My Life with Bonnie and Clyde

by Barrow, Blanche Caldwell

  Buck had driven to some small town just across the Missouri-Kansas line and bought Kansas license plates for our car because Clyde thought it best not to have Texas plates on it. He said someone may get suspicious of a Texas car and investigate to see who owned it.18

  All of us had a lot of fun together. But to me there always seemed to be a shadow hanging over us, like a dark cloud. But since we had come this far I tried to forget about what might happen to us. I thought worrying wouldn’t do any good anyway.

  I usually ordered all our groceries by phone and had them delivered.19 Sometimes Buck went for them in the car. After April 7, when the sale of beer was legalized in Missouri, we bought a case of beer nearly every day. I didn’t care for beer myself but all the rest did. They enjoyed seeing who could drink the most. It wasn’t that I thought I was too good to drink; I just didn’t like beer or whiskey. It made me sick. I also didn’t think the headache the next morning was worth the fun of getting drunk and making a silly fool of yourself.20

  Blanche drinking whiskey from a flask near Crockett, Texas, 1931. “I just didn’t like beer or whiskey.” (Photograph by Buck Barrow, courtesy of Rhea Leen Linder)

  I always met the grocery store delivery boy21 or the laundry man from the cleaners downstairs at the front. I did not like to do that. I was sure one of them would get suspicious because they were not allowed to bring the packages upstairs to the apartment. Some of the packages were almost as big as me. One time I had to argue with the laundry man about taking some clothes up myself. I told Clyde he could just as easily stay back in one of the bedrooms if he did not want any one to see him.

  “Those people are always bothered with nose trouble,” he said, “and may see too much if they come in.”

  Another reason for Clyde’s concern was the fact that he had robbed one of the cleaners or laundries a few months before and he thought someone might recognize him. He wasn’t taking any chances. I couldn’t blame him for that, although he had not kept his promise to keep the guns out of the apartment and leave them in the car. But of course, he couldn’t afford to leave them in the garage, so they were kept in a large closet in the living room or just laying around in his bedroom.

  Clyde always wanted to keep the window blinds drawn so no one could see in. But we could hardly see out. I always tried to keep the blinds up in our bedroom during the day because I didn’t like to be in a place where I couldn’t see out. Our bedroom faced the street on the south side. Clyde and Bonnie’s bedroom was on the north side.

  One night not long after we had moved to the apartment, Clyde wanted to go to a small town near Joplin and look around for something. He wanted Buck to go with him. I didn’t want him to go any place alone with Clyde but they told me it would be okay because they weren’t going to rob anything that night, and if they did Clyde would not allow Buck to help or to have anything to do with any job he pulled. They said they would be back in a few hours, but for us to go to bed and get some sleep.

  I could not keep Buck from going, even though I tried very hard. But I did not feel like having an argument with him. Anyway, he had promised me he would not help pull any job even if Clyde wanted him to. Buck did not want to go back to prison. Still, I had my doubts about what they might do.

  Buck kissed me goodnight and left. We put the lights out and went to bed soon after they had gone, but I didn’t go to sleep. I lay across my bed, put a pillow on the window sill, and kept myself awake looking up and down the street. I saw the private night watchman every time he made his rounds.22 He had called at our door earlier in the month and asked if we wanted him to watch our car or to keep burglars away. We had paid him one dollar to watch our Marmon, the same amount other people in the district paid.

  At the time our car had to sit on the street. There wasn’t space in the double garage under our apartment. The people who lived on the same lot as us, in the large home on the corner, used half the garage. Clyde’s stolen car occupied the other half. Later on, Buck rented a garage from a man next door to us. Before that Buck had asked the man who lived in the large home if he would switch with us—allowing us to use his half of the double garage under the apartment and him use the one Buck had rented for our car. We thought he could drive into it just as easy as he could the one he was using. But the man did not like the idea and refused to change with Buck. So Buck had to drive our car around in front of his house, the driveway to which was in back of our apartment. I don’t remember the names of any of those people.23

  I had watched the man on different occasions, the one who shared the garage under the apartment. Sometimes we would be up late when he got home and drove in the garage. Clyde would be cleaning guns or with the others, playing cards or working puzzles. The man would close and lock his car. Then he would stay for a few minutes, looking Clyde’s car over or listening, trying to catch some of our conversation. Sometimes he would close the garage door and stand outside and listen. I had told Buck and Clyde about this but Clyde said I was just imagining things, or afraid. I wasn’t afraid, just careful. I had seen these things and knew I wasn’t just trying to frighten anyone. I knew that man was suspicious of something.

  As I lay there watching the night watchman that night, waiting for Buck to return, I remembered other nights when I would see him peep into the garage or sometimes just stop and listen. I wondered if he may be getting suspicious too. Maybe he wanted to know why we stayed up so late at night, or maybe he’d heard the others cleaning and snapping the guns.24

  I could not go to sleep. I just lay there awake, looking out the window and checking my watch. Hours passed. Still the boys did not come back. I thought of everything that could happen to Buck. If he was lucky enough to get back safe, I was going to ask him if we could go home.

  I lay there waiting and watching for him until the light began to show in the east and cars began to appear on the streets. Soon I saw a car moving along the street below. It looked like Clyde’s car but I couldn’t be sure. Then the driver turned off the lights, slowed down, and drove in the driveway. Someone got out and opened the garage door. Then the car drove in.

  Bonnie had not slept much, if any, and I called her when I got up and went down to meet the boys. There was a door at the foot of the stairs that opened inside the garage. I met them with their arms full of guns and rifles. I was so glad to see Buck that I did not ask many questions, only why he had stayed away so long.

  After they unloaded everything onto the divan and living room floor, they told us what they had done. They had burglarized some National Guard armory. I was plenty mad about it and told them what I thought of their promises. But it didn’t do much for me to get mad. There wasn’t anything I could do about it.

  Buck handed me a pair of army field glasses. Clyde said he knew Bonnie would not care for anything like that. She would rather have a gun. So he had given the glasses to Buck for me. Clyde began showing Bonnie all the guns and told her what he could do with one of the army rifles. It could shoot twenty times without stopping, so long as you held your finger on the trigger.25

  I wasn’t very pleased with the nice new field glasses they had given me. I would have liked them more if they had not been stolen from some armory. Clyde told me Buck had nothing to do with the burglary, that he just sat in the car a block away. But I had my doubts about that. I believe Buck helped.

  I cooked breakfast. We ate, and then went to bed. I told Buck our two weeks were about up and that I wanted to go home while we were still fine. He said we would go in a couple of days. He was ready to go home soon because he couldn’t make Clyde change his ways. There was no reason for us to risk staying with him.

  That afternoon, after we all woke up and had eaten dinner, Clyde wanted to drive to the country and try out the new guns. So the three boys went to the country. They came back soon after dark. Clyde seemed very pleased with his new toys. They laughingly told us about one of the guns shooting so fast that they couldn’t get it to stop. They had to throw it in a small creek to stop i
t. That was the last time Buck went anywhere with Clyde while we were in Joplin.

  That night Clyde cut the barrel and stock off one rifle. He thought it would be much easier to handle, but when he tried it the next day, it wouldn’t work right. It would only shoot once instead of twenty times.26

  Everything continued in about the same way for the next few days. Buck and I still had a few dollars left, enough to get us back home to Dallas, but Clyde’s bankroll was getting low. One day he left and came back with some money. He did not say where he had gone or what he had robbed and I didn’t ask any questions because I thought if they wanted me to know they would have told me. Anyway, I didn’t want to know where he went or what he did.

  On April 11 or 12, Clyde and W. D. left for some unknown place in Oklahoma. Clyde wanted us to stay a few days longer. Buck told him we would, but Buck had already promised me we would go home that Friday, April 14. He wanted to do a little work on our car and get it in good shape for the trip. Clyde and W. D. returned late that afternoon, but instead of one car, they had two. They had seen a Ford V-8 roadster, thought it was pretty, stole it, and put it in the garage. Surely, someone saw them drive it into the garage, I thought. Bonnie told Clyde he was crazy for doing anything like that. She said if he kept the car there, she would leave because she knew someone would call the law out to investigate. But Clyde said he would only keep it there that night, then use it the next day for a robbery and leave it some place else. They kept arguing until they both were mad enough to fight, which is what they did. And Clyde wasn’t very easy with her either. He knocked her across the bedroom a couple of times but she got up and went back for more. Bonnie had tried as best she could to keep the place from getting hot. She did not want Buck and I to get into trouble and have to live the life she and Clyde were living.27

  I asked Buck if he meant to go home Friday as he had promised. He said he didn’t know. He had promised Clyde we would stay a few days longer. I wasn’t very pleased about Clyde stealing another car and bringing it to the apartment. That would surely get heat on the place. I told Buck that it seemed like Clyde was just trying to get him into trouble so he would have to stay with him until he was shot down by officers, which would certainly happen to Clyde sooner or later.28 And I told Buck that maybe he did not know whether he was going home or not, but I did! I had taken all I could stand. If he wanted to stay with his beloved brother Clyde, then he could. He could just choose between the two of us because I was leaving with him or without him! With that, he made up his mind quick, because he thought I would go alone if he didn’t go with me.

  Thursday morning, April 13, Buck began getting the car ready for us to leave early the following day. He worked most of the day, had the oil changed, and filled the tank with gas. Although we didn’t get up early that day, we did get up earlier than usual. But Bonnie stayed in bed until noon. She didn’t feel very well after the fight the night before, although she and Clyde had made up and everything was back to normal between them.

  Clyde was going to take the roadster away someplace and rob something. Bonnie wanted to go with Clyde, but because she didn’t feel well, Clyde wanted her to rest in bed. So she decided to stay behind. Clyde and W. D. would go alone.

  All of us had the jitters and felt as if a bomb was about to explode. None of us felt good about staying in the apartment another night. Before he left, Clyde told us where we could find a good tourist park to stay and that he and W. D. would meet us there when they got back. Early Friday morning Buck and I could load our car and get ready to leave for home. The other three would watch the apartment and go someplace else if it was hot. They would be able to tell if anyone had been there.

  Clyde said he and W. D. would be back sometime Thursday night and would see us before we left. He said we could draw what was left of the deposit for the lights, water, and gas, about twenty-five dollars.

  I cleaned up our bedroom, the living room and bath, and had almost all our clothes ready so it would only take a few minutes for me to pack them. I cooked our lunch, but did not have the kitchen all cleaned. I also wanted to wash some of our clothes before we left for home. I would do that in the kitchen sink.

  About four-fifteen or five o’clock that afternoon, Buck was just finishing the work on the car and had driven it around to the back to put it in the garage until we were ready to leave the apartment. Bonnie was sitting in the center of the living room rug recopying some of the poetry she had written. She still had on her kimono, nightgown, house slippers, and no hose. I was wearing a blue crepe dress that had once been an evening gown. I had hemmed it at the bottom to make it into a housedress to wear around in the apartment while we were there. The shoulders were lace and the back was low-cut. Like Bonnie, I wore no hose. But I did have on a pair of black kid pumps.

  I was letting the clothes soak for a few minutes in the kitchen sink. I had taken my watch off and laid it in the cabinet so it wouldn’t get wet. I did not want to lose or break it because Buck had given it to me just before we were married. I wanted to keep it always.

  I was nervous that afternoon. I felt as though I couldn’t stay in one place long. Bonnie wanted me to boil an egg for her. While it was on the stove, I took a deck of cards out and tried to settle myself down by playing solitaire before I washed the clothes. But I had no luck. Old Sol would beat me every time.

  I went to see about Bonnie’s egg. It was done. I broke the shell and gave it to her. My dog was at my heels wherever I went. About this time, we heard someone say, “Stop!” Then one of the garage doors opened. I looked out the living room window and saw Buck opening the other door of the garage for Clyde and W. D. I told Bonnie who it was. She said she wished she had gone with them the first time, that something must have gone wrong, or maybe they had come back after the other car. She said she would go with them now.

  She and I ran down the stairs to find out why they had come back so soon. They told us they had burned the motor out in the roadster and had come back after the sedan. Clyde said Bonnie could go with them if she wanted to. W. D. could drive the roadster out of town and leave it.

  Bonnie went back to finish recopying her poem.29 She was going to finish it, then get ready to go with them. I still had the cards in my hand but had gone in the kitchen for something. Clyde and W. D. were in the garage unloading the guns from the roadster and putting them in the sedan. All of a sudden, we heard something that sounded like someone had turned a machine gun on the place. But the shots sounded muffled, as though they were in the garage, or behind it. I went to one of the kitchen windows but I couldn’t see anyone.

  “We heard Clyde holler, ‘Oh, lordy! Let’s get started!’” (From the Blanche Caldwell Barrow scrapbooks, courtesy of Rhea Leen Linder)

  We heard Clyde holler, “Oh, lordy! Let’s get started!”

  At first, we thought he had just accidentally discharged one of the rifles and couldn’t get it to stop firing.30 Then Buck came running up the stairs without a gun or anything.31 He told us to get ready to leave, that the cops were there. I was still in the kitchen. Bonnie said later she fired a shot through one of the living room windows but I did not see her, or hear the glass break.32 I didn’t even know the window was broken or that any shots had been fired upstairs. I didn’t know just what to do, but I didn’t see why Buck and I had to leave with the other three. We hadn’t done anything. But Buck said we must leave.

  I thought of my purse in our bedroom. It had Buck’s pardon papers, my divorce papers, and our marriage license in it. I also thought of Buck’s coat with the title to our car in the pocket. I thought, “I must get those things! I cannot leave those here if we have to leave now!” But I forgot about my watch.33

  The dog was running around as if he was trying to figure out what all the excitement was about, or what I was going to do next. He kept getting in my way. I picked him up and set him on a table in the kitchen and told him to stay there. But as I opened the swing door that led from the kitchen to the living room, he ran out and st
arted downstairs.34

  Then I ran into W. D. He was holding his right side. When he saw me, he caught me around the neck and then he almost fell to the floor. I nearly went down with him but I caught him around the waist and braced myself against the door jam and kept us both from falling.

  He kept saying, “Blanche, they shot me! I am dying! Please do something for me!”

  I had been on my way to the bedroom to get my purse and coat and Buck’s coat too but I couldn’t get there with W. D. holding on to me, begging me to do something for him and not to let him die. I didn’t know what to do for him. Poor kid. I guess he was in a lot of pain and thought he was going to die. That upset my nerves more than ever. They weren’t too steady anyway. I was too excited to know what to do next.

  W. D. left Clyde alone in the garage. Buck started down the steps to see if Clyde was dead. I screamed for him not to go down. I thought he would be killed too. But he went anyway. The dog followed but came back.

  By the time Buck got to the garage the shooting had stopped. Clyde hollered for us to come down so we could get away from there. Bonnie went downstairs first. I don’t remember how W. D. and I ever got down to the car. I helped him onto the backseat of the sedan.

  I did not see Buck or Clyde. I was almost crazy with fear, scared of Buck getting killed. But when I started around the car to look for him, I saw him running toward me. I still did not see Clyde but I saw a man lying on the garage floor. He wore a blue suit like Clyde’s and his hair was brown. I thought at first that it was Clyde.35

  Wes Harryman and his family. “I saw a man lying on the garage floor.” (Courtesy of Jim Hounschell)

  Buck had just moved away from the man on the floor. I ran toward him near the door. Then I heard Clyde say, “Get in the car.” I don’t know where he came from. My memory is just a bit hazy but I thought he meant for us to get in the officers’ car that was about halfway in the door.36 He was standing near it.