My Life with Bonnie and Clyde (54 page)

7.
Reportedly, Bonnie Parker’s mother said, “He had her for two years. Look what it got her. He’s not going to have her anymore. She’s mine now.” Hinton,
Ambush
, 190.

8.
Actually there were twenty-one other defendants, apart from Blanche. This was the Clyde Barrow–Bonnie Parker Harboring Case, U. S. Federal District Judge William H. Atwell presiding, U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas, Texas. This was the test case for what was then the brand new federal law making it a crime to harbor a federal fugitive. The twenty-two defendants were John Basden, Cumie T. Barrow, LC Barrow, Audrey Faye Barrow, Blanche Barrow, Marie Barrow Francis, Joe Francis, Emma Parker, Billie Jean Parker Mace, Hilton Bybee, Joe Chambless, Alice Davis, Steve Davis, Floyd Hamilton, Mildred Hamilton, Lillian Hamilton McBride, W. D. Jones, Henry Methvin, James Mullens, Mary O’Dare, S. J. Whatley, and Beulah Praytor. The date of the trial, George Washington’s birthday, was no accident. The prosecutor, Clyde O. Eastus, U. S. district attorney for the Northern District of Texas, used the occasion of Washington’s birthday in addressing the jury: “Gentlemen, this trial started on the 22nd day of February, A. D. 1935—George Washington’s birthday. If George Washington had lived until the 22nd day of February, this year, he would have been 203 years old. My opinion is, gentlemen of the jury, that if George Washington, the father of our country, had known or had any idea that such men and women as these you have on trial here—such a bunch of outlaws—would ever immigrate to this country, I seriously doubt whether he would have ever crossed the Delaware.” Russell, “Clyde Barrow-Bonnie Parker Harboring Case,” 34.

Afterword

1.
The editor has seen photographs of Cumie Barrow, among others, visiting Blanche in prison. These snapshots used to be in the personal collection of Marie Barrow, but they have all been sold to various collectors and their exact whereabouts now are unknown. Nevertheless, Blanche’s scrapbooks contain photos of Cumie, LC, Marie, among others visiting her in prison.

2.
In concluding her memoir, Blanche wrote the following: “Oct. 7, 1935 I was given a parole hearing. By then I had been on farm No. 1 twenty-five months. My record was clear and my parole file was fairly good. I am printing one of many letters. This letter is from the man I was working for when my husband was given a pardon from the Texas penitentiary by Governor Miriam A. Ferguson.” Unfortunately, no letter accompanied the manuscript, so the passage was placed here in the Notes. However, there are copies of several letters in Blanche’s scarpbooks from Wilbur Winkler, the co-owner (along with Artie Barrow Winkler) of the Cinderella Beauty Shoppe where Blanche worked while Buck was in prison. The letters are variously addressed to prosecutor David Clevenger, Penal Commissioner Paul Rentz, Governor Guy Parks, and Judge R. B. Bridgeman and are dated between January and May 1936, after the hearing date mentioned by Blanche. Often referring to Jan Fortune’s book,
Fugitives
, and its portrayal of Blanche as an innocent victim of blind love,
Winkler asks that Blanche be released, adding in one case, “there was never a better woman than she.” Winkler, letter to Clevenger, January 17, 1936.

Blanche Barrow was denied a parole in 1935. However, described as a model prisoner, she was ultimately released in 1939.
The Landmark
, June 4, 1982. By then Blanche Barrow had developed a close friendship with Platte County Sheriff Holt Coffey, his wife, Bessie May Cannon Coffey, and an unnamed FBI agent, all of whom helped her win a parole. Blanche Barrow interview, November 3, 1984.

Editor’s Conclusion

1.
Blanche Barrow, letter to mother, November 1, 1933, quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 33–34. Despite her feelings about Callaway, Blanche Barrow was in communication with his teenaged niece, whom she liked a great deal.

2.
Blanche Barrow interview, November 18, 1984.

3.
Fort Smith Southwest American
, July 29, 1933; Hinton,
Ambush
, 78; Knight and Davis,
Bonnie and Clyde
, 93–98; Blanche Barrow interviews, September 24, 1984, November 3 and 18, 1984.

4.
The Landmark
, August 11, 1933.

5.
Ibid., July 28, 1933;
Kansas City Star
, September 17, 1978. Coffey was initially reported wounded twice, in the right arm and grazed on the face.
Kansas City Star
, July 20, 1933. The following day, Coffey’s wounds were described as being in the right arm and back, with grazes on the cheek and head.
The Landmark
, July 21, 1933. Coffey himself said he was hit four times.
Kansas City Star
, September 17, 1978.

6.
The Landmark
, June 4, 1982.

7.
Blanche Barrow, letter to her mother, September 9, 1933, quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 27, 15.

8.
Linder and Weiser interview, October 5, 2002; Blanche Barrow, letter to her mother, October 28, 1933, quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 32–33, 43–44.

9.
McCullough,
Truman
, 205, 209; Blanche Barrow, letters to her mother, n.d. and January 29, 1936, quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 20–23, 59–60.

10.
Linder interview, October 5, 2002.

11.
Newspaper article, no source, n. d., clipped and pasted in Blanche Barrow’s Scrapbook I. The headline reads: “Build Fence to Beat Narcotic Smugglers Here, Surround Women’s Prison with New Strands of Barbed Wire to Stop Flow of Contraband.”

12.
Blanche Barrow, letters to her mother, October 1933, April 10, 1934, January 29, 1936, quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 28, 43–44, 60.

13.
Weiser interviews, October 5, 2002 and September 8, 2001. According to historian David McCullough, Truman, who wrote prolifically, first indicated the possibility of being considered for the vice-presidency (which by transfer of power resulted in his reaching the White House) in the summer of 1943, more than four years after Blanche Barrow left prison. McCullough,
Truman
, 292.

14.
Weiser interviews, October 5, 2002, and September 8, 2001.

15.
Blanche Barrow, letter to her mother, October 28, 1933, quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 32–33. The songs could have been any of the hits between 1929 and 1933, including “Stardust,” “Happy Days Are Here Again,” “Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries,” “When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain,” “Just a Gigolo,” “Stormy Weather,” “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” and Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady.” Gordon and Gordon,
American Chronicle
, 318.

16.
Weiser interview, October 5, 2002.

17.
Blanche Barrow, letter to her mother, December 23, 1934, quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 46–47.

18.
Among the names mentioned in another source are Frank, Jack, and Ray. Blanche Barrow, letters to her mother, quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 22, 46, 60; Weiser interview, October 5, 2002.

19.
Bill Griffith, letters to Blanche Caldwell Barrow, February 8, 1936, April 7, and August 13, 1936. Bill also gives an interesting look into his recent past. Writing of his memories of Reno, Nevada, in 1931, he described “a wide open town . . . greatest collection of people from all walks of life I have ever seen. Plenty of money and everything to buy with it.”

20.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about that particular card is the photograph on the front, an aerial view of the battleship USS Arizona coursing past New York City. The card was mailed nearly eighteen and a half months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and depicts the famous ship prior to its remodeling which, among other things, changed the look of the crow’s nests and bridge area.

21.
“Freddie,” postcard to Blanche Barrow, June 25, 1936.

22.
Letters of July 5 and 13, and October 1, 1936; May 17, June 9, November 1 and 8, and December 26, 1937; and October 3 and 10, 1938; Blanche Barrow letter to her mother, n. d., quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 22–23. The complete passage from Blanche’s letter to her mother regarding Freddie reads, “I have not heard from Freddie for 3 weeks. Guess he has gone the way all fair weather friends go. The last I heard from him was a wire saying a letter would follow, and he would send some money right away. Also that he would try to bring you to see me next month. But suppose it was all lies, because he hasn’t written since.”

23.
“Harry,” letter to Blanche Barrow, March 11, 1937.

24.
Blanche had evidently received a photograph of her first husband from her mother, who was still friendly with Callaway. Blanche returned the picture. Blanche Barrow, letters to her mother December 31, 1935, and February 28, 1936, quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 54, 61.

25.
Blanche Barrow, letters to her mother, September 1, 1935, February 28, 1936, and October 28, 1934, quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 49–51, 60–62, 32–33.

There is some confusion about Lucinda and her firstborn. Born in Kansas in either 1915 or 1916, Lucinda Marcum was Blanche’s half-sister, the daughter of Lillian Bell Pond. Blanche Barrow, unpublished handwritten history; State
of Texas, standard birth certificate, Betty Sue Hill. By the early 1930s, Lucinda, also known as “Senda,” was married to John Hill, a laborer from Coleman County, Texas. The couple lived variously in Ferris, Albany, Stamford, and West Dallas, Texas, among other places. They moved whenever and wherever work was available. Lucinda gave birth to at least five children, including a boy early in 1934. It was this child, evidently Lucinda’s first, that Blanche tried repeatedly to find out about while she was serving time in Missouri. Among other things, she asked her mother whether a gift from her, a pair of baby booties, had ever arrived. It does not appear, however, that Blanche received any substantial news of the child until 1936 when a picture was finally sent to her. Blanche Barrow, letters to her mother, quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 55–57, 60–62. Among Blanche’s scrapbooks, papers, and other records was a handwritten list of her half-sister’s children indicating that Lucinda’s first child was born in 1935. But the aforementioned letters say otherwise. It is possible that Blanche mistakenly listed the year as 1935 in her handwritten history of the Marcum family, but it is also possible that the child born in 1934 did not survive (which might explain Blanche’s difficulty in obtaining information about the infant). There are no references to Lucinda, John Hill, or any of their children in Blanche’s papers beyond the late 1940s.

26.
Blanche Barrow, letters to her mother, April 20, 1934, and September 14, 1935, quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 45–46. 52–53. But many were doing a lot for Blanche Barrow’s file, including Cumie Barrow who had offered a place for her former daughter-in-law to live. See Appendix E.

27.
Blanche Barrow, letters to her mother, April 20, 1934, and November 1, 1933, quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 44, 34.

28.
LC Barrow, letter to Blanche Barrow, March 8, 1938. “How is your health! And has your eyes ever got well! I so hope they have. More than anything else in the world I want to see you well and happy. I know that is what he [Buck] would wish. So keep that pretty little head of yours up and think of the future . . . you have a lot of life in front of you.” LC Barrow was arrested October 30, 1934, for robbing the Dougherty Drug Store at 2009 Beckley in Dallas. He was convicted and sentenced despite claims from Homer Dillingham, who confessed to the crime, that Barrow was not involved.
Dallas Evening Journal
, October 30, 1934;
Dallas Dispatch
, December 23, 1934;
Dallas Daily Times-Herald
, December 2, 1934.

29.
Blanche Barrow, letter to her mother, December 23, 1934, quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 47.

30.
See Note 8,
Chapter 15
, for the identity of the twenty-two accused. Jones, interview by Biffle, June 1969; Weiser interview, September 8, 2001, October 5, 2002.

31.
Winkler, letter to Blanche Barrow, July 26, 1937. Winkler stated that he had remarried, adding, “haven’t seen any of the folks in Dallas in some time. Artie held me up for $25 for giving me a quit claim deed to the house, and that really finished me with her, for since divorcing she asked me for a quit claim deed to the west Dallas place and I sent it by return mail, and in
addition released her insurance policy so that she could cash it in for about $400, and now she hijacks me for a quit claim deed. Tried to get $75. I feel sorry for her, but when they start robbing those who love them, it is time to beware.” Winkler, letter Blanche Barrow, October 11, 1937; Blanche Barrow, letters to her mother, January 5 and 29, 1936, quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 57, 60.

32.
Cabell Phillips,
New York Times Chronicle
, 485, 496–97, 240–41, 320.

33.
Ibid., 237, 515–23, 278.

34.
Katherine Stark is probably the one mentioned by Blanche Barrow in her letter to her mother of September 9, 1933, as quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 27. There is a photograph and a reproduction of a painting of Mrs. Stark in the author’s scrapbooks.

35.
International News Service
March 25, 1939; State of Missouri, Conditional Commutation for the State of Missouri, March 25, 1939;
Kansas City Star
, September 10, 1936; Blanche Barrow interview, November 18, 1984.

36.
In 1934 John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and Pretty Boy Floyd were killed by law enforcement officers. The following year Fred and Ma Barker died in a hail of gunfire.

37.
Gordon and Gordon,
American Chronicle
, 359.

38.
The date of Blanche’s release was noted in the
Dallas Daily Times-Herald
, on March 24, 1939. Terms of the commutation began officially on March 25, 1939. She was required to abide by the terms of the commutation for a period of nearly two years, until March 3, 1941. The terms included moving to Garvin, Oklahoma, and preparing a monthly written report, signed by her sponsor or a police officer, listing her whereabouts and job status, among other things. Apparently so few women were involved in such matters that the official form referred only to the masculine gender. Thus, on Blanche Barrow’s form, every “he,” “his,” and “him” has been crossed out by hand and replaced with “she,” “hers,” and “her”. State of Missouri, Conditional Commutation, March 25, 1939. Artie was now living in Dallas, having moved from Denison after her divorce from Wilbur Winkler. Buddy Barrow, e-mail, September 16, 2002.