by Emma Parker
I recall as one of her earliest escapades, the plight she put Buster into one day at Sunday School. Buster was five and Bonnie three, and it was his job to take her to Sunday School every Sunday morning. He really was awfully proud of his little sister, and used to march off holding her by the hand, her curls shining in the sun and her little feet toddling along beside his longer steps, trying to keep up. This day seemed just like other Sundays when they left, but it wasn't when they got back, for Buster was in a towering rage. He marched into the house, Bonnie dancing impishly along behind him, and announced to all and sundry that he was "through with girls," and as far as his sister's religious education was concerned, somebody else in the family could see after it.
It turned out that at Sunday School each little tot had been asked up on the platform to sing a hymn, and when it came Bonnie's turn, she arose, mounted the stage proudly, resplendent in starched bows and ruffles, and sang "He's A Devil In His Own Home Town" in a singularly clear and piercing treble. Naturally, Buster was mortified to death, but Bonnie wasn't. She'd created a sensation and she had enjoyed it. No other song had caused the ripple of surprise that hers had caused. She failed to share Buster's mortification at all.
When Bonnie was four, my husband's brother came to visit us and took keen delight in teaching baby Bonnie to swear at her father. My husband, though he would spank Buster for even a darn, thought Bonnie's swearing was just too cute, and would do nothing about it, so it was left to me to use the hair brush where it would do the most good.
In 1914, my husband died suddenly, and I was left with three small children and the problem of providing for them. My mother, who lived at Cement City near Dallas, offered me her home as my own. I moved to Dallas and got a job, of necessity leaving the children with her while I went out to work. It was here that Bonnie and my sister's daughter, Bess, came to make a team which caused us all a lot of inconvenience. For Bess was three years older than Bonnie, although small for her age, and between what she could think up and what came naturally to Bonnie, the households were generally in a stew from morning to night. My mother had to use hair brushes on Bonnie, while Bess' mother used slippers on Bess. They were the most lovable and adorable youngsters, for all their pranks, and we all adored them, even while spanking as hard as we could.
When Bonnie was six, she entered Cement City School, and proceeded to fight her way through it. She was always in a scrap of some sort, and would as soon jump on a boy twice her size as not. When things got too difficult, Bess would come to her rescue and the two of them mowed a wide row through school activities. But Bonnie learned fast and got on with her studies. She was never teacher's pet — she was too full of mischief to suit a teacher — but she was a precocious child, and always the one they chose to speak pieces and sing songs, and otherwise show off when there was need to put on a good front at school.
One of her chief delights was learning to act. An expression teacher came out from Dallas every week to teach what we used to call "elocution," and Bonnie took to it like a duck to water. She simply loved it, and in a short time, she learned to imitate the people she knew, and often did it, much to their embarrassment.
The teacher of expression, not having to put up with Bonnie all day long, fell in love with what she termed "this adorable child," and used to get my permission to bring her into Dallas to spend the night with her. After Bonnie's death I met this same teacher in the funeral home where Bonnie's body lay, and she recalled the days of Bonnie's childhood, and told me how her grandfather used to roll the rugs back whenever she brought Bonnie home. Then, on his all fours, he would romp and play for hours with her, being a horse, a steamship, a monkey or a whole cage full of lions, just as Bonnie demanded.
I remember once early in Bonnie's school days how she ruined the Friday afternoon program given for the children's parents. Bonnie was playing the part of a pickaninny on the stage with a lot of other children. She had smut on her face and a stocking cap over her yellow hair. Before the program started she had an argument with one of the boys in her grade. Up on the stage with her, this youngster decided that a good way to get even with Bonnie would be to jerk her stocking cap off and show the audience that after all, it wasn't a negro, but that cotton headed little Parker girl. So he jerked.
Bonnie was so outraged at thus being taken out of character before everybody that she began weeping tears of anger. The smut ran down onto her dress, and the tears made white streaks. The boy who was the cause of it all, snickered, and that was too much. Bonnie tore into him right before everybody. And at that, the audience just howled. Bonnie stopped at the sound of laughter. It gave her a new idea. Things weren't so bad, after all, apparently. People were being amused. She would amuse them further. She backed off and started turning somersaults and cartwheels right down the middle of the stage, and the program broke up in a riot.
Cousin Bess Relates
Being with Bonnie was always more fun than any other form of amusement, and we were kindred spirits from the minute I first laid eyes on her when she was four, and came to live with grandmother. Aunt Em (Mrs. Parker) was away all day at work, and grandmother had to take care of baby Billie, who was her pet, but Bonnie and I, after our work was done, would always slip off and plan our own fun, leaving Billie out of it if we could, because she'd tell grandmother if she found out.
I remember that Bonnie and I always took off our long winter underwear fully two months before we were supposed to do so, and hid it between the mattress and the feather beds. Once or twice we'd get caught, but on the whole we managed very nicely. Another thing we didn't like was the bags of asafetida grandma put around our necks, and we'd saw the string in two with a butcher knife. Billy used to beg us to get hers off too, but we wouldn't do it because we knew she'd tell who did it the minute grandma missed it, and we'd get a spanking.
Grandfather had a high raftered, old fashioned barn, and Bonnie and I, who had an urge at that time to be circus performers, would climb up in the loft and skin the cat on the rafters, twenty feet from the ground. Of course, we were constantly in danger of falling and breaking our fool necks, but that idea never occurred to us. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly till an aunt who lived over the way, caught us at it. Then we got a pair of good spankings and orders to stay out of that barn.
The barn happened to be so situated that we couldn't get in at the door without this aunt seeing us, and if she saw us, we knew she'd tell. We were in a spot. But finally Bonnie found a hole on the far side where we could crawl through, shinny up a ladder and reach the hay loft without being seen, and continue our practicing for the circus careers without being caught.
Playing with fire was another strictly forbidden joy, but Bonnie and I managed this, too. We took some feed sacks and built us a wigwam behind the barn, close to the garden. Here we made a fire inside, safe from prying eyes, and roasted our potatoes, or whatever else we could obtain to eat. Provisions became increasingly difficult to secure. Grandmother couldn't be everywhere at once, but she was guardian of her pantry, don't mistake that, and suspected Bonnie and me on every occasion. I take the credit for the idea which got us more potatoes. We called Billie to us and sent her in to the front of the house to ask grandma for something; while thus engaged, we were able to sneak into the kitchen and lift potatoes for roasting.
We buried them in the ashes, and all was going well till we heard grandma's voice calling. She wanted something from the store. The fire was blazing pretty high in the wigwam at this moment, but we knew that we had better go. When we got back, the fire was out of control. It burned the wigwam, the potatoes, and caught the back fence on fire. Grandma was out there with a pan of water and a wet sack tied on a broom, fighting the fire. My mother and the other aunt and the neighbors were helping her. When the fire was out, the paddling we did get! We ate standing up for a week.
Bonnie and I decided we would be opera singers. We would climb on the pig pen at the coming of dusk, lift our heads toward the moon, and split the air with what we fondly hoped w
as music. This went on night after night during that summer. We once took some of grandpa's snuff when we were sent to bring it to him. Bonnie said: "You take some first, Bess, and see how it works." It worked swell. I was practically a new creature in a few minutes. Bonnie didn't follow my example. But the day we found grandpa's keg of green wine in the hayloft, Bonnie and I both indulged. The next thing I knew, there she lay as blue around the mouth as if she'd been eating bluing, and saying nothing.
Our well worked with a hand pump and it had to be primed in order to get it started. I'll never forget how the cold perspiration dripped off my knees while I pumped water to pour over Bonnie. I'd poured two buckets of water on her before the family caught on, but she was so sick that that was one time we didn't get spanked. Grandpa did move the wine, however.
Bonnie was scared to death of guns. Grandpa had one he kept under his pillow—a whopping big old fashioned pistol — and whenever we made the beds, I was always the one who had to reach under and lift it out gingerly and carry it at arm's length to the dresser. Once or twice Bonnie touched it without knowing it was there, and such screaming I never heard. I used to remember those days after Bonnie went away with Clyde, and wonder how she ever learned to handle guns, load for him, even fire them herself, for I never saw any one a bigger coward about them than she was when we were kids.
In school, Bonnie was the star pupil in her class. She was always winning prizes for writing essays, spelling, "speaking pieces," and things like that. Once, during her high school days, I remember that Cement City and Bryan High were in the spelling finals, and Bonnie, no bigger than a minute and looking like a fluffy-headed doll, spelled the entire class down and walked off with the medal for the city championship.
She had a lot of "fellers" in grade school — boys who thought she was too cute for anything. Bonnie always had a book satchel full of candy bars, chewing gum and sort of mashed looking apples that some little boy had brought her. But her pick of the lot was a boy named Noel. One day when she was about ten, he crossed her about something, and Bonnie followed him from school, caught up with him in front of the drug store and jumped on him with both hands and feet. When a passing neighbor woman separated them, Bonnie had a piece of razor blade in her hand threatening to cut Noel's throat for him if he ever made her mad again, and he was fairly blubbering, he was so scared.
I remember two sisters in Bonnie's class, who were notorious for stealing pencils. Aunt Em naturally didn't have much money for such things, and she used to insist that one pencil every two weeks was enough. These two girls took Bonnie's pencils several times, and after she was spanked at home for not being able to keep them, she confided to me that she was going to beat those girls to a pulp the next time they took anything of hers.
It wasn't long till they were again guilty, so Bonnie and I lured them down to the gravel pit and gave them the beating of a lifetime. Next day they were laying for us with their big brother along, but we took them on, big brother and all, and sent them flying, yelling for help. The pencil stealing stopped.
However, this is just one side of Bonnie's nature. For all of her pugilistic tendencies and her evident desire to fight at the drop of a hat, she was the tenderest hearted little thing that I ever saw. All you needed to do to make Bonnie cry was to start a sob story and begin bawling yourself. In five minutes Bonnie would be weeping copiously and ready to give you anything on earth she had if she thought it would help you out.
Her one overpowering devotion was for Aunt Em. We used to tease her about it and get her so mad she'd come at us with whatever she could find, even after she was grown.
When Aunt Em would go to work she threw her clothes just everywhere as she dressed. Billie wouldn't pick them up, but Bonnie would. She'd go around and gather up Aunt Em's slippers, pat them lovingly and set them in the closet; then she'd take Aunt Em's house dress and hang it up, caressing it like Aunt Em was inside of it. And all the time she'd be murmuring little things to the clothes, just like the baby talk she talked to her mother now and then, even after she was a great big girl.
One of the great jokes of Bonnie's rather pathetic little lifetime was that when she was seven, candidates in Cement City used to take her out with them to help them makes speeches before election time. Bonnie was so cute and so witty, and such a pretty little trick, that the candidates knew they could always count on getting crowds if they took her along. Considering that some of these same men she helped get elected later were pledged to hunt her down, this does seem like a gigantic and ludicrous travesty on life.
Although Bonnie had a lot of childhood sweethearts, she never had a date with a boy till she was fifteen. Soon after she began dating, she fell in love with Roy Thornton, a boy who was in school in Cement City. By the time she was sixteen, she and Roy were married.
When Bonnie loved, she loved with all her heart, and that was the way she loved Roy. When she was through with him, she was through. Bonnie was like that. She was loyal, too, even after she ceased to love Roy. That was why she never divorced him.
About the time Bonnie was married, I moved away with my husband to another town, and I wasn't with her again till after she met and fell in love with Clyde Barrow.
Mrs. Parker Goes On
Naturally, I didn't want Bonnie getting married when she was only sixteen, but she and Roy seemed so much in love and so determined that I gave my consent. They set up housekeeping just two blocks from me, but Bonnie just couldn't seem to stand being away from me. Every night of the world Roy had to bring her by to see me, and she was always begging me to go home and spend the night with them. It really became a joke with us, and we felt rather sorry for Roy, who was having a lot of difficulty with his honeymoon.
I remember one night it snowed and was terribly cold. Bonnie wasn't well and Roy wouldn't take her out in the snow to our house. About midnight she awakened him by crying, and said that she had just dreamed that I was dying. We had no telephone, and nothing would do Bonnie but that Roy must dress and go out in that blizzard to see if I was all right. Another evening, Roy came by the house and found me sick in bed. He wanted me to go home with him and spend the night. I said that I couldn't; I felt too wretched to walk the two blocks.
"Well," Roy said, gathering up a blanket, "I’ll just wrap you up and carry you down there, mama, because I might as well not go home as to go without you. Bonnie would not let me in."
Finally I dressed and went. After a month of this sort of goings-on, I told Bonnie: "Listen, if you're going to keep on being such a baby about your mama, you and Roy had better move in with me, because it'll be easier on all of us."
That suited them exactly, especially Roy, who was getting a little worn out, I'm sure, chasing down a mother-in-law every evening for his bride. They moved in. This was 1926 and Bonnie never left me again till she went away with Clyde Barrow in the spring of 1932.
We rented a house in Dallas about this time, over on Olive Street. After a few months, Roy began neglecting Bonnie, going off and staying days at a time. Bonnie went to the city and found a job at Marco's Cafe close to the court house on Main Street. Bonnie waited on tables at Marco's and helped at the cash register. Here, ironically enough, she met and became friends with the many officials and officers of the city, county, and state, who were destined by fate to spend two years tracking her to death.
The manager at Marco's was fond of Bonnie. He said she made friends easily and drew trade. He also complained to me that every bum down at that end of town had found out that Bonnie's heart was as big as the court house, and were working the life out of her for free meals.
"Mrs. Parker," he said, "it’s got so Bonnie never draws a full pay day. She feeds everybody that comes in here looking hungry. The word is out and all those court house bums lunch off her all the time."
"She says it makes her miserable to think of anybody being hungry," I explained.
"Well, it’s a dirty shame the way they impose on her," he went on. "And if she doesn’t stop it, I’m go
ing to can her."
I talked to Bonnie about it and she promised to do better, but she didn't. Money never did mean anything to her. She'd either give it to me or to somebody with a hard luck story. She actually wouldn't buy herself enough clothes, and I'd have to go down and do her shopping when she became ragged. As long as she worked at Marco's, she fed people, and she never got fired for it, either. The cafe finally went out of business and Bonnie naturally lost her job. That was in November, 1929.
All newspaper and magazine stories concerning Bonnie's affair with Clyde, state that she met him while she was a waitress at Marco's Cafe, which is not true. Bonnie wasn't even working at Marco's when she met Clyde Barrow for the cafe was closed. She was visiting with a girl friend in West Dallas when she met Clyde, and the date was early in January of 1930.
By the second year of Bonnie's married life, Roy and she had been separated three times. I mean by "separated" that Roy would just walk off and leave her for a month or so, and then come strolling back some afternoon, expecting a big welcome, which he invariably got. All in all, I think they were separated like this about five times during the four years they were married. Bonnie used to get terribly blue when Roy would leave. She was crazy about him, though she never worshipped him as she did Clyde later. She certainly wouldn't leave her mother for him, which she did for Clyde, but she was still quite a kid about a lot of things. You see, she'd married when she was sixteen, and when this diary from which I'm going to quote, was written, Bonnie had been seventeen just three months. No seventeen year old girl was ever very profound. I'm quoting from the diary to show the simplicity of the life she led, and to refute the stories that at this time — or at any time — Bonnie was notorious in Dallas' night life, and the biggest "hotcha" girl in town. Bonnie was sitting home nights crying for her first love, and confiding her seventeen-year-old-sorrows to a dog-eared copy book.