Marie Barrow thought Warden Waid was impressed by Buck’s voluntary return to prison, because he agreed to the family’s requests. Her mother thought that Waid was a nice man, and he told them that it was “a mighty fine thing to do.” Buck was even allowed to take up where he left off, with no time added to his sentence for his escape. One of the things that enabled Buck to go back to the penal farm was the knowledge that Blanche would be taken care of while he was in prison. It was arranged that Blanche would live part of the time with the Barrow family and part of the time with Artie in Denison, Texas, where she would work at Artie’s beauty salon.
When Buck Barrow returned to Huntsville on December 27, 1931, Clyde was still at Eastham Camp 1 near Weldon Texas. It may have taken a while, but the word got to him that his brother was back. On January 27, 1932, Clyde was admitted to the main infirmary at Huntsville with two toes missing from his left foot. This wasn’t an accident, and it wasn’t just coincidence.
Some authors say that he had another inmate cut off the toes to get out of the back-breaking labor. Others say he did it himself. Certainly, selfmutilation was the most reliable method used by the prisoners as a means of escaping the situation on the farms. Severed toes and fingers, and even full amputations, were common events. For those not quite up to chopping off their own body parts, an alternative method was injecting dirty water or kerosene into the legs to induce a disabling infection. As crude as this may sound, there was a certain amount of skill required to do it right. A botched job might result in the guards just putting on a dirty bandage and sending you back out to the field the next day, even less able to keep up the work because of your injury.18 It’s easy to imagine what life on the Texas State Prison Farms must have been like in the early 1930s if personally removing one of your own appendages or giving yourself a life-threatening infection—in the days before antibiotics—were considered attractive options.
Although the incident with Clyde’s toes fit the common pattern, his motivation seems to have been a little different. Getting out of the brutal work schedule was certainly welcome, but Clyde told Fults that he did it to get back to Huntsville so he could be with Buck. Whichever story is true, Clyde must have kicked himself more than once about his timing. Six days after he arrived at the hospital, his mother’s work paid off and he received a conditional pardon. On February 2, 1932, he went home on crutches.19
Things had changed in west Dallas for the Barrow family while Clyde was gone.
Sometime before Clyde went to jail, his parents, with some financial assistance from their older children, finally got out of the campground in west Dallas. Nell Barrow bought a lot at 1620 Eagle Ford Road in west Dallas for her parents, and when Henry Barrow moved from the campground, he moved his house along with his family. The moving of this house is another of the notable memories from Marie Barrow’s childhood. She was allowed to ride inside the house as it was moved and thought it was a grand adventure. It was only a few blocks, but to a little girl, every foot of the trip was an exciting experience.
Two views of the Star Service Station, operated by Henry Barrow at 1620 Eagle Ford Road in west Dallas.
—Courtesy Marie Barrow Scoma and author Phillip W. Steele
In his letter of December 3, 1931, Clyde had asked his mother how things were going with the service station. Clyde knew that his father had bigger plans for the lot on Eagle Ford Road than just a place to live. Henry believed if he could put in a gas station, it would provide an income for himself and Cumie in their senior years. The Barrow business, called the Star Service Station, started out in the same house Henry had built on the campground. The service station part of the building was added onto the living quarters after it was moved to the Eagle Ford Road site. What the family called the “oil room” was added onto Henry and Cumie’s bedroom. This was where the business for the service station was conducted, and these were the changes Clyde asked about in his letter.1 When Clyde arrived home, they were still working on the station.
Henry also added kitchen facilities after the house was moved. Even so, life on Eagle Ford Road still had a lot in common with the primitive existence on the campground. One thing Marie Barrow remembered was the cold. Their little house had no insulation. Newspapers were often nailed to the walls in order to keep the cold winds from blowing through. Marie remembered her mother heating irons on the stove and wrapping them in clothes to be put under the covers for heat. There was no indoor running water and, of course, no indoor plumbing. Water was brought in from the pump, and way out in the back yard was the outhouse. Marie remembered it as a “two holer” complete with Sears and Roebuck catalog. Cumie did the washing outside with a tub and washboard.
The family’s circumstances weren’t the only thing that had changed in the last two years. The Clyde who came home on crutches was not the same person who was arrested two years before. Clyde’s prison experience had left him both physically and psychologically scarred. The two missing toes would heal, but the psychological damage was permanent. Clyde absolutely refused to discuss his experiences with any of his family members. All he ever said about it was that the Eastham prison farm was “a burning hell.” 2 Marie said that Clyde’s attitude toward life changed. He began to tell his mother that everyone had just one time to die and that “we all go when our time comes.” This new Clyde made the rest of his family uneasy.
At times, Clyde tried to pick up his life where he left off. For a while he considered putting up an automobile garage on the empty lot next to the service station. Clyde’s illegal activities would eventually provide the money for his father to buy the lot, but the economic facts of life couldn’t be ignored. In early 1932, honest, hard-working men were in breadlines. Where did that leave ex-cons? In the fall of 1929, just before Clyde and Buck pulled the Denton job, the unemployment rate was about 5 percent. When Clyde came home from prison, it was over 20 percent. Times were hard. That doesn’t excuse Clyde’s later actions, but that’s the way things were. America’s economy was on its knees.
About the only thing that went well for Clyde in the early weeks after his release was that Bonnie Parker was glad to see him. At that time, Bonnie was living with her mother and was seeing other men. The second day Clyde was back, he went over to the Parker house to find out how things stood. Bonnie was overjoyed to see him again and might have jumped into his arms if he hadn’t been hobbling around on his crutches. Her current boyfriend, who was there at the time, got the message and left.
Bonnie again became a regular fixture around the Barrow home. She helped Clyde until he was free of his crutches, and then he assisted his father around the service station where he could. As he got stronger, he tried to keep a job, but the police kept showing up and talking to his boss. There’s no evidence that Clyde ever caused any trouble or stole from any of his employers, but with so many men fighting for work, employers didn’t need the aggravation of the police hassling them about ex-cons. It was much easier to just get someone else. In frustration, Clyde finally agreed to try a job in Massachusetts, arranged by his family. They all hoped his reputation wouldn’t follow him to New England. For Clyde, however, his reputation wasn’t the problem—it was what he had to leave back in Texas.
Clyde left Dallas in early March 1932, to try and rebuild his life. This trip was the first time that Clyde had been that far away from his family. His sister Nell had arranged for the job, and the family had hopes that it would work out. He wrote a letter home that sounded upbeat, but, as it turned out, Clyde lasted about two weeks before he headed back to Texas.3
Dear Mother—
Just a few lines to let you know that I haven’t forgotten you.
I got here Monday night and I sure was tired out, but I like it up here and I guess I will go to work Monday. Well, how is everyone at home? I sure wish I could see you. I am lonesome already, but Jim is sure a good fellow and I am going to write to Nell over at ——— [Jack Barrow’s wife’s name]. I guess she will get it there. Have you seen Buck yet? Tell
him hello for me. I am going to send him a box, soon as I work awhile. Well Mother, I don’t know anything much right now, but will write more when I hear from you, so answer real soon and let me know how everything is in Dallas. Tell everyone hello for me and send my mail to:
FRAMINGHAM, MASS.
General Delivery.
Send it to Jack Stuwart—JACK STUWART,
that is my name here.4
Cumie received this letter in late March of 1932 but for some reason it was dated April 30, 1932.5
Clyde’s return from Massachusetts made his family uneasy concerning his frame of mind. They knew that this trip had been a last resort. Like Bonnie, Clyde was unable to be away from his family in general and his mother in particular, yet trying to maintain a job around west Dallas seemed to be an almost impossible proposition with the cops constantly keeping tabs on him. The family wondered what his next move would be, and it wasn’t long in coming.
Most likely, the main reason Clyde couldn’t stick it out in Massachusetts was Bonnie. One of the first things he did after returning home was to reunite with her. Clyde also had a surprise visitor when he got back to Dallas. All the family knew was that a friend of his from the prison farm had come around looking for him. He told Henry that he and Clyde had “pulled chain” together at Eastham. The fellow was Ralph Fults, and of course, there was nothing said about Ralph and Clyde’s real project—the raid on Eastham Camp 1.
Ralph Fults had been released from prison on August 25, 1931, with a pardon from Governor Ross Sterling, and he decided to go home to McKinney, Texas. He hadn’t been back in a long time, so, having spent most of his time in the school for boys or state prison, he felt a little out of place. There weren’t any jobs to be had, so he supported himself from his winnings in poker games and waited for Clyde to get out.
Fults watched the newspapers for lists of pardons and paroles issued, but January 1932 rolled around with still no word on Clyde. One day, on his way home, he passed by the McKinney jail and heard a familiar voice yell his name out one of the windows. It was an old friend from Eastham, and he had a cellmate who said he knew Clyde. Ralph went to the window and was introduced to an eighteen-year-old kid named Raymond Hamilton.6
Hamilton had been caught the previous September driving a stolen car with four stolen tires in the back. He got a suspended sentence in Dallas for the tires, but the car was stolen in McKinney, and there he was put in jail.7 By January, Ray was ready for his freedom, and after a short conversation about their mutual friend, Clyde Barrow, Fults agreed to help him. Ralph slipped a couple of hacksaw blades in the spine of a magazine that was then passed to Hamilton. Deputy Sheriff Jimmy Beldon noticed that Hamilton suddenly began talking a lot, but he didn’t think anything of it. The inmate was just trying to cover the noise of those blades working on the bars of his cell.8 About daylight on January 27, 1932, the sawing was finished and Ray Hamilton was gone. His escape was the main topic of conversation at the cafe where Ralph Fults had breakfast. In a related piece of good news, Clyde Barrow’s name was listed in the paper for February release.9 By late March, Clyde had returned from New England to find Ralph Fults waiting for him. It was time to start planning the Eastham raid they had talked about so often.
Ralph Fults’ mug shot. Texas State Prison.
—Courtesy the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum, Waco, Texas
The raid was going to take some financing and some extra manpower. They addressed the money problem first. The place Clyde had in mind was the Simms Oil Refinery, not far down the road from his father’s service station. Clyde had some inside information about the payroll and planned to take it, but they needed a third man, so Raymond Hamilton was recruited as the junior member of the team. He agreed reluctantly—stealing cars was more his game.10
On the evening of March 25, 1932, Clyde, Fults, and Hamilton cut through the fence, took four employees hostage, and cracked the safe. It turned out that their information was faulty—the safe was empty. All they could do was tie up the hostages and leave.11 After several more small burglaries, Clyde and Fults decided that, in order to raise the kind of money they needed for the raid, they would have to go after bigger game. They began to look for a bank.
For some reason, the boys decided to leave Texas and head north in search of a suitable victim. They made it as far as Minnesota, where they found a nice little bank in Okabena, just northeast of Worthington, but they finally decided to pass it up. There was still too much snow and ice on the roads for them to be confident of a clean getaway. Clyde filed the little bank away in his memory for future reference, however. The trio decided to turn back and take a closer look at some banks they had seen on the way north. It was a long drive, and they finally had to stop and sleep in the car because none of the three could stay awake. The car kept winding up in corn fields.12
According to several different people, somewhere on their return trip from Minnesota these three small-time crooks happened onto one of the biggest scores any of them would ever make, but there are also problems with some of the testimony. All three of them were seen with substantial amounts of money soon after their return to Texas, but exactly where they got it is unclear. Ralph Fults said that they hit a bank and got away with $33,000, but the details he gives for the robbery raise as many questions as they answer13 [for a discussion of Fults’ story, see Appendix Four].
Wherever the robbery was, Fults said that they wound up hiding out in East St. Louis, Illinois. None of them had ever had anything like that amount of money before, and they each had their own ideas how to use it. One thing was certain, however. Raymond Hamilton, the teenage car thief and escape artist who was reluctant to go on the road trip, had found his calling. After they counted the money, Ray said, “Let’s take another bank right away.” 14 Throughout his criminal career, Clyde Barrow hit mostly small places—filling stations and stores—and became famous for shooting policemen, but from then on, Raymond Hamilton was an enthusiastic convert to the bank robbery business.
According to Ralph Fults, the reason behind the Simms Oil robbery and the road trip that ended with the big score somewhere in the Midwest went beyond just the need for money. He and Clyde were building a war chest to finance a raid on the prison farm at Eastham. As soon as they divided up the take from the bank, they went shopping for additional weapons. They connected with an underworld arms dealer and bought several guns and some bulletproof vests. The vests promised protection from handgun and shotgun rounds but proved to be about as effective as khaki shirts. The weapons were also a disappointment and included Clyde’s first (and probably last) experience with the famous but finicky Thompson sub-machine guns. Neither he nor Fults liked them, and Clyde soon graduated to bigger things.
Ray Hamilton had kept his money in his pocket. He finally told Fults and Clyde that he had no interest in raiding some prison to release a bunch of guys he didn’t know. He was not quite nineteen years old, and his $11,000 share of the bank job was surely more money than he had ever seen in his life, so Ray left Clyde and Ralph to their plans and set out on his own for Michigan, where his father worked. Clyde felt that Hamilton had run out on them and said that he “hoped the little rat choked on that wad of money.”1 Nevertheless, they went their separate ways.2
Clyde and Fults went back to north Texas and began to assemble the additional men needed for the Eastham raid. Clyde had a favorite hideout near Lake Dallas, in the Denton area, and both he and Fults knew some local people who might be interested. Eventually, they managed to get five other guys together. Two of them, Jack and “Fuzz,” were friends of Clyde and Buck. A guy named Johnny had been at Gatesville with Ralph, but the other two were new. One was a friend of Jack’s named “Red,” and the last man was Ted Rogers. Ted was a cool customer and looked a lot like Ray Hamilton. That fact would come back to haunt them both.3
Another bank job was planned—two, in fact. The seven guys decided to imitate the Dalton gang and rob both banks in Denton, Texas, at the same time. This wa
s probably a little ambitious, but they would never know for sure. Just before the robbery, Ralph spotted a car parked nearby, pointed away from the curb for a quick getaway. One of the gang recognized the two men inside as Texas Rangers and wisely canceled the operation. The Rangers being there seemed more than just bad luck, and Barrow and Fults began to suspect a leak in the group.4
There would be one more recruiting trip before the raid on Eastham. Clyde and Fults decided to go to Amarillo to look for two brothers they knew who might be interested, and “Red,” one of the new men, asked to go along. He seemed to want to impress them with how tough he was, so Clyde and Ralph took him, but the trip turned out to be a waste of time and a little dangerous besides.
In Amarillo, the two brothers weren’t around, and on the way back the three had a series of mishaps. In Electra, Texas, they were stopped and wound up kidnapping James T. Taylor, the chief of police, J. C. Harris, who ran the water department, and A. F. McCormick, an oil and gas agent, to make their getaway. “Red,” the tough guy, ran away at the first sign of trouble.5 The three hostages were released unharmed, but when their car ran out of gas, Clyde and Ralph had to do it all over again. This time the victim was a rural mail carrier named Owens. He spent several anxious hours with Barrow and Fults as they drove north—once running through a chain at a toll bridge over the Red River as they crossed into Oklahoma and attracting some gunfire. Sometime later, they stopped and let the frightened mailman out, but this time it was Clyde and Ralph’s turn to be surprised. What were they going to do with his car? the mailman asked. They told him they would just leave it somewhere and he could get it back. Well, Owens said, if it was all the same to them, he’d appreciate it if they would just set it on fire. If it were destroyed, he explained, the government would have to buy him a new one. It must have been hard for them to keep a straight face, but the two desperadoes promised to burn up the car the first chance they got—and they did.6
Bonnie and Clyde- A Twenty-First-Century Update Page 7
