by Emma Parker
The first entry is dated January 1, 1928, and starts off with this naive statement:
Dear Diary:
Before opening this year's diary, I wish to tell you that I have a roaming husband with a roaming mind. We are separated again for the third and last time. The first time, August 9-19, 1927; the second time, October 1-19, 1927; and the third time, December 5, 1927. I love him very much and miss him terribly. But I intend doing my duty. I am not going to take him back. I am running around with Rosa Mary Judy and she is somewhat a consulation to me. We have resolved this New Year's to take no men or nothing seriously. Let all men go to hell! But we are not going to sit back and let the world sweep by us.
January 1, 1928. New Years nite. 12:00.
The bells are ringing, the old year has gone, and my heart has gone with it. I have been the happiest and most miserable woman this last year. I wish the old year would have taken my "past" with it. I mean all my memories, but I can't forget Roy. I am very blue tonight. No word from him. I feel he has gone for good.
This is New Year's Day, Jan. 1. I went to a show. Saw Ken Maynard in The Overland Stage. Am very blue. Well, I must confess this New Year's nite I got drunk. Trying to forget. Drowing my sorrows in bottled hell!*
*Bonnie seems to overlook the fact that her first entry is at midnight the night before and she was at home, safe and sound, with no "bottled hell" •round and nobody to drink it with, if there had been.
Jan. 2, 1928.
Met Rosa Mary today and we went to a show. Saw Ronald Coleman and Vilma Banky in A Night Of Love. Sure was a good show. Saw Scottie and gave him the air. He's a pain in the neck to me. Came home at 5:30. Went to bed at 10:30. Sure am lonesome.
Jan. 3, 1928
Searched this damn town over for a job today. I guess luck is against me. Haven't heard a word from Roy. I wonder where he can be. Diary, every night I look at his dear little pictures. That's all I have of him. I don't supose he wants me to know where he is. He doesn't love me any more. "Where is my wandering boy tonight?" I am fully discouraged, for I know I can never live with him again. I hunted up Reba Griffin today, just to know that she is not with him. She has taken my place in his heart but she will never take my place by his side. I am going to bed as it is 10:30. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.
January 4, 1928. Wednesday.
Stayed home all day and slept. Went to the Pantages tonight with L. T. Haven't heard from Roy yet. Lewis called me.
January 5, 1928.
Got a telegram from Harlingen. Little Roy is dead. Oh, wont our luck ever change? It is sure a lonesome old place tonight. I went with Lewis and Fred but I can't have a good time. I love my husband. I always think of him,. If God would only let me find where he is.
January 6, 1928.
Well, there's nothing to do all day. Just sit around. I went with Lewis tonight. Had a nice time, but I can't get Roy off my mind. We went out to Mae's awhile and went driving. Sure am blue tonite.
January 7, 1928.
Well, I went down town today and saw a picture. Milton Sills in "Framed." Sure was a good picture. Rosa Mary has been ill but is o. k. now. Tonight I went with Lewis again. Not a darn thing to do. I met Johnnie Baker tonite for the first time in a long time. Still the same old Johnnie. But I don't care anything about him.
Roy is always in my mind. I come home early tonite. I didn't feel like going anywhere much. Johnnie came out with Lew. Oh, God, how I wish I could see Roy! But I try my best to brush all thought of him aside and have a good time. If I knew for sure he didn't care for me, I'd cut my throat and say here goes nothing. Maybe he does though. I still have hopes. Raymond called me.* I have a date with him for tomorrow. But to hell with all men. He is very nice — a perfect gentleman. But how can I enjoy life? Raymond is a decetive (she means detective). I think I'll have him look Roy up. Gracie wants me to come down there but I can't bear to look at his sisters. They remind me of him. I love them because they are his. I took the blues when I went to see Mae. Well, maybe tomorrow will make things a little clearer.
*Not Raymond Hamilton. She did not know him until she met Clyde.
Jan. 8, 1928. Sunday.
It's just another day to me. Plenty to do but no heart to do it. Got up at 11. Raymond called and wanted a date with me, but shucks, I don't feel like going. I went to the Old Mill tonight. Was a very good show but I was bored to death. Had dinner after the show. Got home at 11:30. Lewis called me three times.
Jan. 9, 1928. Monday.
We have been torn up all day. Went to hunt a job but never found it. Got a letter from Gracie, but haven't heard from Roy. I guess I am a fool to look for any word from him but I don't want to lose hopes any worse.
Jan. 19, 1928. Tuesday.
Blue as usual. Not a darn thing to do. Don't know a darn thing.
Jan. 11, 1928. Wednesday.
Haven't been anywhere this week. Why don't some thing happen?
Jan. 12, 1928. Thursday.
Went to a show. Saw Florence Vidor and Clive Brook in "Afraid to Love." Sure was good. Blue as hell tonight. Went to hunt a job at 903 South Harwood.
Jan. 13, 1928. Friday.
Went to a show. Saw Virginia Vallie in "Marriage."
Not a thing helps out though. Sure am blue. Everything has gone wrong today. Why don't something happen?
What a life!
Jan. 14, 1928. Saturday.
Went to town, saw a show, Wallace McDonald and Clara Bow in "The Primrose Path." It was good. Not doing anything tonite.
Sunday, Jan. 15, 1928.
Went to grannie's today. Stayed home tonight. Nothing particular happened.
Monday, Jan. 16, 1928.
Went to Chocolate Shop today. Got a letter from Gracie. Sure am blue tonight. Have been crying. I wish I could see Roy.
Tuesday, Jan. 17, 1928 —
Thus ends the diary, with a date and a dash, and a plaintive wail for Roy, who was not to return to her till the following year. I hadn't interfered with Bonnie's affairs up till now, but she was so blue and so down, that it got under my skin. "Why don't you send him packing when he does come back?" I demanded of her, after finding her in tears one afternoon.
"Because I love him," she said.
"He treats you like a dish rag," I told her. "Comes and goes when he pleases. I’d put a stop to it if I were you, Bonnie."
She came and hugged me. "Someday I may get enough of the way he's acting," she said. "But right now I want him back, mama."
Well, what could a mother do? A girl in love has no sense anyway. About this time she began the job at Marco's Cafe, which she held till November, 1929. Work gave her something else to do besides brood, and she was soon in a better frame of mind. Her ruling passion all her life was babies. Clyde told me a month or so before he and Bonnie were killed, that she was always wanting to just "borrow" some woman's baby for a few days, and that he had his hands full with her sometimes when she'd get lonesome and blue for home. She'd sight a baby in some little town and begin to beg for the privilege of borrowing it till she got over the blues. "Hold-ups were things Bonnie never did get to really care for," Clyde said. "But the kidnapping racket was one where she'd have thrived, if all the people snatched had been one year old, or younger." I remember coming home from work one day while we were still living on Olive Street, and finding the house jam full of babies — black, chocolate, brown, even Mexican babies — for every sort and color of family lived around us. Bonnie and Billie were in the midst of all this gang of young ones, their faces beaming with happiness. "We've had a party," Billie cried. "And asked all the children in the neighborhood," Bonnie said, delightedly.
I could well believe them. I'd never seen so many babies before. "Listen here," I said, stepping over two youngsters covered with chocolate ice cream, "I can't get in the house. You've got to get these kids back to their homes right now."
Well, Bonnie and Billie delivered babies for the next two hours, and I never saw such a mess as that house was in, not to mention th
e invited guests. One negro baby was violently ill all night from having been fed too much chocolate candy by Bonnie, who was more generous than she was wise. One little one, too small to talk, was mislaid for awhile before the two girls finally located his mother and delivered him to her arms again, rather damp and sticky, but happy.
In the back of our yard a negro woman lived who had two pickaninnies who were very fond of Bonnie, and they used to climb up the magnolia tree in the alley and gather flowers for her every evening in the spring. They'd meet Bonnie when she came from work and present their bouquets, knowing that Bonnie would give them nickles, no matter if she had to walk to work next morning.
Early in 1929 Roy came back, but during the long separation, Bonnie's affection for him had cooled. She was going on nineteen now, and she was growing up. No longer was she the seventeen-year-old, whose girl friend was "somewhat a consulation." Nor was she the naive innocent who had tried "drowing her sorrows in bottled hell!" She was becoming a young woman and she was seeing Roy through new eyes. The marriage didn't last long this time, and it was Bonnie who sent Roy packing when the end of their love came, not Roy who deserted Bonnie.
The three children were still at home with me. Billie had married, but she and Fred lived with us. Bonnie lived a very ordinary, simple life. As I look back over it now, I realize that to all appearances, she was just an average girl with an average young girl's existence — not too much sorrow and not too much fun. About what one usually designates as middle class, I expect. There was nothing to mark her as out of the ordinary, nor to warn me that she was destined for a terrible future and a grim and revolting death.
Several months after the final break, her husband got into some trouble at Red Oak; was tried for robbery and sent up for five years. Bonnie was exceedingly sorry for him, but it didn't upset her as it once would have done, because she no longer loved him. She had beaus — she always had beaus — and went about to dances now and then, or to shows. But she made no effort to get a divorce, and when I asked her why, she said:
"Well, I didn’t get it before Roy was sent up, and it looks sort of dirty to file for one now. Besides, I don’t want to marry anybody else, so I’ll just wait, mama."
She never got a divorce. She had no need of it then, and when she came to want one, she was a fugitive from justice and in no position to establish residence and file, because officers were looking for her and Clyde Barrow in every corner of the state. So she died Roy Thornton's wife in the eyes of the law, although she belonged wholly to Clyde from the instant she first laid eyes on him, for it was that sort of love.
I had never heard Clyde Barrow's name and didn't dream that such a boy existed till January, 1930. Bonnie, still out of work after the closing of Marco's Cafe, had gone to stay with a girl friend in West Dallas. This girl had broken her arm, and Bonnie went to help with the work. Clyde's folks lived near, and here it was Clyde came and met my daughter.
It all came about so simply, as such momentous and life-changing things often do. Clyde dropped by this girl's house, Bonnie was there, and they met. That was the beginning. I notice that newspapers and detective magazines state that the meeting occurred while Bonnie was working at Marco's Cafe; that Bonnie was seen often with Clyde in night clubs and speakeasies, Bonnie always smoking a big black cigar and paying all the bills. Sensation seekers abound, even among newspaper reporters, I see, and truth is never so interesting as a good, windblown yarn, made up out of whole cloth. Bonnie Parker met Clyde Barrow in the kitchen of a simple home in West Dallas, and at the time she met him, she did not know that he had ever had any trouble with the law.
If the simple recital of her diary doesn't prove to you that Bonnie wasn't the sort of girl who frequented night clubs and speakeasies, no denials I can make would convince you, anyway. As for the cigar smoking story, Bonnie never smoked one in her whole life, and it was the one newspaper story that made her the maddest, and which she begged me to refute. Reporters weren't interested in telling the world that Bonnie didn't smoke cigars. A cigar smoking gun moll made such lurid headlines, no paper would ever correct the story for me. Bonnie did smoke cigarettes, but not cigars. I was amused, though, to read one day where the law had discovered the Barrow gang's hide-out, and found several cigar butts with lip-stick on them. I wondered just which one of the boys had turned sissy on Clyde. The picture of Bonnie with the cigar was taken one Sunday afternoon in a moment of playfulness, just as young people the world over like to make pictures of themselves in some tough looking pose. In the Joplin, Missouri raid, the films fell into the hands of the officers, and the newspapers seized upon the finished product and printed them. From that day on, Bonnie was branded and nothing I could say would change it. It was one of the best stories which they used to make Bonnie seem tough, calloused, hard, coarse, and utterly beyond all human feeling.
I went over to see Bonnie and her friend about the second week in January, and here I saw Clyde Barrow for the first time. He was in the kitchen with a big cook apron on, mixing up some hot chocolate, a drink of which he was very fond. I knew there was something between them the minute Bonnie introduced him to me. I could tell it in Bonnie's eyes and her voice, and the way she kept touching his sleeve as she talked. I knew, too, that it was different from the young girl love she had given Roy. She was desperately afraid I wasn't going to like this Barrow boy, and she wanted me to like him above everything else. I sensed that.
A few weeks later Bonnie came home to stay, and that night Clyde called to see her. He intended leaving town next morning, and stayed late. So late, in fact, that I finally suggested that he'd better spend the rest of the night on the living room couch. I fixed him a bed and got him a pair of Buster's pajamas. He certainly was a likable boy, very handsome, with his dark wavy hair, dancing brown eyes, and a dimple that popped out now and then when he smiled. He looked more like a young law student or doctor than a bandit; he had what they call charm, I think. He was good company, and full of fun, always laughing and joking. I could see why Bonnie liked him.
It never entered my head that he was in trouble, or that he was leaving town because the town was getting too hot for him. If I had guessed that, I'd have sent him out of the house before daybreak. Not knowing any of these things, I helped Hubert and Fred off to work, and let Clyde sleep. He was still asleep when the officers came for him.
Clyde's older brother, Buck, had started his sentence at Huntsville in January, and when the officers awakened Clyde, one of them said to him tauntingly: "If you've got any rabbit in you, you'll run like Buck."
Clyde grinned at them and said sleepily: "Buddy, I'd sure run if I could."
When he was up and dressed, he went with them. I had my hands full with Bonnie while this was going on. I thought she was going crazy. She screamed and cried, beat her hands on the walls, begged the officers not to take him, hung around Clyde's neck — did all of the foolish, futile things a woman does under such circumstances. Clyde kept telling her it was going to be all right, but I could tell by the look on the officers' faces that they didn't think so. I asked them where they were taking him, and they said he was wanted in half a dozen places, but they were taking him to jail in Dallas first.
When they left, Bonnie stopped crying and just sat down like the end of the world had come. I had to go on to work, but I surely did hate to leave her there, so pathetic and helpless looking, with the tears rolling down her cheeks, crying silently. They kept Clyde in Dallas for several days and Bonnie went to see him whenever she could, and spent the rest of the time writing him volumes and crying silently. She couldn't talk about anybody else but Clyde. He seemed to be on her mind every minute. She'd ask over and over if there wasn't a chance that he might be freed of the charges. If he could just get out of this, she said, he'd never do anything else wrong — she knew it — she knew it! She began going out to see his mother a lot. It seemed to comfort her to be near anybody who was kin to Clyde. I didn't put any obstacle in her way, but let her do what she seemed to wan
t to do. Of course, they wouldn't let her in to see him much, since she wasn't kin to him.
Her letters to Clyde Barrow during the time here and in Denton are, to me, the most pitiful and most revealing letters a woman ever wrote a man. And since they speak for themselves, I shall simply present them and let the reader draw his own conclusions as to whether or not Bonnie was already a tough and hardened woman of the world, ripe and ready for a criminal career.
1406 Cockrell Street, February 14, 1930.
Mr. Clyde Barrow,
Care The Bar Hotel,
Dallas, Texas.
Sugar:
Just a line tonight. How is my baby by now? Today has been just another day to me and a hard one. Sure wish I could have seen you today. I think I could have made it. Maybe I can see you tomorrow. I went out to your mother's today. Marie is staying all night with me tonight.
Honey, I don't know any news. Nothing ever happens any more. At least nothing interesting. I have had the blues so bad all day that I could lie right down and die. I am so disgusted honey. I don't know what to do. I wish you were here to tell me what to do. Everything has turned out wrong. I even sprained my wrist today.
Sugar, when you do get out, I want you to go to work, and for God's sake, don't get into any more trouble. I am almost worried to death about this. Sugar, when you get clear and don't have to run, we can have some fun.
I sure hate to write when I feel as blue as I do tonight. I just called Nell and she said she saw you today. I sure do like her. She is so sweet. Darling, today is the first day I've cried in a long time but I sure did cry today all day. One of the boys brought me a box of candy for a Valentine today. I was alone with the baby (Billie, her sister's baby) and the idiot tried to spend the day. I never was so irritated in all my life. Talk about a sick woman but I was the sickest. I did everything but tell him to leave, and he stayed and stayed and stayed. Finally Billie came back and I walked out. Now, it's bad enough to be sick and discouraged as I was without having an idiot to put up with. I felt like throwing the candy in his face. I didn't appreciate the old candy at all, and I thought about my darling in that mean old jail, and started to bring the candy to you. Then I knew you wouldn't want the candy that that old fool brought to me.