by Greg Laurie
Charlene had seven husbands in total before her marrying days were over, with a lot of boyfriends strung along in between. Her life spiraled downward as she became a helpless alcoholic, passing out almost every night.
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That’s why the story of Julian Crawford, Steve McQueen’s mother, totally resonates with me. I, too, understand what it was like to be the unwanted, unloved son. Like he was.
And I can tell you, it stays with you for the rest of your life.
I’d like to report I am so spellbound by Will Smither’s tour-de-force symposium that I don’t pay much attention to the repast on our table. But the fact is, it’s all I can do to get on my feet and lurch to the car when it’s time to go.
As it turns out, collectors believe they have recently discovered one of the two existing original Bullitt cars in a junkyard in Mexico. For car guys, this is the equivalent of finding the Ark of the Covenant. Maybe even a bigger deal.
“Nice ride!” says Will knowingly as we approach the Bullitt for the short drive to the hospital, where the man responsible for the car’s iconic status entered this world.
It’s a funny thing about the Bullitt car: people either “get it” or they don’t. For some, it’s just a Highland green ’67 Mustang with a blacked-out grill and no pony emblem. But for the initiated, it’s a replica of one of the coolest movie cars ever, down to the last detail.
As it turns out, collectors believe they have recently discovered one of the two existing original Bullitt cars in a junkyard in Mexico. For car guys, this is the equivalent of finding the Ark of the Covenant. Maybe even a bigger deal. The story was major news around the world, reminding me that the mystique of McQueen continues to this very day.
Will totally gets it. Now I like him even more (though I still think he ought to at least be wearing a bow tie).
In fewer than two minutes, we’re at the hospital on Seventeenth Avenue. It’s been closed since 2012, but the sturdy-looking building is still fully intact and quite imposing . . . at least for a few more days, before it gets bulldozed. I wonder how Julian felt when she walked through the front door to deliver her baby. Happy or fearful?
After all, Steve McQueen was born five months after the Great Depression had devastated the United States. Emotionally and financially, Julian and William McQueen were totally unprepared and unequipped for parenthood. Julian was weeks shy of her twentieth birthday, and William had just turned twenty-three.
Domesticity wasn’t in William’s nature, and after his son was born, he took a permanent hike. Steve spent a good majority of his life trying to find him, and when he finally did, he didn’t like the end result.
Though the county birth certificate names William and Julian as Steve’s parents, Will tells me he’s been unable to find any document in the Marion County (Indiana) or Saline County (Missouri) archives that indicates they were officially married. However, the 1930 US Census lists Julian as married, and in the Indianapolis city directories from those years, Julian’s surname name is given as McQueen. Common law?
“Your guess is as good as mine,” says Will.
Our next stop is 1311 N. Drexel Avenue in the Little Flower district, one of Indianapolis’s oldest neighborhoods. It’s where Lillian and Victor Crawford lived, and where Steve spent the first years of his life. The house is a straight six-mile shot up Sherman Drive, and we’re there in fifteen minutes.
So taking Julian and Steve along, they moved from Indiana to Slater, Missouri, where they lived in a dilapidated former railroad car with no heat or bathroom.
Built in 1930—the year Steve was born— the two-bedroom brick home with detached garage sits on a tiny lot of 5,358 square feet, only about one-eighth of an acre. Lots for sale in that neighborhood weren’t moving, Will tells me, until the Phoenix Investment Co., Security Trust Co., and Rosalia Realty turned a parcel of land over to the Indianapolis diocese in 1921 for the construction of a church and school that would attract families. The result was the Little Flower Catholic Parish, the first in the world named after Carmelite nun Therese Martin of Lisieux, France, canonized in May 1924.
It had the desired effect, as Irish and German Catholic families flocked to the area in great numbers, launching one of the biggest building booms the city had ever seen. At one point, a hundred new homes were under simultaneous construction, and more than forty separate real estate firms and home construction firms were competing for customers in Little Flower.
How does Will know all this stuff? He’s like a walking history book.
The Little Flower Catholic Church is just two blocks from the house, and as we head there, Will tells me Victor (Steve’s grandfather) was the one who’d been raised Catholic. Lillian came from a long line of Protestants and most likely converted to appease her husband. But she did so with a vengeance, and her attempts to make Julian toe the Catholic line were met with open rebellion. The Catholic Church in general held no attraction to their fun-loving daughter, and she increasingly took refuge in the bottle from her mother’s harangues and admonitions.
I can’t help but wonder how he felt about what he’d been taught about a loving God as he watched Lillian spiral. His grandmother was clearly more of a mother to him than the one who’d given birth to him, before descending into raving madness. Something like that could shake a person’s faith to the core.
Little Flower Church and its elementary school, which opened in September 1926, were built for a mere $130,000. There were eighty-five students when the school bell rang out for the first time, and the church saw a nightly attendance of roughly seven hundred people.
But according to Will, the Great Depression hit the Little Flower area hard. Even the church had trouble meeting its financial obligations, and parishioners held bake sales, pancake breakfasts, penny suppers, raffles, and other special events to help out.
The Crawfords no doubt did their part, until the bottom fell out of their own lives as well. Victor developed stomach cancer and was unable to work. The bills mounted, and they ending up losing their comfortable home in Little Flower.
So taking Julian and Steve along, they moved from Indiana to Slater, Missouri, where they lived in a dilapidated former railroad car with no heat or bathroom.
The car had once been used to cook meals for hired hands out in the fields at threshing time. Now it sat on blocks on Thomson Lane, right across from the family farmhouse where her ne’er-do-well brother Claude still reigned. How Lillian must’ve gagged whenever she looked at Claude’s place.
After Victor died in June 1943, Lillian emotionally spiraled, Will says. She was often spotted walking barefoot and alone on Thomson Lane, clutching a crucifix and rosary beads, raging at the hand she’d been dealt in life. Claude had her sent to Fulton State Hospital for the insane, where she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and committed. Though a short ninety-minute drive from Slater, Lillian’s family never visited her. Her grandson made The Great Escape in 1963. Poor Lillian finally made hers a year later, dying at the age of eighty-five and, sadly, all alone.
It’s now inching up into the afternoon, and I’m taking my most gracious guide Will back to the pizza place before going on to Slater, about six and a half hours away. On the way to my car, he tells me he’s sent an inquiry to Little Flower Church about whether Steve was confirmed there. If so, it was surely at his grandmother’s behest, and I can’t help but wonder how he felt about what he’d been taught about a loving God as he watched Lillian spiral. His grandmother was clearly more of a mother to him than the one who’d given birth to him, before descending into raving madness.
Something like that could shake a person’s faith to the core.
HOG HEAVEN
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As I steer the Bullitt onto westbound I-70, the classic song “The Long and Winding Road” comes on the satellite radio. The melancholy Beatles tune fits my mood perfectly as I reflect on the depressing circumstances of Steve McQueen’s early life and how eerily they match my own.
“I�
�ve seen that road before,” sings Paul McCartney.
Me, too.
McQueen and I both had exactly the same kind of upbringing. Our moms were alcoholics. Every place we lived had a revolving door through which all manner of strange, frightening, abusive men flitted in and out. Our dads were AWOL.
It’s a dreary reverie, and I’m thankful to be jolted out of it—literally—when the car hits a pothole in the highway. The Bullitt’s very basic suspension came with the car when it was built in 1967. The ones McQueen drove in the movie were modified to take the kind of abuse they got on the hilly streets of San Francisco. I must talk to Don Oakes about that when I get back to California.
My plan is to drive straight through to Slater, Missouri, where Steve McQueen came of age. I don’t know much else about the place except that it’s an agricultural town—hogs, a specialty—and I’ve heard, like too much of small-town America these days, it’s withering on the vine.
Towns, like people, get old and then die. And here my mind goes back on that long and winding road . . . .
One of my heroes is Billy Graham, who turned ninety-eight a few days before I wrote these words. In a rare recent interview, he talked to Sarah Pulliam Bailey of Christianity Today about what that feels like.
About the only good thing about being bald is that you can shampoo with a washcloth, and you’re the first to know when it’s raining.
“I can’t honestly say that I like being old,” Billy said, “not being able to do most of the things I used to do, for example, and being more dependent on others, and facing physical challenges that I know will only get worse. Old age can be a lonely time also—children scattered, spouse and friends gone.”
For me, I’ve got no cause for major complaint on that score. Not yet. So far the aging process has taken its biggest toll on my hairline. I jokingly told my grandchildren recently that I was getting a hairpiece for my sixty-fourth birthday. “No, Papa!” shrieked one of them. “We like your bald head!”
That’s nice, but about the only good thing about being bald is that you can shampoo with a washcloth, and you’re the first to know when it’s raining.
The top of my noggin tells me there’s no falling precipitation when I get out of the car several hours later in the parking lot of Shirley’s Bakery and Grill, just before the Slater exit. A sign says closing time is eight o’clock, which it just about is, but I’m starving. And it must show because when I step inside, Shirley Meyer, the owner, gives me a warm smile and says, “Take off your jacket, have a seat and stay a while, won’t you?”
Under the circumstances, it seems to me that giving the King of Cool top billing would be, well, a slam dunk. But hey, I’m new in town.
Small towns may be on life support, but small-town hospitality is clearly alive and well. So to reciprocate Shirley’s, I accept her recommendation of the breaded pork tenderloin, exult over every bite, clean my plate, and then order a slice of her homemade chocolate pie. I totter out so stuffed, the Bullitt’s ancient suspension actually seems to groan when I drop onto the edge of the seat and slide behind the wheel.
Good thing the Countryside Inn is only five minutes away. Choosing it was easy. It’s the only lodging to be had in the city of about eighteen hundred residents.
At the edge of town is a large billboard with two photos, only one of which I recognize. The sign proclaims:
Welcome to Slater
Hometown of Joe Kleine—NBA
Childhood home of Steve McQueen
Joe Kleine, I find out later on the computer, averaged 9.8 points per game in the best of his fifteen years in the NBA, a journeyman who shuttled between more than a half dozen teams before closing it down with the Portland Trail Blazers in 2000. Under the circumstances, it seems to me that giving the King of Cool top billing would be, well, a slam dunk. But hey, I’m new in town.
Just a couple hundred yards beyond the billboard is the Countryside Inn, and you don’t see many like it anymore. It’s a throwback to the 1950s when guests parked their cars right at the door of their rented rooms and considered it the height of convenience. As full and tired as I am, I am happy to have it. Plus, I can keep an eye on my Bullitt in case any car thieves are afoot in Slater, though I highly doubt it.
When I insert it in the lock and open the door, I find myself face-to-face with detective Frank Bullitt himself.
Rooms are sixty-five dollars, but the friendly desk clerk excitedly informs me that for a mere five dollars extra I can take my pick of three specialty suites that just happen to be available tonight. One is called the Mermaid Suite; another, the Marilyn Monroe, and the third is the Steve McQueen Suite.
You’d better believe I jump at the opportunity. Who knows if I’ll ever get another chance to sleep in a room named for a mermaid? Plus, my granddaughters will be delighted when I tell them.
Sorry, female progeny notwithstanding, I couldn’t resist. I take the McQueen suite, of course.
The key is attached to one of those humongous oblong plastic rings that are also relics of a bygone time, and when I insert it in the lock and open the door, I find myself face-to-face with Detective Frank Bullitt himself. In the large photo of McQueen, he’s got on the tweed jacket and blue turtleneck he wore in the movie. Also in the room are pictures of vintage cars, a nightstand with a black leather steering wheel, and lots of chrome.
After a few blazing laps around the room at the wheel of the nightstand, I hit the sack and am just about asleep when a thought jolts me wide awake: Where is Joe Kleine’s suite?
Up at 6:00 a.m., I read my daily regimen of Scripture, take care of correspondence, and do some online research on Slater. Named after John Fox Slater, prominent railroad tycoon of the Chicago and Alton Railroad, the city was incorporated in January 1878. The area’s fertile soil was perfect for all kinds of crops and hog farming, and the mixture of the railroad and agriculture made the town an almost instant success.
By the early 1920s Slater inched toward five thousand residents, many of whom, like Claude Thomson, played as hard as they worked. To that end, there were plenty of backroom gambling dens, saloons, beer joints, and maybe a bawdy house or two in town.
The counter is filled with baseball-cap-wearing old-timers, sipping coffee and talking to one another. If anybody owns a smart phone, it’s tucked away in the pocket of his bib overalls.
Turns out old Claude threw some mean parties of his own out at the farm, some of which are still legendary in Slater. Lots of booze and live music. I wonder if they kept poor Lillian up at night, across the way in her breezy railroad car.
At eight o’clock I pull up in front of 222 Main Street, home of the Slater Main Street News, which has been around since 1886. I’ve got an appointment with Jean Black, who has lived in the area all her sixty-plus years. She’s been the owner and editor of the paper for the past twenty of them, and if anybody can tell me about McQueen’s life in Slater, it’s she.
Right off the bat Jean kindly asks if I’ve had breakfast yet. I haven’t, and she suggests we head down the street to the City Pharmacy. On the way I spot a discount store, a thrift/antique shop, a tiny veteran’s park, a chiropractor’s office (he’s the mayor), a restaurant, and a few vacant properties with “For Lease” signs in the windows. There’s an old fellow riding a small John Deere tractor at a snail’s pace down Main Street, and no one even notices. Classic Americana. I love it.
For years, she says, rumor was that McQueen didn’t much care much for Slater, and the feeling was definitely mutual.
The City Pharmacy has been a local mainstay for as long as Jean can remember. Its old-school features include a soda fountain and those round, spinning, leather and chrome stools that made your grandparents dizzy. The counter is filled with baseball-cap-wearing old-timers, sipping coffee and talking to one another. If anybody owns a smart phone, it’s tucked away in the pocket of his bib overalls.
On the way to our booth, Jean smiles and first-names folks she’s known for years. We sit while the waitress
pours our coffee. She calls me “honey,” same as she says to all the other guys in the place. The coffee’s not my preferred 2-percent latte, but it more than does the trick. Jean orders an omelet, and because I’m in the right place for it, I go hog wild—hash browns, toast, two eggs over easy, sausage, ham, and the thickest sliced bacon I’ve ever seen in my life.
I’m happy to report that science is on my side in regard to these culinary choices. I had just read an article about the oldest living woman, age 117, who says the secret to longevity has been her diet of two raw eggs a day. She also says she likes to eat cookies, though it’s proved to be difficult now that all her teeth are gone. The secret, she revealed, is—and I’m quoting here—“lots of bacon!” She says she eats bacon with every meal.
So, bacon, ham, and eggs it is. Sounds like a good choice. I also might go back to Shirley’s later and try some of her famous homemade cookies. Hope my teeth hold out.
I barely get into the reason for my visit when Jean floors me with a stunning bit of local scuttlebutt. She says it was a long time before Slater embraced Steve McQueen as a favorite son. For years, she says, rumor was that McQueen didn’t much care much for Slater, and the feeling was definitely mutual.
“In a small town, if someone doesn’t like you, you don’t like them back,” she explains. “So there were decades of, shall we say, harsh feelings toward our famous hometown boy.”
“Steve didn’t hate Slater,” she said. “Steve didn’t hate anything—except when he ran out of beer.” Everyone laughed.
Maybe that’s why they gave him second billing on the sign, I figure.
Those feelings didn’t change until March 2007, she said, when a handful of local movers and shakers bucked public opinion to put on a festival called “Steve McQueen Days.” They invited Barbara McQueen, as well as Steve’s confidante and stunt fight coordinator Pat Johnson and his longtime stunt stand-in, Loren Janes, as guests of honor. Some of the old-timers snorted and said nobody would show up, including themselves, yet more than two thousand people did, some from as far away as Japan.