more than two weeks” then got a job working at the same business where Hale was working. Hale also played saxophone in a local band at night. He is the one who taught Clyde Barrow to play saxophone. Despite his divorce from Nell, Hale remained highly regarded by the Barrows. Years later, LC, whose name was legally composed of those two letters, and only those letters, adopted the name “Leon” in honor of Hale. Marie Barrow interviews, September 15 and 25, 1993, and April 19, 1995; Buddy Barrow interview, October 26, 2002.

13.
This is unusual. Standard Texas prison system procedure at the time called for escapees, or other troublemakers, to wear stripes so they would stand out from the other convicts and thus be easier for guards to keep an eye on. Ralph Fults, interview, February 1, 1981. Cumie Barrow makes mention of this, saying that upon Buck’s return to prison, “They never even put him back in stripes.” Cumie Barrow, unpublished manuscript.

14.
In the original manuscript, “people” was written here, then crossed out and replaced with “mother” by Blanche.

15.
Marvin Ivan “Buck” Barrow was born on March 14, 1903, at Jones Prairie, Texas, in Milam County. Cumie Barrow, unpublished manuscript. His
gravestone at Western Heights Cemetery in Dallas lists the year as 1905, which is incorrect. Family members concede that their mother was so upset when Buck was killed that she confused his birth year with Nell’s. Evidently the same thing happened with Clyde as well. The family Bible as well as other sources lists Clyde Barrow’s birth year as 1910, not 1909 as carved on the gravestone. This is supported by Cumie herself in her own unpublished manuscript. It is also supported in Fortune, who quotes Nell indicating in three different places that she was five years older than Clyde. Fortune,
Fugitives
, 3, 7, 10. The 1910 date is further supported by information supplied to Louisiana officials by Elvin “Jack” Barrow, Clyde’s oldest brother, at the time of Clyde’s death. Barrow declared Clyde’s age to be twenty-four, indicating a 1910 birth year. Louisiana State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, certificate of death, Clyde Chestnut Barrow.

16.
The Woman for whom Blanche worked was probably Artie, the Barrows’ oldest daughter and a beautician living in Denison, Texas, at the time. Artie was married to a man named Wilbur Winkler who was circulation manager for the
Denison Herald
and who owned the Cinderella Beauty Shoppe. Artie managed the shop at 430 West Sears, and it was no doubt there that Blanche worked. Cumie Barrow, unpublished manuscript;
Denison City Directory
, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934. Some have said that it was Artie, not Wilbur Winkler, who owned the shop. Buddy Barrow e-mail, September 16, 2002.

17.
Clyde was serving two counts of burglary and five counts of auto theft, all from McLennan County. His FBI file only mentions burglary; his prison record lists his offenses as “burglary, theft (14 years).” Cumie Barrow, unpublished manuscript; U.S. Department of Justice, Division of Investigation, Identification Order No. 1211, October 24, 1933; Woods, letter to Phillips, March 19, 1985. “The Walls” refers to the main prison unit at Huntsville, Texas. It has been said that Clyde Barrow axed his toes because he couldn’t stand the workload at Eastham. Two other independent sources agree with the reason given here by Blanche Caldwell Barrow. Fults interview, November 5, 1980, and a letter from Sterling C. Henson to Kent Biffle, September 2, 1980.

18.
Eastham is a prison farm of approximately 13,000 acres located in an oxbow of the Trinity River, twenty miles north of Huntsville. Its name is derived from that of the Eastham family, who purchased the property in 1891 and immediately began leasing it to the state as a prison farm. The state purchased the property outright in 1915. Texas Historical Commission, “Eastham Prison Farm.” For a full account of the history of farm leasing and the Texas penal system, see Walker,
Penology for Profit
, 13–142. In Clyde Barrow’s day there were two camps at Eastham. On his arrival there in 1930, he was housed in Camp 2, a wooden structure said to have been one of the original buildings from Eastham’s preprison plantation days. Later he was transferred to Camp 1, a concrete structure located one mile north of Camp 2. It was there that Barrow killed his first man, a convict trustee who had sexually assaulted Barrow, on October 29, 1931. Among the many incidents involving Barrow, either as victim, eyewitness, or perpetrator, were fights, rapes, and murders between
convicts as well as beatings, various forms of torture, and murder committed by guards at the facility. See Phillips,
Running with Bonnie and Clyde
, for a full account. See also McConal,
Over the Wall
, 90–91; Phillips, “Raid on Eastham”; Henson, letter to Biffle, September 2, 1980; Fulsom,
Prison Stories
, 80–83; and Martin and EklandOlson,
Walls Came Tumbling Down
, 9–15.

19.
Buck was robbing filling stations and oil company payrolls during this period. This revelation came up in response to an interview question about whether Blanche remembered Raymond Hamilton. She said that Raymond often wanted to accompany her and Buck during the above-mentioned robberies, but that Buck didn’t like him and both thought he was too young. Blanche said she and Buck would “just drive off and leave him” Blanche Barrow interviews, September 24 and November 18, 1984.

20.
On March 8, 1930, Buck had escaped from the Ferguson prison farm, near Midway, Texas. William Thompson, letter to Doug Walsh of the Dallas Police Department, May 17, 1932.

21.
Ralph Fults, who arrived at Eastham with Clyde in 1930 and eventually began plotting with him to one day raid the farm, remembered it differently, saying Barrow received many letters, not only from Bonnie but from his family as well. Fults interview, February 13, 1982.