My Life with Bonnie and Clyde (42 page)

31.
In 1935, the Texas prison system was named the worst in the nation by the Osborne Association, an independent organization founded by a former warden of New York state’s Auburn prison. The group, which still exists today, monitored and rated U.S. prisons and published its findings in annual reports. William Cox, Osborne Association secretary, specifically named Eastham as one of the most brutal prisons in the state system. Quoted in the
Houston Press
on April 10, 1935, he spoke of a “black picture of harsh and brutal treatment, particularly at Eastham. The methods of punishment now in force are
unworthy of a prison system which claims to be taking advantage of modern methods of handling prisoners.” The announcement prompted a state investigation which ultimately led to the resignation of Colonel Lee Simmons, the general manager of the Texas prison system. See the
Houston Press
, April 3, 4, and 10 and September 2, 1935.

32.
“Bud” was a nickname frequently used by Clyde. There is a note from Barrow to his brother LC, signed “Bud.” When New Mexico lawman Joe Johns was released following his 1932 abduction, he reported the identities of the driver of the car and his girlfriend as “Bud” and “Honey.”
Roswell Daily Record
, August 15, 1932. W. D. Jones said Barrow and Parker insisted that he refer to them as “Bud” and “Sis.” Jones, interview by Biffle, June 1969.

33.
W. D. Jones said Barrow always dominated the decision-making process. Jones, interview by Biffle, June 1969. Although Clyde Barrow definitely wanted to raid Eastham, whether Hamilton was there or not, it is apparently equally true that he wanted to free Raymond Hamilton,
wherever
he was. It is therefore possible that Blanche is mixing the memories of two different plans. There is evidence that Barrow was involved in smuggling hacksaw blades to Hamilton in the Hill County jail in January 1933.
Dallas Daily Times-Herald
, January 8, 1933. It is also known that Barrow was being kept apprized of Hamilton’s whereabouts. Floyd Hamilton interview July 18, 1981; Mildred Hamilton interview, July 18, 1981; Hamilton,
Public Enemy No. 1, 27
. Clyde Barrow later grew to hate Hamilton, even to the point of plotting to kill him. This rancorous feeling was shared by others in the Barrow circle. “I hope they catch Raymond,” said a Barrow friend in 1934, when Hamilton was a fugitive on the run, “and string him up in front of old lady Hamilton!” When Hamilton was recaptured on April 25, 1934, Cumie Barrow and Emma Parker expressed different feelings, however. “I hate that they caught him [Raymond Hamilton],” said Parker to Barrow. Dallas Police Department telephone wiretap transcript, April 21, 1934, 19; April 27, 1934, 49.

34.
By March 1933, Bonnie had been involved in a wild chase and gun battle in the company of Ralph Fults and Clyde Barrow, had been in and out of jail in Kaufman County, Texas, and was an accessory in a number of other crimes, including the murder of Deputy Sheriff Malcolm Davis on January 6, 1933. By then, Barrow was wanted for five murders—those of John N. Bucher in Hillsboro, Texas, on April 30, 1932; Undersheriff Eugene Moore in Atoka County, Oklahoma, on August 5, 1932; Howard Hall in Sherman, Texas, on October 11, 1932; Doyle Johnson in Temple, Texas, on December 25, 1932; and Deputy Sheriff Malcolm Davis in Dallas County on January 6, 1933. See Phillips,
Running with Bonnie and Clyde
, for the full story.

35.
At that time Matt Caldwell was staying with relatives in Oklahoma.

36.
This is borne out by the fact that Barrow worked in the Camp 1 kitchen at Eastham in his final month there. He started out working the fields with everyone else but was later moved into the kitchen. This same source also stated that Barrow deliberately had himself removed to the fields in January 1931 so he could sustain an injury serious enough to get him sent to the prison hospital
in Huntsville. The reason, according to this and other sources, was to see his brother Buck. Henson letter to Kent Biffle, September 2, 1980.

37.
Actually, despite his earlier vow to one day raid Eastham, Clyde Barrow tried to go straight when he was paroled. He first helped his father make preparations to put an addition onto the service station, then traveled to Framingham, Massachusetts, to take a job and get away from his past in Texas. However, he quickly grew homesick and returned to Dallas to work for United Glass and Mirror, one of his former employers. It was then that local authorities began picking Barrow up almost daily, often taking him away from his job. There was a standing policy at the time to basically harass ex-cons. Barrow was never charged with anything, but he soon lost his job. He told his mother, in the presence of Blanche Barrow and Ralph Fults, “Mama, I’m never gonna work again. And I’ll never stand arrest, either. I’m not ever going back to that Eastham hell hole. I’ll die first! I swear it, they’re going to have to kill me.” Fults interview, November 12, 1980; Blanche Barrow interview, November 18, 1984. Barrow’s mother also mentions police harassment in her unpublished manuscript. Mrs. J. W. Hays, wife of former Dallas County Sheriff’s Deputy John W. “Preacher” Hays, said, “if the Dallas police had left that boy [Clyde Barrow] alone, we wouldn’t be talking about him today.” Mrs. J. W. Hays interview, April 20, 1980.

W. D. Jones later said that he could think of no reason why Buck would have talked with Blanche of a plan to persuade Clyde to reform, “except to satisfy her.” Jones added, “Ain’t no way he could have talked him [Clyde] into it [surrendering]. And I think Buck was old enough to know that.” Jones, interview by Biffle, June 1969.

38.
Clyde had, by this time, been involved in the deaths of six men: Ed Crowder, John Bucher, Undersheriff Eugene Moore, Howard Hall, Doyle Johnson, and Deputy Sheriff Malcolm Davis. He was directly involved in the murders of Crowder, Moore, Johnson, and Davis. Ted Rogers killed Bucher, but Barrow was there. Blanche Barrow interview, November 18, 1984; Fults interviews, November 12, 1980, and February 13, 1982; Jack Hammett interview, February 20, 1982. Barrow maintained he was not involved in the Hall killing. Cumie Barrow, unpublished manuscript.

39.
Ralph Smith Fults, born 1911 in north Texas, was nineteen when he first met Clyde Barrow, chained at the neck in the rear of a transport truck bound for the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville. Both were then assigned to Eastham where the brutal conditions, substantiated by a 1935 state investigation, brought Fults and Barrow to the point of forming a pact to one day raid the prison farm. In Barrow’s own words to Fults, “I’d like to shoot all these damned guards and turn everybody loose.” Fults, initially unimpressed by the diminutive Barrow, later noted the change he witnessed. “I seen him change from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake. He got real bitter.” Fults interviews, March 8, 1981, and June 12, 1984. This is echoed by members of the Barrow family who noted a distinct difference in Barrow’s personality after his 1932 parole. According to his sister Marie, “Something awful sure must have happened to
him in prison, because he sure wasn’t the same person when he got out.” Marie Barrow interview, September 25, 1993. See also, Fortune,
Fugitives
, 90.

On April 19, 1932, Ralph Fults and Bonnie Parker were captured near Kemp, Texas, after a brief gun battle that included Clyde Barrow. Barrow escaped. Some sources have asserted that Raymond Hamilton was with Barrow in Kaufman County, but the record is clear that is was Fults.
McKinney
(
Tex.
)
Daily Courier Gazette
, April 21, 1932;
Denton Record-Chronicle
, April 21, 1932. Eyewitnesses confirm this as well. Legg, letter to Phillips, September 1, 1982. In her unpublished memoir, Clyde’s mother incorrectly lists another outlaw, Ralph Alsup, as the man captured in Kaufman County along with Bonnie Parker. Alsup indeed ran with Clyde Barrow and Ralph Fults. He was part of the Lake Dallas Gang of 1932, but he wasn’t in Kaufman County on April 19, 1932. To distinguish him from Ralph Fults, Blanche Barrow referred to Alsup as the “other Ralph.” Blanche Barrow interview, November 3, 1984. In prison and in the underworld Alsup was known by the nickname “Fuzz,” because of his short haircut. Fults interview, February 1, 1981.

Later statements by Blanche and others contradict her assertion here that Clyde abandoned Fults in Kaufman County. At the time, Barrow and Fults had a gang with four other members at a hideout on Lake Dallas (Lake Lewisville today). When Fults was shot, Barrow made a break for it with the idea of returning with the others and staging a jailbreak. In 1980, while reading an account of the shoot-out that stated Clyde had abandoned Bonnie and that she was angry about it, Ralph Fults said, “Oh bull! We knew Clyde would go get them other guys and come back for us.” Fults interview, November 5, 1980. This is born out by eyewitness Walter M. Legg, Jr., who was part of the posse that captured Parker and Fults and who stated, “they [Parker and Fults] were real cool and not at all upset.” Legg, letter to Phillips, September 1, 1982. Barrow made at least two trips to the Kaufman County jail, one with Blanche, to reassure Parker and Fults. Blanche Barrow interview, September 24, 1984; Fults interview, February 1, 1981. Fults remembered LC Barrow visiting once as well. See Phillips,
Running with Bonnie and Clyde
, 87–95, for the full story.

40.
Jones later said, “He [Clyde] didn’t mean to do Buck no harm. He just couldn’t see that far ahead.” Of Blanche, he said, “She was a good little girl—good-hearted. She begged Buck not to go. She slipped into a trap. Blanche was just an innocent little girl who got mixed up in something—a love affair. I never knew that love could be so strong.” Jones, interview by Biffle, June 1969.

41.
Some have suggested that Buck Barrow “was virtually an alcoholic.” Milner,
Lives and Times of Bonnie and Clyde
, 10.

42.
Prohibition was still in effect in many states, including Texas, although the new Roosevelt administration had already brought about the legalization of 3.2 percent beer and was moving to repeal prohibition altogether. Gordon and Gordon,
American Chronicle
, 315. Blanche Barrow’s mother, Lillian, and her husband, Reg Horton, were evidently heavy drinkers. In at least one letter to her mother, Blanche makes reference to such: “You may not have taken one drink this year, but I bet you have drunk a half-gallon a day. Ha.” Blanche
Barrow, letter to her mother, January 29, 1936. And to Horton she writes, “Mr. Horton, I bet you stayed safe this Xmas, and I know you have stayed drinking.” Blanche Barrow, letter to her mother, January 14, 1933.

Chapter 4.
Joplin

1.
Dallas Daily Times-Herald
, 1, 4, 5, 26, and 30, 1933.

2.
Ibid., April 10, 13, and 20, 1933; Tobin,
Great Projects
, 138–51.

3.
Andrist,
American Heritage History
, 212.

4.
Dallas Daily Times-Herald
, April 3, 1933.

5.
Fairbury
(
Neb.
)
News
, April 4, 1933;
Sunday World-Herald Magazine
, March 30, 1969;
Dallas Daily Times-Herald
, April 14, 1933.

6.
The title to the Marmon was one of the many items recovered after the Joplin shoot-out. The fact that Beaty’s name was associated with the car created some tense moments for the Dallas mechanic. However, when Jopin authorities contacted the Dallas police department, Will Fritz, at the time a detective lieutenant, confirmed that ownership of the car had indeed been legally transferred to Buck Barrow on March 29, 1933. Beaty was in the clear.
Joplin
(
Mo.
)
Globe
, April 16, 1933.

7.
Elvin “Jack” Barrow, the first of the Barrows to move to Dallas, worked at a shop located at 3214 Forest Avenue (today, Martin Luther King Boulevard).
Worley’s City Directory
, 1931, 1933–34.

8.
According to W. D. Jones, Clyde was also very fond of hot chocolate and marshmallows. “And that’s a pretty good deal right there!” Jones added. Jones, interview by Biffle, June 1969. See also Fortune,
Fugitives
, 156.

9.
Despite their many robberies, Jones said they were often so broke that they frequently had to “postpone” meals. “Sometimes we didn’t even have enough to get a cup of coffee or a doughnut,” he said. Jones, interview by Biffle, June 1969.

10.
The statement, “I hoped that Buck and I would never be like that again,” is revealing. It implies, as Blanche later confirmed, that there was much more to the story of her relationship with Buck prior to his return to prison than had been previously stated. While Clyde was at Eastham, Blanche accompanied Buck on a series of robberies before she and Cumie Barrow were finally able to convince him to surrender and finish serving the rest of his prison term. Blanche Barrow interviews, September 24 and November 18, 1984. During that period Blanche and Buck hid at a number of locations, including the farm of Barrow’s uncle Jim Muckleroy in Martinsville, Texas. U.S. Department of Justice, memo to Doug Walsh, Dallas police department, May 4, 1933.

11.
Blanche always used the abbreviation “Sol” when referring to the game of solitaire. It is not clear if this term was actually meant as an abbreviation, or whether it was a nickname for the game, perhaps popularly used in the day or merely personal to her. Nevertheless, for clarity it was changed to the complete spelling here and in nearly every other instance by the editor.

12.
The address of the apartment was 3347½ Oak Ridge Drive. The apartment’s owner, Paul Freeman, stated that two women and a man rented the
house, adding that one of the women said her husband was J. W. Callahan, a civil engineer from Minnesota, and that the other woman was her sister.
Joplin
(
Mo.
)
Globe
, April 14, 1933.

Clyde Barrow did not choose Joplin at random. It was known then as “a wide-open town,” used by members of the underworld like Pretty Boy Floyd, the Barker brothers, and Alvin Karpis as a safe haven. Hounschell,
Lawmen and
, 45–48;
Joplin
(
Mo.
)
Globe
, October 1, 1967; Penland, “Bonnie and Clyde,”
Joplin
(
Mo.
)
Metropolitan
, March 1985. However, Joplin was not controlled by the underworld. Law enforcement appears to have been very capable and incorrupt there. It seems that Joplin was a popular outlaw haven because of location. It was a fair-sized town that happened to be minutes from the Oklahoma and Kansas state lines. Hounschell, e-mail to Phillips, February 4, 2002.