My Life with Bonnie and Clyde (46 page)

20.
For a grim first-person look at the gritty reality of a condemned person waiting to be executed, see Umphrey,
Meanest Man in Texas
, 74–96. For the ritual procedures of execution in Texas, see Marquart, Ekland-Olson, and Sorenson,
The Rope
, 30–37.

21.
The Barrow brothers broke into the First State Bank of Okabena the night before the robbery and hid out until morning, just as they had done in Lucerne, Indiana. Early on the morning of May 19, bank president Sam Frederickson and cashier R. M. Jones arrived and began preparations for the day’s business. At some point the Barrow brothers revealed themselves to Fredrickson and Jones and ordered them into the vault. As one of the brothers loaded money into a container, the other watched for customers, herding a total of eight into the vault along with the two bank employees. During the robbery a young woman named Cleo Atz happened to walk by the bank and see what was happening. She ran next door and told her father, August Atz, who owned and operated a hardware store there. Atz took a loaded pistol and stepped out his back door to the street that ran behind the hardware store and bank. He then hid behind a wooden toolshed. A car containing two women that had been parked nearby, pulled up to the back door of the bank. When the Barrow brothers emerged from the bank, Atz opened fire. He only succeeded in blowing out the rear glass of the car, however. The brothers (one source says a woman as well) returned fire with machine guns, probably Browning automatic rifles. The toolshed was ripped apart but Atz was unhurt. The brothers then jumped in the car and it lurched forward. Before leaving Okabena, however, the bandits made a loop around the square, spraying the town with machine gun fire. Some shots reportedly “went straight through the hotel.” Witnesses saw a man and at least one of the two women handling weapons in the car.
Minneapolis Journal
, May 19, 1933;
Fairmont (Minn.) Daily Sentinel
, May 19, 1933; Boucher,
Jackson County (Minn.) History, vol. II
, 119–20. As was the case in Lucerne, Indiana, it is quite probable that Blanche was the driver of the car that pulled up behind the bank, despite her assertion that she and Bonnie waited outside of town during the robbery. We have already seen that Blanche was a bit of a virtuoso at the wheel.

22.
The take from the Okabena robbery varies from source to source. The
Okabena Press
on May 25 reported around $1,400 stolen. On May 19, the
Fairmont (Minn.) Daily Sentinel
listed the amount as $2,500. So does Fortune. Fortune,
Fugitives
, 163. Cumie Barrow wrote that her sons stole $1,600 in Okabena, $700 of it in silver dollars. Cumie Barrow, unpublished manuscript. Petty thieves Anthony Strain and his wife, Mildred, were arrested in Sioux City, Iowa, and charged with the Okabena robbery. Shortly thereafter, Strain’s brother Floyd was arrested in South Dakota and also charged with the robbery. Vehemently protesting their innocence, all three received forty-year sentences. Boucher,
Jackson County (Minn.) History
, vol. II, 119–20.

According to W. D. Jones, there really was not a lot of money in those small-town banks during the Great Depression. Jones, “Riding with Bonnie and Clyde,” 162. And many outlaws, including Clyde Barrow, Raymond Hamilton,
and Ralph Fults had each tried to rob banks that had gone out of business. To Barrow there seemed to be too much risk for too little gain. However, the following year, in 1934, Barrow staged at least six daylight bank robberies: in Rembrandt, Iowa, on January 23; in Poteau, Oklahoma on January 25; in Knierim, Iowa on February 1; in Lancaster, Texas, on February 27; in Stuart, Iowa, on April 16; and in Everly, Iowa, on May 3. Of those robberies only one was in Texas, perhaps for good reason. Despite fierce opposition from such figures as Texas Ranger Captain Frank Hamer, since 1928 the Texas State Bankers Association had offered a reward of “$5,000.00 for Dead Bank Robbers—Not One Cent for Live Ones.”
Dallas Morning News
, March 13, 1928. Each of the association’s 1,000 member banks contributed $5 toward these rewards. In the space of six years $35,000 in rewards had been paid out.
Dallas Daily Times-Herald
, January 12, 1933. Even though some of the killings were later proved to be nothing more than frame-ups and murders for the reward, the Texas Bankers Association refused to withdraw the offer. One such case occurred in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1930 when four men were charged with framing two supposed bank robbers during a fictitious robbery of the Polytechnic Bank.
Dallas Daily Times-Herald
, April 17, 1930.

23.
Apparently this was a fairly common method used by fugitives to dispose of cars (and the evidence therein). Following the robbery of the bank at Ash Grove, Missouri (mentioned by Barrow, Parker, and Jones to Springfield motorcycle officer Tom Persell after his abduction on January 26, 1933), the burned-out hulk of a Ford V-8 sedan believed used in the robbery was discovered four miles from Springfield, Missouri.
Springfield (Mo.) Press
, January 13, 1933. Clyde Barrow and Ralph Fults similarly burned a car in north Texas in April of 1932. See Phillips,
Running with Bonnie and Clyde
, 77–78.

24.
According to Cumie Barrow, $700 of the $1,600 taken from the First State Bank in Okabena, Minnesota, consisted of silver dollars. Cumie Barrow, unpublished manuscript.

25.
Three of Clyde Barrow’s cohorts in crime described him as very quiet, calm, and thoughtful. Fults interview, November 5, 1980; Hammett interview, February 20, 1982; Jones, interview by Biffle, June 1968. Fults had a mixed view of Buck. He once described him as “solemn, sullen.” Fults interview, May 21, 1983. However, on another occassion Fults, who considred himself hotheaded in those days, remembered Buck as quiet and easygoing. Fults interview, November 12, 1980. Jones said Buck was “hot-headed.” Jones, interview by Biffle, June 1968. Buck’s sister Marie said of him, “Buck was the meanest, most hot-tempered kid you ever saw. He’d fight at the drop of a hat.” Marie Barrow interview, April 19, 1995.

26.
Here Blanche first wrote, then crossed out the following: “He would have gotten me first because I wouldn’t have been quick enough to shoot him face-to-face. And I would never have shot him in the back, even if he was a dirty rat and would as soon shoot someone in the back as face them. But then, if he had shot Buck and I managed to shoot him, Bonnie would have shot me anyway.”

Chapter 7.
Mother’s Day

1.
That would be Monday, May 15, 1933, three days after the attempted bank robbery in Lucerne, Indiana, and four days before the successful robbery of the First State Bank in Okabena, Minnesota.

2.
The bus driver’s concern reinforces the observation of some of Blanche’s friends that because she was so petite men felt compelled to protect her and watch over her. Linder and Weiser interviews, October 5, 2002.

3.
In a letter four months earlier, Blanche had complained to her mother that she was “as fat as a pig,” adding, “I weigh 114½. I am getting so fat. I can’t wear my clothes. Guess I will have to reduce to get in some of them.” Blanche Barrow letter to mother, January 14, 1933, quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 25–26.

4.
In the 1933 city directory Elvin, or “Jack,” as he was known, is listed as residing at 1308 Second Avenue, which does not exist anymore.

5.
Apparently the families of these fugitives, particularly the mothers, remained very close throughout this period and for years afterward. Cumie Barrow and Emma Parker called each other frequently and invited each other over for visits on a regular basis. And their concern for Alice Davis, Raymond Hamilton’s mother, is also evident. When Hamilton was captured in April 1934, Emma asked Cumie in a phone conversation, “How is his mother?” Dallas Police Department telephone wiretap transcript, April 27, 1934, 49; April 29, 1934, 64. Blanche’s mother, at the time Lillian Horton, was a part of that circle as well, even long after Buck’s death and Blanche’s imprisonment. This is indicated in a number of Blanche’s prison letters, quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 31–33, 38, 45–46, 49–51, and 55–56.

6.
By then Nell was divorced from Leon Hale, the musician who taught Clyde to play saxophone, and had married Luther J. Cowan. Cowan was a barber who met Nell when she was a beautician at May’s Barber Shop and Beauty Parlor at 4907 Ross Avenue in Dallas. By 1933 they were both living at the Sanger Hotel and Apartments at 717 South Ervay and working at the Sanger Hotel Barber and Beauty Shop.
Worley’s Dallas (Tex.) City Directory
1931, 1933–34. “Just ‘LC’ is all I ever knew.” Marie Barrow interview, September 15, 1993.

7.
Cumie Barrow, who suspected a police wiretap on her phone, was circumspect in her calls. In a Dallas police wiretap transcript covering a thirteen-day period in April 1934 there are a number of cryptic remarks made by Cumie Barrow that her descendants have identified as references to, or inquiries about Bonnie and Clyde. References to “the Howards” and “cooking beans,” appearing throughout the transcript, are said to be veiled references to “the kids,” as they were called. Also, a slight variation to a rural Texas colloquialism was another reference. The caller would sometimes lead with, “Do you know anything?” Even today this phrase is still used by rural Texans to spark a conversation, but from the mouths of Cumie Barrow and Emma Parker it sometimes meant something else. Once, one of the Barrows’ older daughters called Cumie and asked if she knew anything. Cumie remained silent for several seconds, then said, “Come over.” Just a few minutes before, Cumie had done
the same thing to Emma Parker, telling her, “Come over. I have something to tell you.” Dallas Police Department telephone wiretap transcript, April 30, 1934, 65. Sometimes the references weren’t so veiled. “Say, do you know what we were talking about down in the cafe today? Well, they are going to leave early in the morning.” Dallas Police Department telephone wiretap transcript, April 19, 1934, 13. Everyone apparently kept close to the radio and scanned the papers carefully, frequently calling the four Dallas dailies to inquire about “extras.” Emma Parker once called Cumie Barrow to ask if she was listening to the radio, that the police were in the midst of a running gunfight with three men who had abandoned their car and were on foot in the Trinity River bottoms. Dallas Police Department telephone wiretap transcript, April 18, 1934, 11. That incident had nothing to do with Bonnie and Clyde as it turned out, but another telephone call did. A friend of the Barrows called to tell Cumie that he had been at the Dallas police headquarters checking on the status of his own brother who had been arrested when he overheard officers in another room talking about a gunfight in Highland Park, a city which at the time bordered Dallas to the north. Bonnie and Clyde, traveling at their usual high rate of speed, had passed a police car on Lover’s Lane and had then run through a stop sign. When the police pursued them, they were fired on with a machine gun. The incident was reported in the papers the following day, but the part about the shooting was omitted. Dallas Police Department telephone wiretap transcript, April 26, 1934, 43–46;
Dallas Daily Times-Herald
, May 27, 1934.

8.
In
Fugitives
, Nell is presented as the eyewitness narrator of the events of the meeting near Commerce, Texas. Fortune,
Fugitives
, 156–63.

9.
According to Blanche, Clyde Barrow felt very safe in this part of Texas, especially in or around Paris because of its proximity to the Oklahoma line and the host of back roads honeycombing the area. Blanche Barrow, quoted in Weiser interview, April 18, 2003. Cumie Barrow was also known to have inquired at least once about train passage to Paris, Texas. Dallas Police Department telephone wiretap transcript, April 18, 1934, 8. Blanche herself had a relative, Ruby Caldwell, living in Gilmer, Texas, north of Tyler.

10.
It is not known when and where the first attempt to contact Floyd took place. However, they apparently had met at least once prior to the encounter mentioned by Blanche, although it is thought the outlaws never worked together on any robberies. In June 1933 both Clyde and Buck tried again to find Floyd, after the wreck near Wellington, Texas, in which Bonnie Parker was so severely burned. The Barrows were hoping Floyd could provide a safe hideout where Bonnie could recuperate. But they never located him. It was later, after he and Parker were wounded in November of that same year, that Clyde Barrow finally met up with Floyd. Floyd, or members of his family, found an underworld doctor for them. Cumie Barrow, unpublished manuscript; Marie Barrow interview, August 24, 1984.

11.
According to W. D. Jones, two aspects of this story are atypical of Clyde Barrow. Although Jones was not a witness to this specific incident, he was with Barrow constantly for several months and during that time Barrow
never used his real name, especially when talking to a stranger, as with the filling-station attendant in Sallisaw, and Jones never saw Barrow drunk. Although he admitted they all drank from time to time, even Clyde, Jones said, “I never did see him [Clyde] drunk, drunk enough not to be sensible. No, I never seen him like that.” Jones, interview by Biffle, June 1968. Ralph Fults echoed this, adding, “Clyde hated dope! He didn’t drink and didn’t smoke either, at least not while I was with him. He didn’t even like to drink coffee!” Fults also remarked about pseudonyms, saying Clyde used names like “Bud” and “Jack Sherman,” among others. Fults used them as well. Fults interview, December 10, 1980.

12.
According to her sister, Bonnie Parker apparently stuck to small talk during these meetings—local gossip, clothes, hair styles, and food. “She was very evasive about other things.” Billie Jean Parker Moon, unpublished hand-written observations.

13.
Blanche apparently continued to like boots and riding pants, wearing them frequently late in life. Weiser interview, April 18, 2003.

14.
The time and circumstances of this meeting have been related elsewhere with confusing and contradictory details. Buck’s mother described a meeting with Bonnie and Clyde and Blanche and Buck on the driveway outside of the family filling station in West Dallas. She wrote that the meeting took place “three days after Mother’s Day,” May 17, and then closes the passage by writing, “I never saw Buck but one more time after that until he was shot” (in Platte City, Missouri, on July 19, 1933). Cumie Barrow, unpublished manuscript. However, on the very same page of her own manuscript, Cumie Barrow contradicts herself by writing that after the Okabena robbery, on May 19, five days after Mother’s Day, “Clyde and Buck came by the house . . . every three or four weeks.” Fortune has the meeting near Commerce taking place “on the Wednesday after Mother’s Day,” May 17, the same day as the meeting described above by Cumie Barrow. The events of the Commerce meeting, according to Fortune, are narrated by Nell and at least one incident related by the fugitives to their families that day would not happen until later—the robbery of the First State Bank of Okabena, Minnesota, on Friday, May 19, 1933. Fortune,
Fugitives
, 156–63;
Fairmont (Minn.) Daily Sentinel
, May 19, 1933. However, as we have seen, Fortune actually describes the events of the attempted robbery of the Lucerne State Bank, Lucerne, Indiana, on May 12, 1933, the previous Friday, but identifies it as the robbery of the First State Bank of Okabena, Minnesota. Fortune,
Fugitives
, 163;
Fairmont (Minn.) Daily Sentinel
, May 19, 1933;
Pharos-Tribune
, May 12, 1933. Blanche wrote that she arrived in Dallas on the Monday after Mother’s Day, May 15 and that the Commerce meeting took place that same afternoon. She also emphasizes the fact that Nell refused to go to the meeting at all. However if, as the author writes, the visit in Commerce was the only trip the fugitives made to Texas in May, then when did Cumie Barrow see Buck “one more time after that”? And why did she follow that statement with the contradiction that after Okabena her sons “came by the house . . . every three or four weeks”? Did the meeting on the driveway
happen exactly as Cumie Barrow suggests? Perhaps not, unless Blanche is mistaken, which may be the case. The May 1933 time frame is confusing in nearly every source, including Blanche’s own manuscript. But still, it may be that Cumie Barrow is simply confused about the date and that the meeting she describes actually occurred in late April and is the same one referred to earlier by Blanche, the visit made immediately following the abductions in Ruston, Louisiana. Moreover, in the next chapter Blanche indicates that she and the other three fugitives spent nearly all day and most of the night of the May 17 camped on a riverbank in Mississippi.