Bonnie and Clyde- A Twenty-First-Century Update

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Bonnie and Clyde- A Twenty-First-Century Update Page 3

by James R Knight


  The Barrows’ house contained only the barest essentials and consisted of just a few bedrooms. There was no kitchen, so Cumie had to cook and wash outside. Many people who are reading this account have undoubtedly seen the frequently published photo of the old Barrow filling station on the Eagle Ford Road in west Dallas. The structure built on the campground was moved to the Eagle Ford Road location first, and the filling station was added later. It would be eight or ten years after the move to Dallas before the service station was in full operation. Henry and Cumie’s bedroom was at the front of this house. Marie’s bedroom was across from her parents’ room, and L. C.’s bedroom was behind hers. When Clyde came to the campground to stay with them, he shared L. C.’s room.

  Even though they lived in what they considered a city environment, life was still hard. There were no nonessentials. At Christmastime, Cumie was able to get a few gifts, along with some apples and oranges, from the Salvation Army, and sometimes clothes as well. For most of the families on the campground, these kinds of things made a huge difference.

  While the younger Barrow kids were growing up during the middle and late 1920s, the older brothers and sisters were making their way in the world. Jack and his wife were raising their family of four girls on Forest Avenue, and Nell and Artie continued with their beauty parlor business, but Buck’s life seemed to be going from bad to worse.

  In 1920, when he was seventeen, Buck married Margaret Heneger. Twins boys were born from this marriage, but one of the children died when he was five months old.1 According to Mrs. Barrow, it wasn’t long after the twin’s death that Buck found a new girlfriend, named Pearl. Predictably, Margaret took a dim view of the situation, filed for divorce, and left, taking the surviving son.

  In addition to indulging his eye for the ladies, Buck had other unfortunate habits. Back on the farm, Buck had begun raising fighting roosters and fighting dogs. After he moved to the city, Buck continued to keep them in west Dallas, and one of these fighting dogs caused some trouble for Marie. This particular dog was a ferocious pit bull so ill tempered that no one except Buck could even get close to it, but he sometimes tied it up at the side of his parents’ house. One day Marie was outside playing ball. She got too close to this dog and it went after her. Luckily, she was not close enough for the dog to actually knock her down and maul her, but it did rip a large part of her dress. Henry and Cumie were already concerned about Buck’s involvement in dogfights and cockfights, so after this incident, Cumie banned all of Buck’s animals from the premises.

  Buck and his girlfriend Pearl married, and his parents hoped that his life would change for the better. It did look that way for a while, especially when a little girl was born. Unfortunately, the restlessness that seemed to be ingrained in his personality took over again, and his second marriage ended much like the first, with Pearl taking the little girl and leaving.2

  Buck gravitated from job to job, but there always seemed to be something a little shady about whatever he did. Before he first got married, he was in the poultry business, buying and selling chickens. Unlike a cow, which you can brand, a “rustled” chicken is a lot harder to spot, which probably suited Buck just fine. Then he got involved in the peddling business with some other young men in west Dallas. He bought some brass at an extremely low price. Of course, he claimed he knew nothing about the source of the scrap metal. In fact, it turned out to be stolen, and the police were actively investigating the theft. The cops caught up with the purloined metal when Buck had it in his possession, and he was arrested. From that point on, the police began to keep an eye on Marvin “Buck” Barrow.

  Marie Barrow said there was a marked difference in the personalities of her four brothers. Both Buck and L. C. were more hot tempered and pugnacious than were Jack and Clyde. She didn’t think her brothers ever really looked for trouble. It just seemed that Buck and L. C. were always there when it appeared. Of course, neither Buck nor L. C. believed in backing down.

  While Buck was rambling around, Clyde was still moving between his parents’ home on the campground and Uncle Frank’s farm. Marie said that when their parents moved into Dallas, Clyde had finished the sixth grade, and it was during the years on the campground that she really got to know him. She was, of course, the “little sister”—nine years younger than Clyde—and looked up to him. She remembers Clyde during this period of time as a completely good and normal brother, but, of course, she wasn’t aware of everything he might have been doing.

  Children sitting on steps. This picture is from a collection of photos originally owned by Dorothy Anderson and was taken in west Dallas in the early 1920s. Dorothy Anderson is the girl third from the left on the top row. Nell Barrow is on the top row, far right. On the first row, second from the left, is L. C. Barrow. Fourth from the left is Clyde Barrow. In between the Barrow brothers is Walter Howard, a boyhood friend.

  —Courtesy Jonathan Davis

  Clyde and L. C. were the older brothers whom Marie really grew up knowing. Jack and Buck were already out on their own by the time she was aware of everybody. In fact, she was about the same age as a couple of Jack’s daughters, although she was their aunt. Marie said that she and Clyde did a lot together during those years. There was even one time in the mid-1920s when they got seriously ill together with typhoid fever. The two kids—along with their father, who was also sick—were taken to Parkland Hospital.

  Elvin W. “Jack” Barrow, in gag photo, 1913.

  —Courtesy the Bob Fischer/Renay Stanard collection

  One of Clyde’s ambitions, during his teens, was to be a musician. He liked music, and his family thought he showed a real talent for it. He could play just about any instrument he picked up. Clyde could also sing and do a pretty good Charleston, which was the popular dance of the 1920s. Like many boys his age, Clyde was also fascinated with aviation. The pilots of that era seemed like heroes, and he used to go out to Love Field airport to watch the airplanes. Marie also remembers the old Bull Durham bags in which both Clyde and L. C. used to carry marbles. Like most boys of the time, both brothers loved the game.

  1.L. C. Barrow in gag photo, 1926.

  —Courtesy Bob Fischer/Renay Stanard collection

  2.“Buck” Barrow, on the right, in gag photo with unidentified friend, circa 1920.

  —Courtesy the Bob Fischer/ Renay Stanard collection

  When it came to school, Clyde and L. C. were typical west Dallas boys. Playing hooky was the neighborhood pastime. In the country, it was expected that farm children would take time off from school in order to help with the planting and harvesting and a lot of the work in between. This was understood by all parties involved, so absences were not particularly noted. If a child decided to take an extra day or two off in order to spend some time on his own, it wasn’t considered anything to get excited about. In Dallas, however, the brothers found the attitude of the school authorities much more severe concerning absenteeism. Clyde and L. C. had to learn to keep an eye out for the truant officer when they decided the day was too nice to be spent within the confines of a classroom.

  Even though the two boys were quickly learning how to get along in the big city, they soon found out that they weren’t the only ones who were learning the system. Clyde, L. C., and little Marie were supposed to walk part of the way together before separating to go to their own schools, but Clyde and L. C. frequently had other plans. The brothers would go off on their own just as soon as they were outside their neighborhood, leaving little sister to go on to school by herself. To ensure that she wouldn’t tell their mother, they tried to buy her off with a quarter, but Marie drove a hard bargain. She knew she had the upper hand, so, in addition to the quarter, she held out for “bicycle rights” from L. C., which meant that he had to agree to let her ride his bike whenever she wanted.

  Even though, as a little sister, Marie couldn’t have known all the people Clyde ran around with, she still believed that there was a lot of false information about whom he did and didn’t know as he was growing up
. Marie said that Clyde did not know either Floyd Hamilton or Raymond Hamilton during the 1920s, and that may or may not be true. In later years, Floyd Hamilton told stories about how he knew Clyde at the Cedar Valley School, but Marie contends that the only school Clyde ever attended in Dallas was Sidney Lanier.

  Ted Hinton, the Dallas officer who was part of the posse that killed Bonnie and Clyde, said that he knew Clyde somewhat but that he was better acquainted with both Buck and Mr. and Mrs. Barrow. Marie remembers Ted as a good man who later helped members of her family but can’t recall ever seeing him around much during those years. She doesn’t remember Buck ever mentioning him and feels sure that he never came to visit her parents socially in the years before Clyde and Buck became wanted men.

  Finally, Marie says Clyde never knew Bonnie Parker while he was growing up. The only connection between the two of them was indirect. One of Clyde’s closest friends in west Dallas was named Clarence Clay. Clarence’s sister later married a boy named Hubert “Buster” Parker, who was Bonnie’s older brother. While the Clays and the Parkers may have had some contact, the Barrows and the Parkers did not.

  Henry and Cumie Barrow and Marie Barrow Francis. Taken while they were traveling with Charles Stanley’s “Crime Does Not Pay” show. Late 1934.

  —Courtesy Marie Barrow Scoma and author Phillip W. Steele

  Clyde Barrow with his two older sisters, Nell, left, and Artie, right. Probably taken about 1927.

  —Courtesy Marie Barrow Scoma and author Phillip W. Steele

  In 1934, Bonnie Parker wrote the following verse as part of her poem “The End of the Line “ (later known as “The Story of Bonnie and Clyde”):

  From Irving to West Dallas viaduct

  Is known as the Great Divide,

  Where the women are kin,

  And the men are men,

  And they won’t stool on Bonnie and Clyde.

  Of course, this verse was a bit of social commentary on the neighborhood where many of the kids who later became well-known fugitives were raised.

  The west Dallas viaduct was indeed “Great Divide.” In terms of actual geographical distance, west Dallas was only a couple of miles from the office buildings and businesses of downtown Dallas, but in socioeconomic terms, west Dallas was light-years away. In fact, the area of west Dallas, although it bore the name of the city, was not formally incorporated into the surrounding metropolis until the early 1950s, thirty years after the Barrow family moved into the area.

  The area of west Dallas was actually county territory under the jurisdiction of the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office, but this small detail didn’t stop the Dallas city police from coming out and rounding up “the usual suspects” when a crime against property was committed in the city. The city police just automatically assumed that some boy from west Dallas was probably involved in the robbery or burglary, and many times, of course, they were right. Marie Barrow, however, remembers west Dallas as a decent place that was a lot more civilized than it was generally given credit for being, and that crime there was a lot less plentiful than commonly believed. Not surprisingly, the police had a different opinion.

  Times were hard, and the people who lived in the west Dallas area were realists; they knew that they were regarded as being from “the wrong side of the tracks.” They looked out for one another and helped their neighbors when hard times or illness or death struck a family, and they also tended to close ranks against the police when they came looking for one of their own. The bad reputation of west Dallas in the early 1930s was such that one of its nicer nicknames was “Little Cicero,” after Al Capone’s neighborhood near Chicago. It was also known as “The Bog” and “The Devil’s Back Porch.”

  By 1926, Clyde was seventeen years old and was spending most of his time in west Dallas. He had discovered girls, and he needed money if he was going to be able to dress well and take them out. Marie remembers Clyde first working at the Brown Cracker and Candy Company in Dallas for one dollar a day. He then moved on to Procter & Gamble, where he made better money—thirty cents an hour.1 Clyde’s third job was with the United Glass Company, where for two years he worked as a glazier.

  Pay receipt from Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Company signed by Clyde Barrow. It shows $18 pay for sixty hours’ work— thirty cents an hour.

  —Courtesy Sandy Jones– The John Dillinger Historical Society

  Eleanor Bee Williams, Clyde’s girlfriend, with Clyde and his two older sisters, Artie and Nell, circa 1927.

  —Courtesy Bob Fischer/Renay Stanard collection

  For many years, the Barrow family kept in its possession a piece of Clyde’s work during his period of employment at United Glass. It was a mirror with “EBW” inscribed on its handle, the initials of Clyde’s first serious girlfriend. Her name was Eleanor Williams, and Clyde had made the mirror for her as a gift.2 Whatever Clyde had been involved in before, his relationship with Eleanor brought about his first serious brush with the law. What follows represents Marie’s version of the story:

  Even though Clyde and Eleanor considered themselves secretly engaged, like all young lovers, they had a fight, and, a few days later, she went to east Texas to stay with relatives. Before long, Clyde was sorry and wanted to make up, so he devised a scheme to give Eleanor’s mother a ride over to see the same relatives. Clyde didn’t have a car to drive, but he managed to rent one under his own name and address, agreeing to return it on a specific date. Clyde and Eleanor’s mother drove into east Texas, where there was a happy reunion between the three of them. Things were going so well that they stayed a little longer than expected. Meanwhile, the return time had passed, and the owner of the rented car reported it to the police as stolen. When Clyde and the two women returned to Dallas, they ran right into trouble. The matter was sorted out in short order and Clyde received no sentence once the authorities determined that no criminal intent was involved, but the Dallas police began to show an interest in Clyde.

  So goes the story, as Marie told it in later years, but it didn’t happen quite that way. Clyde did rent the car, but he didn’t mention that he planned to take it out of town. That would have required a bigger deposit. When it became overdue, the agency contacted the Barrow family and were told the family’s name in Broaddus, Texas, where Clyde had gone. Before long, the local sheriff’s deputies were knocking on the door, asking for Clyde. Instead of trying to explain, Clyde ran away and hid, so they took the car and left. Eleanor’s mother was not impressed with her prospective son-in-law, and so, if there ever had been an engagement, it was off.

  Mug shot of Clyde Chestnut Barrow, 17 years old. Taken following his arrest in Dallas, Texas, December 3, 1926, for auto theft.

  —From the collections of the Texas/Dallas History and Archives Division, Dallas Public Library

  Clyde Barrow and Eleanor Bee Williams, summer 1926. Eleanor is on Clyde’s right, wearing the hat. The girl on Clyde’s left is Lela Heslep, Eleanor’s first cousin. Notice Clyde standing on the lower rail of the bridge so he won’t seem shorter than the girls.

  —Courtesy Shirley Chesney, daughter of Lela Heslep

  Clyde hitchhiked back to Dallas and was arrested on December 3, 1926. It was at this point that the first and most often reproduced mug shot of Clyde Barrow was taken. It shows the seventeen-year-old with the Dallas number 6048 over his head. Since the rental agency got the car back, they eventually dropped the charges.3 Clyde and Eleanor continued to see each other secretly for a while, but eventually their romance died out and Eleanor gave Clyde’s mirror back to him. This mirror remained in his mother’s wooden chest for well over six decades until it was recently sold at auction.

  Clyde’s second brush with the law occurred just after his arrest because of the rental car, but this affair also involved his older brother. Buck Barrow was still dealing in poultry on the side and told Clyde that he had the chance to get a carload of turkeys cheap—just in time for the holidays. Knowing that Clyde needed the money (or maybe wanting a partner), Buck offered to
cut him in on the deal. Both these boys had long since become streetwise, so believing that they didn’t suspect that the turkeys were stolen is very difficult, but that’s the story they told.

  Membership card for the Metropolitan Recreation Club of Dallas, Texas, for 1929. Signed by Clyde Barrow.

  —Courtesy Sandy Jones–The John Dillinger Historical Society

  If the two Barrow boys ever believed that the turkey deal was legitimate, the police told them otherwise when they were stopped and charged with possession of stolen goods. Clyde was released, and Buck, who took all the blame, was given what amounted to a slap on the wrist, but the incident confirmed the two brothers’ place on the Dallas County Sheriff’s list of suspected criminals. The police now began to pick up both Buck and Clyde regularly for questioning when anything happened in the city of Dallas.

  Marie seemed to believe that her brothers were innocent victims of someone else’s schemes. More likely, her brothers, twenty-three and seventeen years old, were into a lot more than their eight-year-old sister realized. Also, by telling this story, Marie gives at least some credibility to the book she denounced so often, since the story of the stolen turkeys appears there first—credited to her sister Nell. Fugitives also reports that Buck took the blame and served a week in jail.4

  After the arrest in connection with the stolen turkeys, Clyde was not formally arrested for a number of months, although he was regularly picked up for questioning regarding what others had done. Clyde tried to continue with his regular jobs. After spending two years with the United Glass Company, he worked at the Bama Pie Company with his sister Nell’s husband. Clyde’s last regular job was with the A & K Top and Paint Shop. As far as Marie knew, Clyde never had any trouble with his jobs, was never suspected of stealing anything from any employer, and was never fired.

 

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