Love & Murder The Lives and Crimes of Bonnie and Clyde

Prologue

In the early 1900’s the Depression had lowered a hideous shroud over the nation. The American Dream collapsed along with Wall Street in 1929. Pride of freedom became a joke.

The country's money simply declined by 38 percent and men roamed the city streets seeking jobs...Breadlines and soup kitchens became jammed. Foreclosures forced more than 38 percent of farmers from their lands (while simultaneously) a catastrophic drought struck the Great Plains...

By the time Bonnie and Clyde became well known, many had felt the capitalistic system had been abused by big business and government officials...Now here were Bonnie and Clyde striking back.

While they terrorized banks and store owners in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Louisiana, and New Mexico, Americans thrilled to their Robin Hood adventures. The presence of a female, Bonnie, escalated the sincerity of their intentions to make them something unique and individual even at times heroic and above similar activities of all-male motor bandits like John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd.

Even more than their insurgence against their status in life was Bonnie and Clyde's devotion to their own. With police and government detectives constantly on their trails, sometimes literally by inches, they time and time again risked their own lives to protect the other.

When on the lam, they found time to visit their Dallas-area families, risking capture more than once. Clyde and his father had even concocted their own signal to let the families know when the outlaws were in town: Clyde would drive the latest of his stolen automobiles in front of the Barrow service station and from the car toss a soda pop bottle containing directions to a place of rendezvous.

The family would then meet up with the duo and Clyde’s mother would even bring them a hot meal.

In their getaway cars, Clyde and Bonnie habitually carried a Kodak box camera; they loved to pose wielding shotguns and revolvers, self-parodying the gangster image they realized they had earned. More than that, they loved to pose together, embraced or kissing, having other gang members do the snapping. When they died, the police found an undeveloped roll of film under their car seat photos of them together, looking adventurous and deeply in love.

They knew they were going to die, maybe next week, maybe next month, maybe in the morning or maybe even before the night fell that evening. They never pretended they might be the only exception to the rule, Crime doesn't pay.

But, because they knew their time was limited their crime spree lasted less than two years.

And from January 1930, when Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow first met in Dallas, to their deaths on May 23rd, 1934,  they decided to let all hell break loose in the meantime to whoop and holler it up till death do them part.

Bonnie's last request to her mother was, Don't bring me to a funeral parlor. Bring me home.

The last two years of their lives, once they met, were a whirly-gig. Never-ending highways burning in the Southwest sun; dusty back roads; the scorch of over-heated radiators; the burn of rubber; the stifled campiness of one car after another; their only air the hot breeze they channeled through rolled-down car windows.

They lived a fast life, a die-young life. And they wouldn't have traded it for the world.

They were Bonnie and Clyde.

The Early Years

1909-1929

If the Old West Outlaws get a lot of historic attention, a close second are the gangsters of the 1920’s Prohibition era and the 1930's Depression period. Feared and revered, these American gangsters often controlled liquor sales, gambling, and prostitution, while making popular, silk suits, diamond rings, guns, booze and loose women. 

These many men and in some cases women too, though often murderers and outright thieves, were sometimes also involved in the political, social, and economic conditions of the times. Infamous names of the era included people such as Al Capone, Vito Genovese, Dutch Schultz, Jack Legs Diamond, Charles Lucky Luciano, John Dillinger, and Bugsy Siegel.

The Depression created yet another type of outlaw, fed by both need and greed. Though not as revered as the 1920's gangsters, Depression era outlaws with names like Baby Face Nelson, Ma Barker, and Pretty Boy Floyd, also became legends, as their deeds included some of the deadliest headlines ever to hit newspaper front pages.

Much like the days of the Old West following the Civil War, these were difficult times for the vast majority of Americans and like the gunmen before them, the outlaws of the 1920’s and '30’s gained fame among those who dreamed of individuality and fast money. The romance of the lifestyle and resistance to the socially imposed rules of the times led numerous men and a few women into a criminal life that included bank robberies, illegal sales of alcohol, gambling, prostitution, and black market drugs.       

In those days, gangster killings were unlike those of the Old West or those of today. They were generally calculated business practices rather than personal vendettas, where one gang would line up rival gang members and shoot them down, or make a surprise attack on them, blasting or bombing until their rivals were dead. In the 1930s, the violence was more desperate as outlaws were determined to have their way at any cost. 

Though these men and women were violent criminals, like their predecessors in the days of the Old West, the public couldn’t get enough of them – craving the news stories, photographs, tales of luxurious living, and the morbid facts of violent deeds.

In the end, most of these outlaws were sent to jail, killed by rival gangsters, or killed by law enforcement, but their legends live on.

And for many the legends overshadow the true facts. And as they say, a lie told enough times will become known as the truth.

Through newspaper reports, firsthand interviews, police reports and court records, we will sort out the legends, the lies and the truth of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.  

Clyde Barrow

Life in Ellis County, Texas, near Telico, a town just south of Dallas was harsh in the early 1900’s.

In March of 1909 life for the Barrow family was already hard with four young children to feed and one more due any day now. 

Clyde Champion (actually his middle name was Chestnut) Barrow was the fifth of seven children for Henry and Cumie Talitha Barrow. Though some people say that there were a total of eight children in the Barrow family, the only official record shows seven. One writer states; (the census is not clear, since some of the children were not living at home)

But at her death on August 14th, 1942 and the death of Henry   on June 19th, 1957, only seven children are listed.

By the time that Clyde was born on March 24th 1909 he already had four older siblings, Elvin, Artie, Marvin and Nell. He would eventually have a younger brother and sister, Leon and Lillian.

Cumie Talitha Barrow with children, left to right, Jack, Artie Adelle, Nell and baby Clyde.

Henry was a patient hardworking man that started out life in farming. He worked as a share-cropper farmer in Telico, Texas when his children were young.

Henry left his family to farm each morning at sun-up and came home at sun-down. Henry worked very long hours every day to make ends-meet for his growing family.

As a child Clyde’s great love was music. He loved to sing and play an old guitar on the farm. He taught himself how to play the saxophone, and many believed that he might pursue a career in music.

Clyde carried his guitar with him until he had to leave it behind during a police shootout. He later asked his mother if she would contact the police to see if they would return it; they said no. Clyde loved music right up until the end— his saxophone was found in Bonnie and Clyde's ambushed death car.

But instead, young Clyde had been a handful for Cumie and Henry. Young Clyde Barrow had become a truant and a runaway early on in life and took to the rough life on the streets. On March 11th, 1918 (just 13 days from his ninth birthday) a warrant was issued by County Judge Chester H. Bryan against 8 year old Clyde Barrow on a complaint of Chief Probation Officer R.R. Adcock.

He was charged with being an incorrigible, with wandering the streets at night and with burglarizing a house near his home. He was tried in a juvenile court and was sentenced to the Harris County School for Boys for an indeterminate period.

When he got out, he joined The Root Square Gang in Houston where he committed a series of petty thefts.

Finally in 1921, Henry become disenchanted with farming and not being able to support his family's needs, with his body feeling the age, he made the decision to move his family (the remaining younger children) to Cement City (West Dallas as it's known today) in hopes of a better life.

By 1922 the family lived in a tent in an established campsite under the viaduct known as The Bogg for around a five year period of time until Henry worked and saved enough to purchase a home for the family.

The Bogg was primarily a wet-land area without any sanitation where raw sewage was exposed and mosquitoes were abundant. Life was difficult in the Bogg more so if the kids fell sick.

It is believed that through the years Henry was a salesman during his time in the Bogg selling goods and products from a wagon.

Clyde's schooling days, if you can call them that were sporadic and he never went past the fifth grade. So at 16, Clyde had quit school and would soon run through a number of low-end jobs.

During our research on Clyde Barrow we came across a phot of him in a sailor suit standing with his sister.

Some Bonnie & Clyde stories say that as a teenager, Clyde attempted to enlist in the US Navy, but because of lingering effects from a serious illness when he was a boy, it was possibly malaria or yellow fever, resulted in his medical rejection.

We contacted numerous historians and documents but we were unable to find any information about Clyde’s having tried to enlist in the Navy. But he was certainly pro-navy: not only does he appear to have enjoyed wearing the sailor’s outfit, but he also had a USN tattoo.

The photo, titled Clyde Barrow and sister Nell Barrow, Dallas, Texas, is from the University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries Special Collections. Photo loaned to UTSA by Henry J. Williams.

Clyde Barrow & his sister Nell

The back of this photo reads Nell Barrow and Clyde / 1925. Could it have been 1926 instead? On his birthday in 1925, Clyde (who was born on March 24, 1909) would have turned 16 years old. The minimum age for enlistment in the U.S. Navy jumped back and forth between 17 and 18 years old around that time frame, but by the time his birthday rolled around in March of 1926, the enlistment age was 17.

But unfortunately for Clyde, by the end of 1926 Clyde had been arrested for stealing a car, and even though charges were eventually dropped, this police record may have been enough to prevent him from enlisting.

Whatever the case, if he did want to join the navy, he had a very limited window in which to do it: from his 17th birthday on March 24th, 1926 to his first arrest in December 1926.

Clyde was first arrested on December 3rd, 1926 on a charge of auto theft, after running when police confronted him over a rental car he had failed to return on time. Clyde failed to return a car he had rented in Dallas to visit his high school girlfriend. The rental car agency dropped the charges, but the incident remained on his arrest record.

Clyde only had two serious girlfriends (Anne and Gladys) before he met Bonnie, but he never married. 

Sometime around that same year, after settling an insurance claim due to an accident, Henry purchased a small house off of Eagle Ford Road (now named Singleton Blvd) to bring his family to. Shortly thereafter Henry began construction to add a front part to the home to serve as a store and gas station. The gas station was completed around 1930/31.

Henry and Cumie Barrow

Henry owned and operated the Star Service Station for about 10 years until around 1939 where it was sold for $800.00 in late 1942/43 shortly after Cumie's death.

The Barrow Filling Station

Today the building known as The Barrow Filling Station still stands at 1221 Singleton Blvd, Dallas, a testament to Henry Barrow's craftsmanship on the front part of the building.

Henry started life as a farmer then was a salesman in the city and finally an entrepreneur-businessman.

While the charges were dropped for the car theft, Clyde was arrested again only three weeks later with his brother Buck for possession of a truck full of stolen chickens.

Buck got a week in jail, and Clyde was let off. The official story is Buck and Clyde stole the chickens, but Bonnie's sister later said that Buck and Clyde bought the chickens for resale. But, unfortunately, the chickens had been stolen before the Barrow brothers bought them, and so Buck and Clyde got the blame.

Despite having legitimate jobs during the years 1927 through 1929, he also cracked safes, robbed stores, and stole cars.

Teenager Clyde Barrow

In 1928 at the age of nineteen, Clyde decides to move out of the family home and pursue a life of crime with his brother Buck.

On October 16th, 1929 he was arrested with William Turner and Frank Hardy at the Roosevelt Hotel in Waco, Texas. He told Chief of Police Hollis Barron through a stream of tears that the two men had picked him up hitchhiking and he was unaware of their reputations. Barron let him go. This was probably the last break Clyde would ever get.

On November 11th, 1929, Clyde’s brother Buck met a young lady named Blanche Caldwell in West Dallas. At the time eighteen-year-old Blanche was hiding out from her husband John Callaway. When Blanche was seventeen-years-old, her mother forced her into a marriage with John Callaway. After being subjected to John's mental and physical abuse, a friend helped her escape.

Blanche Caldwell

Blanche and Buck fell in love almost immediately. But like the fate of the love between Bonnie and Clyde their romance would be short lived.

By this time Buck was a twice-divorced criminal with children from a previous marriage. But Blanche was willing to overlook this.

Marvin Buck Barrow

On November 29th, 1929, just two weeks after meeting Blanche, the Terrible Barrows (as the neighbors took to calling the duo) stole a car and decided to cruise the streets of nearby Denton. They wanted money and, with a little moonshine under their belt, decided to burglarize one of the gas stations on Main Street. 

They chose the Motor Mark Garage. Pulling their car, headlights off, through an alley, they parked behind the building and jimmied the shop's lock until it snapped. Greeting them inside was a small safe, bathed in moonlight that poured in through the window. It looked inviting. More so, it looked portable. Hoisting it, they carried it out and tossed it onto the back seat of their stolen car, laughing at the incredible ease of this job.

A local police officer, however, had earlier spotted the suspicious vehicle and, before Clyde and Buck could travel two blocks with the stolen safe, they found themselves being pursued. Panicking, driver Buck crashed the car into a lamp-post; the two brothers jumped out of the car. Clyde escaped through a succession of Denton backyards, but Buck had stumbled and the police nabbed him.

Refusing to name his accomplice, they took him to Denton's courthouse and booked him for robbery. In an ensuing trial, he received five years in the Eastham prison farm, while his brother remained at large.

Blanche was not deterred, just like Bonnie Parker; she stood by her Barrow man.

Clyde might have learned from this fiasco and his brother's literal stumbling into the hands of the police. He didn't. The night after the foiled theft, he and his friends were out burglarizing other stores in neighboring Waco.

Less than three months later, Clyde would meet a woman who would change his life.

Along comes Bonnie Parker

Bonnie Parker

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was born in Rowena, which is a small town off of Highway 67 in central Texas. She was the second