Living in a home with three young boys was a noisy proposition that prepared McFarland for almost any decibel level of sound—but it did not prepare him for the constant din of jail. Behind bars, the voices never stopped shouting in his ears. The thumps and bangs of masses of men crowded into confined spaces beat like a drum in his head. The slamming of metal doors reverberated in his ears long after the entry was shut.
4
Oxford, Mississippi, was home base for Mary Elizabeth Mitchell’s family. In fact, her great-grandfather, T. D. Isom, founded the town and was a leader in the establishment of the University of Mississippi—“Ole Miss”—there. Mary Elizabeth’s parents moved to St. Louis for a while, where she was born. Then they moved back to their home state.
Mary Elizabeth was not a typical young woman of the 1930s. After high school, she continued her education at Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi, and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from the University of Mississippi in Oxford in 1940. From there, she pursued a master’s degree in social work from Tulane University in New Orleans.
Huck Smith’s family hailed from Indianola, Mississippi, southwest of Oxford. His dad was 68 years old when Huck was born. He was just 8 years old when his father died and his mother moved the family back to her hometown of New Orleans.
After getting his undergraduate degree in accounting from Loyola, Huck went to law school at Tulane during the day. By night, he worked as a transcriber for the FBI. It was here in the Big Easy that Miss Minnie—Huck’s cousin and Mary Elizabeth’s friend—introduced the couple. They were married in June of 1942.
Huck left law school to work full-time for the FBI and Mary Elizabeth never got around to writing her dissertation. Huck’s job transfers moved them to Seattle, Los Angeles and finally, St. Louis. The couple endeared themselves to family and friends. Huck loved to entertain others with his jokes and storytelling. Mary Elizabeth, with her natural proclivity for organization, shared her skills and tips with anyone who was interested. Visitors to their home always felt welcome. Huck and Mary Elizabeth dropped everything to make sure their guests had a good time.
By the time they moved to the St. Louis area in 1956, they had three children: Harley, Ann and Pete. Their fourth and final child was born on New Year’s Eve in 1958 when Mary Elizabeth was 40, Huck 48 and the other three children were 15, 13 and 11.
Mary Elizabeth loved the name Susan, so the first name of the new baby girl was not up for debate. The siblings lobbied for a middle name that started with an “O.” They wanted their little sister’s initials to spell out “S.O.S.” In the end, they lost that battle—the new addition to the family was Susan Burris Smith.
As she grew up, her brothers and sister would often tease her that she was an accident. She always quipped back, “No, I’m a bonus!” Huck, an FBI agent, received a letter of congratulations from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover upon the birth of his daughter. That letter would later be framed along with a picture of Huck and hung with pride in Susan’s own home.
Sue grew up on Newport Avenue in Webster Groves, Missouri. Older sister Ann got saddled with all the baby-sitting duty for her kid sister. In that era, watching over little ones was girls’ work and not something a red-blooded, all-American boy would even be asked to do. At times, Ann resented that her brothers did not have to share in the responsibility.
By the time Sue was three, Ann discovered that it was fun to spend time with her little sister. She was cute, easy-tempered and affectionate. Ann even took her along on dates on occasion. One time, Ann and a date had Sue along with them at Blackburn Park. Sue got a little bit annoying. Ann’s date picked her up, swung her around and dumped her in a trash can. Sue giggled with delight and the two teenagers laughed along with her.
As soon as Ann and Sue got in the front door, Sue made a beeline for her mother. “Mom, they put me in a trash can over there.”
Ratted out by her little sister. Ann thought she would never hear the end of that from her mother.
When Ann went off to college, she often had Sue up to spend the weekend. The other girls at the all-women’s school doted on Sue. It was like having a little pet around.
At the same time, Sue was enchanting her older sister’s friends, she was also developing a relationship with a younger relative. Sue’s brother Harley had a daughter, Kirsten, who was born five years after Sue. When Kirsten was 3, she was left with her grandmother—Sue’s mom, Mary Elizabeth—for a month and a half while her parents were overseas.
Mary Elizabeth told Sue she would give her a quarter if she would keep Kirsten entertained. Sue took her niece’s hand in hers and went off to play. A few minutes later she stomped back with her charge in tow. “Mom, I don’t want a quarter.”
It wasn’t a great relationship then, but as time passed the two girls grew as close as sisters. One of Kirsten’s favorite memories was the time she went to summer camp when she was 10 years old. Sue sent her a huge five-pound box of candy. After that shipment arrived, Kirsten was the most popular girl in the cabin.
Sue was 12 years old when her brother Pete married Debbie. Her new sister-in-law remembered an active, vivacious little girl who loved to play board games. Eight years later, when a divorced Debbie was visiting her parents in St. Louis, Sue threw the same enthusiasm into trying to set Debbie up with a date.
At the age of 13, a mutual friend introduced Sue to Sandy Rowe. The two girls went to different schools—Sue at Steger Junior High and Sandy at Hixson Junior High—but they became fast friends just the same. They were a regular sight at the bakery in Warson Woods, where they both got hooked on the oversized sugar cookies with bright yellow icing decorated with smiley faces. In tenth grade, they both attended Webster Groves High School and the girls became constant companions.
Sue worked as a lifeguard at hotel swimming pools in the summer. When the pools were not busy, Sandy would keep her company playing endless games of two-handed spades.
Sandy was drawn to Sue by her infectious joie de vivre— just being around her chased both blues and ennui away. Sue was active and energetic, always ready to go, go, go. Sitting around watching TV did not suit her. She wanted to fill every minute with fun. If Sandy was content to just hang out and do nothing, Sue wheedled, “C’mon, Sandy. C’mon,” till Sandy relented and never regretted doing so.
Sue and Sandy watched an endless stream of movies and shopped for hours on end. Sue loved tennis and tried in vain to teach Sandy, but her friend just couldn’t get the hang of it.
In addition to tennis and swimming, Sue loved ice skating at the community rink and was a hockey cheerleader in her sophomore and junior years. She liked less physical pursuits as well—serving on the Student Council and in the Pep and French Clubs.
She also was an avid reader. Sandy, like most of the students in Honors English was a reader, too. But she was in awe of Sue, who would race through one large paperback after another as if she were determined to read every book ever published.
At first blush, Sue Smith sounded like the perfect teenager. But she was no paragon of virtue. Her rebellious side drove her into verbal sparring matches with her mother with great frequency. She even cut class or went home for lunch and intentionally returned late to school.
As an adolescent, Sue could lie like a professional con artist. She made up elaborate and credible stories to explain her absences and tardiness. When adults fell for her tall tales, she and Sandy would laugh about them for days.
Of all Sue’s excuses, one of Sandy’s favorites was the fish disaster.
Sue rushed breathless into the classroom one morning. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” she told the teacher. “The fish tank in my house broke and the fish were flopping all over the floor.” Of course, she continued, she’d simply had to rescue the creatures and clean up the mess before she returned to school.
The teenager was also a master at creative manipulation. During her junior year, she had a desperate desire to get a second piercing in her ear. In the mid-seventies, do
uble-piercing was still considered a bit edgy, and Sue’s mom said no.
Time for plan B. Sue convinced Sandy to get her ears double-pierced—going so far as to offer to pay for the procedure and call it a birthday present. “Then, I’ll take you home and show my mom and she’ll think it’s okay because she likes you,” Sue said.
Sandy agreed and the plan worked. After Sandy demonstrated her double-piercing to Sue’s mother, Mary Smith relented and gave her blessing for Sue to do the same.
Sue and Sandy graduated from Webster Groves High School in 1977. Sue continued her education at William Woods University, a private girls’ college in Fulton, Missouri. Sandy stayed in St. Louis and lived on campus at Washington University while working at Southwestern Bell to take advantage of the tuition plan to pay for her schooling. The two friends were separated, but only by an hour-and-a-half drive, and they visited each other a lot.
Sandy was shocked at first when Sue announced she was majoring in Accounting. Like many people, Sandy’s stereotype of an accountant was a stick-in-the-mud nerd with no sense of humor—not anywhere near the personality of her friend. The more she thought about it, though, the more it made sense. Sue was a cut-up, but she was also disciplined, organized and concrete—all qualities that would serve her well in her chosen career.
Her career choice surprised her brother Pete, too. He’d always imagined Sue becoming a teacher because she had so much energy. Then he remembered that his dad had a degree in accounting and Sue—like all of her siblings—deeply admired Huck Smith
Sue’s family gathered in Fulton to watch Sue walk across the stage and accept her diploma from William Woods in 1981. The announcer at last reached her name. “Susan Burns Smith, cum laude.”
For a second, her family sat in stunned silence. Cum laudel? Sue never mentioned that. Then they burst into a roar of approval. Most of the family had not appreciated how bright Sue was. Her playful—never serious—demeanor hid a quick and agile mind.
Immediately upon graduation, Sue accepted an accounting position with Sante Fe Energy in Amarillo, Texas, and it was there that she acquired her CPA. She found another important life-friendship out in the panhandle of Texas with Dee Ann, another single woman and co-worker at the oil company. Sue rented a little house with a couple of friends just up the street from where Dee Ann lived with her young son. Sue often went up the street for a dip in Dee Ann’s swimming pool and soon they were fast friends, spending many a night at Steak ‘n’ Ale together.
Sue made a special trip from Amarillo to St. Louis that year to serve as maid of honor as her best friend stood at the altar and became Sandy Horn. Sandy never visited Sue in far-flung Amarillo, but they kept in touch by telephone and saw each other when Sue came to St. Louis to visit her parents.
It was a time when Sandy needed the support of Sue, and her friend did not let her down. In the four and a half years her marriage lasted, Sandy turned to Sue for a good ear and even better advice.
Sue’s next job took her to the dusty west Texas town of Midland. Her employer was Enron. At the time the company had an impeccable reputation, but at the turn of the millennium, scandal exposed a network of lies and misrepresentations, and led to its downfall. After six months, Enron transferred her to the company’s headquarters in the sprawling metropolis of Houston.
There Sue renewed her friendship with her former sister-in-law Debbie. Sue went to her nephews’ soccer games and accompanied Debbie and her kids on trips to Galveston island.
Of course, she and Debbie went shopping together. Sue made the experience a non-stop adventure in fun. In stores, she exhibited the awe of a child, amazed at all the new items that caught her eye.
She built up quite a closetful of evening outfits. She augmented her bounty through a cooperative mailing exchange with her girlfriends in Amarillo. They shipped clothing back and forth, expanding their wardrobes exponentially.
In late 1987, Sue accepted a position in St. Louis with Southwestern Bell Corporation in the Yellow Pages division. Right before her move back home, she took a trip out to Amarillo to serve as maid of honor in Dee Ann’s wedding to George Dowlen on November 26, 1987.
Dee Ann was marrying a man with quite a reputation. After George spent a ten-year stint as a prosecutor in neighboring Randall County, Governor Dolph Brisco appointed him to the 181st District Court in Amarillo. From that seat, Dowlen quickly earned the moniker of “the cowboy judge with the Boston brain.” He was best known in Texas for presiding over one of the murder trials of multimillionaire oilman T. Cullen Davis. Media flooded the courtroom, in part because of the wealth of the defendant, but also because of the notoriety of the defense counsel—flamboyant Houston lawyer Racehorse Haynes. By the time the verdict was read, this trial was the longest and one of the most controversial in the state’s history.
Now this judge was making personal history of his own with his first trip to the altar. For his bride, it was round two. The couple invited Sue to stay with them for the remainder of the weekend. No one anticipated the heavy snow that whipped through the Texas Panhandle on the Dowlens’ wedding night. Sue was snowbound with the newlyweds for days.
Back in St. Louis, Sue flew into a social whirl of dinner parties, gallery openings and charitable society events, including The Veiled Prophet Ball, an annual autumn fund-raising gala since 1878. The earliest incarnation of the fictional Veiled Prophet resembled a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He wore a white sheet and a pointed hat with a pistol in one hand and a shotgun in the other.
For years, the organization catered to the elite, the powerful and the wealthy—exclusively white and committed to the maintenance of the status quo. Each year, one of the community’s leading citizens donned the title and the garb, his identity sworn to secrecy.
When change came, it was not gradual. It was forced into being in 1972. Tom K. Smith, an executive at Monsanto was the prophet that year. He took the seat of honor with his veil firmly in place.
Gena Scott, a white civil rights activist with ACTION (Action Committee to Improve Opportunities for Negroes) ascended unseen up to the balcony. There she grabbed a power cable, swung out from her perch and slid down its length. When she reached the Veiled Prophet, she unveiled him with one smooth twist of the wrist. Smith, his bald head and secret identity exposed, seethed with anger.
It was a wake-up call for St. Louis and the charitable organization. Integration of the ranks began. By the time Sue arrived back in her hometown, the group was as diverse as the city itself.
By 1995, its chairman was Horace Wilkins, an African-American executive at Southwestern Bell Corporation. In 2003, the Grand Marshall of the parade was Ossie Smith, a celebrated African-American actor and civil rights activist.
Living in the same city once again, Sue and Sandy drifted back into old patterns of behavior and shared confidences. Only now, after they finished with mutual tea and sympathy, Sue did not drag Sandy out for tennis or a movie or a couple of smiley-faced cookies—instead she pulled her along to aerobics class.
Now that Sue and her niece Kirsten were both older, the age difference became irrelevant. The two often went out together in the evening or on weekends. Sue, being more established in her career than the younger Kirsten, had more disposable income. Because of that, Sue’s ideas for fun often exceeded Kirsten’s budget. Sue told her to come along anyway and never hesitated to pay her niece’s way.
But time was ticking away loud and clear in Sue’s mind as her 30th birthday loomed large at year’s end. She was worried that she would never find the right guy, and her dream of children would go unfulfilled. She told Dee Ann that she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom with a whole bunch of kids and a loving husband who worked to support them all.
In late 1988, Sue went to a party and met a young successful stockbroker named Richard Marvin McFarland.
5
Dick and Mona McFarland, natives of Kirkwood, Missouri, married and started their family in time to be part of the post-war Baby Boom. Dick worked at Mons
anto and Mona stayed home with her boys.
Their second son, Richard Marvin McFarland was born on May 23, 1957, in Pennsylvania. Soon after, the family moved back to the St. Louis area and Rick was raised in Webster Groves on Lee Avenue with two brothers, David and Don.
As typical in many families at that time, Dick was not a day-to-day hands-on father. He did, however, carve out some time for his boys. Rick cherished these memories all his life.
He recalled his dad lying on the floor, placing his feet in Rick’s small tummy and hoisting him in the air, declaring, “Kitty in the tree. Kitty in the tree.” He remembered Indian Guides—a program sponsored by the YMCA to foster positive bonds between fathers and sons—and the days when his dad was Big Silver Feather and he was Little Silver Feather. They made a wooden eagle totem pole lamp together.
Another special memory began at the S Bar F Scout Ranch, where Rick killed a timberback rattlesnake with a rock. Dick helped his son mount the snake skin on a large wood plank, chiseling out an indentation for the snake’s rattles and covering it in Plexiglas.
Rick recalled the two of them whittling and sanding a Pinewood Derby race car as a Cub Scout project for Pack 301. The expert craftsman and the small unskilled boy worked in tandem to win first place in the Best Looking and in the Most Unique Design categories. A number of years later, Dick and Rick worked on their “cream puff” project, refurbishing a classic ’55 Chevy.
Despite these times together, those who knew the family thought Dick was an emotionally remote father—he was hard on Rick, pushing his son beyond his capabilities. Rick pushed himself, too—always desperate to please his dad.
But the major influence over the lives of these three boys was wielded by their mother, Mona. She ruled the home front with a judgmental, self-righteous and rigid form of Christian fundamentalism.
Gone Forever Page 2