My Life with Bonnie and Clyde

by Barrow, Blanche Caldwell

  The latter statement seems to support the argument that some aspects of the portrayal of Blanche Barrow in that book, supposedly authored by Nell Barrow Cowan and Emma Parker but actually ghosted by Dallas reporter Jan Fortune, may have been fabricated to help Barrow’s chances for a parole and to deter any future prosecution. This is particularly clear considering Blanche Barrow’s rather candid statements made during interviews with the editor concerning her clear complicity in a series of petty robberies perpetrated with her husband before his voluntary return to prison in 1931. Moreover, regarding the image of Blanche charging off down that street in Joplin, screaming and crying (as even Blanche herself writes in her own memoir), it is more than likely that it too was a fabrication, especially since no other eyewitness accounts support the story.

  In his letters to Blanche Barrow, Winkler seems deeply interested in helping her return to her pre-prison career as a beautician. He offered to contact the Texas Board of Cosmetology on her behalf and inquire as to whether she needed to keep renewing her beautician’s license each year, or if she could just pay a flat fee to cover a span of years. He also asked if she was aware of a new product, “’machineless’ pads for giving permanents.” He offered to send her some samples to practice with, writing that he thought it was a wonderful invention.

  Blanche Barrow’s father was also working for her release, supplying names of potential employers that might provide his daughter with a job. A job was one of the main criteria for parole but such was not easy to obtain in the depths of the Great Depression.

  Although President Roosevelt won re-election by an enormous margin in 1936, taking all but two states, the luster of the New Deal was beginning to fade. Recession and unemployment continued to linger, indeed showing few signs of ever receding despite the implementation of so many innovative relief programs beginning during the famous “Hundred Days” three years earlier. And although the industrial North was still reeling from the dire economic picture, it was independent farmers who were suffering the most, subsisting on less than 60 percent of their 1929 income. Then in 1936, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Agricultural Adjustment Act was unconstitutional. The economic relief to farmers that was supplied by the AAA was thus eliminated just as raging dust storms steadily increased across the Plains states, eroding topsoil from the Dakotas to Texas. Resentment, fear, and violence frequently swelled within the ranks of an increasingly desperate working class.32

  Demonstrations by independent farmers across the nation and the destruction of truckloads of milk by dairy operators continued to disrupt the produce industry. In 1937, a number of strikes by thousands of workers at General Motors and U.S. Steel resulted in the recognition of the exclusive right of unions to negotiate contracts, wages, and working conditions with company management. Still, the feeling persisted that bankers, business moguls, and politicians were the consummate villains of the Great Depression. The notion was reinforced in 1938 with the formation of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and its immediate investigation of trade unions, Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA), and even the Campfire Girls. HUAC was seen by many as the tool of big business, and much public protest was raised against it, but to no avail.33

  In the prevailing climate, it was difficult enough for ordinary citizens to find work, much less convicted felons with the last name of Barrow. Despite help from people like Wilbur Winkler and others—including Platte County (Missouri) Sheriff Holt Coffey and even Katherine Stark, wife of the governor of Missouri—Blanche Barrow remained an inmate until March 25, 1939. On that date, a conditional commutation of her ten-year prison term became effective.34

  “Badman Barrow’s Widow Quits Cell” read the headlines. The conditions set forth in the commutation included breaking no laws, associating with no person “of questionable character,” nor “frequenting places of ill-repute.” Blanche Barrow was also forbidden the use of alcohol and narcotics, and she had to submit a written report signed by her sponsor or a law enforcement official listing her whereabouts, employment information, and wages. She was required to submit such a report monthly until March 1941. Blanche Barrow was also specifically ordered to leave Cole County, Missouri, and never return, an order she could easily comply with. Indeed, Blanche Barrow would have no difficulty with any aspect of the commutation. According to Warden J. M. Sanders, she had been a “model prisoner,” which accounted largely for the commutation—time off with good behavior. Despite her later assertion that her early release came about as a result of friends like Sheriff Coffey and an agent with the Department of Justice Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Blanche Barrow walked out of prison because of her demeanor while she was incarcerated there, although such friendships certainly did not hurt.35

  Regardless of the exact nature of her release, when freedom finally came for Blanche Barrow she found herself stepping into a world that was in many ways vastly different from the one she had left five and a half years earlier. As the decade of the 1930s progressed there was less focus on crime and rampaging outlaws in the news media and more emphasis on the darkening world situation. That is not to say, however, that criminal activity waned, but by 1939 many of the more notorious gangsters and outlaws like John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, the Barkers, Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde, and all the others who made such “good copy” for reporters, had either been killed, imprisoned, or executed.36

  In other news that broke during the years Blanche spent inside prison walls, Germany’s president, Paul von Hindenburg, died and Adolph Hitler, already chancellor and dictator, assumed the German presidency as well, thus erasing any semblance of democracy. In addition, Italy and Ethiopia went to war over possession of Somalia. In 1935, the federal Works Progress Administration was organized, the Social Security Act was signed into law by President Roosevelt, and Huey P. Long, U.S. Senator from Louisiana, was assassinated in Baton Rouge. In 1936, Germany invaded the Rhineland, dust storms raged across the American Plains states, and civil war erupted in Spain.

  In 1937 the world’s largest dirigible, Germany’s Hindenburg, exploded and crashed in a fiery heap near Lakehurst, New Jersey; aviatrix Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while trying to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe by air; and the recently enacted federal minimum wage act, challenged by business interests, was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

  In 1938, Germany invaded Austria and ceded part of Czechoslovakia; Italy declared Libya an Italian possession; and the Japanese army pushed further into China. In Spain, the bloody revolution led by Generalissimo Francisco Franco expanded, threatening to topple the republican government. Although the United States remained neutral in the Spanish conflict, many Americans volunteered to fight against Franco’s fascist revolutionaries. Nearly 50 percent of those volunteers died in Spain.

  Blanche and her father. (Courtesy of Rhea Leen Linder)

  In 1939, the year of Blanche Barrow’s release from the Missouri State Penitentiary, Spain fell to Franco, Japan continued to ravage China, and Germany invaded Poland, touching off World War II.37

  Blanche Caldwell Barrow was released from the Missouri State Penitentiary on March 24, 1939, the day before her conditional commutation was to officially go into effect. She left immediately for Garvin, Oklahoma, as specified in the terms of her commutation, where she moved in with her father. It is thought by some that she later stayed with her half-sister Lucinda Hill, and perhaps even Buck Barrow’s older sister Artie.38

  Just six days after Blanche Barrow’s release, a writer from Sherman, Texas, named Frank E. Bronaugh wrote a letter to her proposing that she write “a long account . . . of the intimate, detailed experiences of your life, all about how you came to know Buck Barrow, to marry him, and the unfortunate events that led up to your arrest and of your experiences in prison . . . the longer the better.” Bronaugh offered to pay Blanche twenty-five dollars for the story, which was to be published in some unspecified “fact magazine.” He stated that he had recently
made a similar deal with Alice Davis, the mother of Floyd and Raymond Hamilton, for the stories of her two sons.39

  It is not known what Blanche Barrow thought of the proposal, or whether she accepted the offer. She probably did not accept, but she evidently thought enough of the letter to keep it for the rest of her life. She certainly had more than enough material compiled in her own memoir, but only one person—Esther Weiser—was aware of its existence, and that was not until years later.40 From passages in the manuscript, as well as actions later in life, it is apparent that Blanche Barrow considered her memoir much more than a cathartic experience. She wanted it published. However, as we have seen, there is much about her story that is wholly unflattering to a number of people who were still living in 1939. She may not have wanted to deal with those dynamics. Also, she was interested in distancing herself from her past, not only in compliance with her conditional commutation, but for another reason as well—a man.

  It probably came as no surprise to anyone who knew her that Blanche remarried little more than a year after her release from prison. At twenty-eight years old, she was quite an attractive woman who, despite her past, still loved to laugh and apparently looked forward to what the rest of her life might hold. It was well known she had received numerous letters from prospective suitors throughout her time behind bars. That she narrowed the playing field so quickly may have startled some though, considering her feelings for her dead husband. But to others, Blanche’s final choice seemed logical, even predictable.

  Edwin Bert Frasure was born March 23, 1912, in Dawson, Texas, about seventy miles south of Dallas in Navarro County. Throughout his life, he was known simply as Eddie. Frasure’s father was also from Navarro County but his mother was born in Alabama. Although admittedly obscure, a few correlations, or rather coincidences, can be drawn between the Frasures and the Barrows. First, two of Buck Barrow’s uncles lived in Navarro County, and second, though contradicted by some members of the family, the elder Barrow men—Henry, Buck’s father, and Henry’s brothers James, and Frank—were all born in Alabama.41 Of course, none of this really points to anything substantial, but more than one person observed other apparent similarities between Eddie Frasure and Buck Barrow, with respect to personality and, to a lesser extent, physical appearance.

  Apart from Buck Barrow’s penchant for crime and a notably violent temper, for which there can be no comparison, Eddie Frasure otherwise appeared very similar to his predecessor. By all accounts, he was very gregarious, friendly, and outgoing, as some have described Buck. Frasure also loved to joke and laugh a lot and, again like Barrow, was quite mechanically inclined. A master carpenter, both rough and finish, he eventually became supervisor of a Dallas architectural and engineering firm. He was also a talented singer and guitarist, something Buck Barrow did not have in common with him. However, another of the Barrows sang and played not only the guitar but the saxophone as well—Clyde.42

  Although Frasure was evidently more handsome than Buck Barrow, both men nevertheless were remembered as possessing the same earthy, swarthy, almost animal attractiveness.43 It may be hard to imagine such traits in a killer like Barrow, but people are a lot more complex than their criminal profiles would have us believe. Still, regardless of any real or supposed resemblance between the two men, Blanche became deeply attached to Frasure within months of her release from prison.

  Apparently from the very beginning of his relationship with Blanche Caldwell, Eddie Frasure was, for a number of reasons, extremely wary of her association with the name of Barrow. The foremost consideration was no doubt the very real possibility of being dragged into some unsavory situation because of past associations. There was also the stigma of being an ex-convict, of which Blanche wrote, almost as a postscript to her own memoir:

  But that was not the end. The story of the parolee has yet to be told. It’s a story that magazines, parole officials, and news reporters seldom mention—the story of the great obstacles faced by the ex-convict who tries to find a job, and then to merely hold on to that job once they are lucky enough to find employment. It’s the story of walking until the soles of their shoes have worn through and blisters and calluses cover their feet. It’s the story of looking for a job, any job, only to be told there is no room for ex-convicts, or for those whose names are so well known to the public.

  Add to this the problem faced by Frasure, that of a man in love with a woman whose deep and utterly emotional past he could never be a part of nor hope to understand. Not a little bit of jealousy was combined with Frasure’s genuine fear of Blanche’s past.44 For that reason, Blanche herself tried as best she could to close the door to her past. However, as we shall see, she never let go completely. Nevertheless, Eddie Frasure never knew it, or never let it be known that he knew it. And for his benefit, Blanche kept her past to herself and made sure others around her did the same. It was the latter task that eventually led to a complete break between Blanche and her mother.

  Eddie Frasure in the navy, 1943. (Courtesy of Rhea Leen Linder)

  In a 1939 letter, Blanche expressed extreme displeasure with her mother’s behavior during an Oklahoma visit that included Eddie Frasure. Apparently, Lillian could not stop mentioning Buck Barrow and her daughter’s misadventures with the dead outlaw. Blanche, trying to avoid straining a blossoming relationship, evidently tried, rather unsuccessfully, to get her mother to abandon the topic. In her letter, written after the fact, Blanche admonished her mother for callously dredging up such “sour onions and dirty shirts” in front of her new boyfriend. Indeed at least twice before, while in prison as early as October 1933 and again the following year, she asked her mother to refrain from mentioning the past, although Blanche herself never seemed averse to writing about Buck often. Nevertheless, the incident in Oklahoma in 1939 began a serious deterioration in the relationship between Blanche and her mother. They evidently had some contact during the following three years, but after that there appears to have been a complete break.45

  “Scarecrow.” (Courtesy of Rhea Leen Linder)

  In a letter dated April 16, 1940, the director of the Missouri Board of Probation and Parole granted permission for Blanche to marry Eddie Frasure.46 Three days later, on April 19, the couple was married in Rockwall, Texas. The newlyweds moved to 1601 Durant in nearby Dallas and began their lives together as man and wife. Blanche’s father, Matt Caldwell, moved in with the Frasures. On October 7, 1942, ten months to the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Eddie Frasure joined the Navy Seabees as a construction engineer. He was thirty years old at the time. He trained in Virginia and shipped out to the Pacific as a third-class petty officer in the 64th Battalion, Company C, Third Platoon. Although his primary function was that of a construction engineer, Frasure and the others in his battalion were trained as combatants as well. Ironically, Frasure was the BAR man for his platoon, carrying the same weapon Buck Barrow used in Platte City.

  Blanche jokingly referred to another weapon in a note on the back of a photograph of herself she once sent to Frasure while he was stationed overseas. “Daddy, Remember you ask[ed] for this scar[e] crow [the photograph of herself]. Just put it between you and the Japanese and you’ll have the war won all by yourself—this will frighten them too [sic] Death.” The salutation is particularly interesting. Blanche referred to Frasure with the same term of endearment she used with Buck. Frasure island-hopped all across the Pacific throughout World War II. He was discharged in 1946.47

  During that time, Blanche went to work in Dallas as a dispatcher for the Yellow Cab Company. Her employment there may have been the reason behind her obtaining a reissue of her birth certificate on July 30, 1943, a document witnessed and signed by her mother.48 Whether she faced the ex-convict’s challenge in looking for a job that she cited at the end of her memoir cannot be known. What is known, however, is that for the rest of her life, Blanche remained under surveillance. Federal, state, and local authorities kept track of her movements and made their presence known to her in a variety
of ways. The Dallas police department, in particular, liked to call Blanche periodically, especially if she moved, just to let her know they were aware of where she lived. Sometimes the callers were very arrogant and ill mannered.49 Blanche was never known to be angered by the calls. To the contrary, she usually made jokes about them. Eddie Frasure did not think it was quite as funny. Regardless, during Frasure’s years in the service, Blanche evidently worked for the cab company without incident, despite the spectral omnipresence of the authorities.

  On November 2, 1946, Eddie Frasure returned to Durant Street in Dallas and the wife he had known for only three years before shipping out. His wife described the reunion like that of being newlyweds all over again, something that apparently remained so for years.50 She retired from the Yellow Cab Company and as far as anyone knows, lived the rest of her life as a housewife, never again having to deal with being an ex-convict in search of a job.

  On September 19, 1947, Blanche’s father died. Besides his only child, Matt Caldwell was survived by one sister, two brothers, and a number of nieces and nephews.51 Caldwell had lived most of his life as a farmer and logger. He was also a deeply religious man who occasionally during his long life felt the calling to bear witness to his faith. These episodes would result in brief periods of preaching as a lay minister. Over the years, these “times of calling”, as he referred to them, were misunderstood by some who had the notion that Matt Caldwell was a professional preacher. He was not. He was a farmer who occasionally “testified” to small gatherings about his faith.

  Eventually her father’s religious convictions came to influence Blanche and her husband. Although they would never give up their love of the occasional beer, dancing, and general “honky-tonking,” as they called it, Blanche and Eddie began attending church regularly and volunteering their services there as well. Eddie, who sang in a very good barbershop quartet at the time, began singing in the church choir as well. And Blanche began teaching Sunday school.