Love Always: Bonnie and Clyde

"As the flowers are all made sweeter: by the sunshine and the dew,
So this old world is made brighter: by the lives of folks like you." - Bonnie Parker

         This is the story of a young man and woman, by the names of Bonnie Parker, daughter of a bricklayer, and Clyde Barrow, son of a tenant farmer. Both grew up in poverty. Both blamed the government and the cigar-biting buffoons in office for the inherent oppression, namely Roosevelt and his henchmen. In the days of The Great Depression times were hard, food was scarce, and money was tight. Once-prosperous shop owners were forced to close their businesses simply because there wasn’t enough patronage to keep their stores open. Soup lines were long. The outlook was grim.

         Bonnie Parker wasn’t always such a bad girl. Before the age of 16, she did remarkably well in school, and on Sundays often seen with her mother at church. It wasn’t until she began fawning over a bad boy, Roy Thornton, that Bonnie began her gradual fall from grace, and dropped out of school to elope with him in 1926. Barely married for a few months, her new husband wandered often, was in and out of prison and jails, succeeding once or twice in escape. In 1929, she sent him on his way for the last time, but they never divorced. She was still wearing her wedding ring at the time of death. (Roy was later killed in 1937 while trying to escape from Eastham prison farm in Huntsville, Texas.)

         Disenchanted with life and its meaning, Bonnie took up a waitressing job in Dallas until it closed, and then unemployed, went to stay with a friend who'd broken her arm. Clyde also came to visit the same girl.

         Bonnie and Clyde fell in love at first sight. Their love grew over the next few months before Clyde was also put in jail for petty thefts. Bonnie was diligent in her visitations with her beloved boyfriend, and they soon found a sympathetic judge to soften his sentence and release him on parole. To further tug at the heartstrings of justice, Clyde convinced a fellow inmate to “let the axe slip” and slice off two of his toes. His ploy worked, and he was released.

         It was said to be an accident, Clyde's first murder. During a hold-up of a couple by the last name of Bucher, Clyde couldn’t resist having them open the safe. As the safe opened, the door hit Clyde’s armed hand, and the gun popped. A bullet shot straight into the husband’s chest.

         After the first blood was on his hands, the proceeding deaths weren’t too hard to swallow. Clyde became increasingly embittered, vowing revenge on the Texas Department of Corrections and killing lawmen, merchants and anyone who would bar their escape. He often did the thinking for the entire gang: stories circulated of how, once deviant from the 'gang', accomplices immediately fell into capture.

         The couple could often be seen together: hanging on one another, kissing, and undeveloped rolls of film and photos were regularly found of them posing together in front of the 1932 Ford V8 B-400 with automatic firearms and flashing smiles. During the years of 1932 and 1934, there were stories that the Barrow Gang kidnapped lawmen or robbery victims, releasing them far from home, and sometimes with money to assist in their return. The infamous Bonnie and Clyde took America by storm, becoming one of the greatest anti-hero duos in the Twentieth Century.

         Riding along for a good portion of the time were William Daniel Jones, just a kid at the time of recruitment, and later, Clyde's brother, Buck Barrows and his lovely second wife, Blanche. Blanche later wrote a moving account of their short and wild lives during her stay in a Missouri jail after her husband's death.

         Bonnie was injured in 1933 when the car they were in flipped over an embankment; the bridge wasn't finished. Bonnie suffered third degree burns to her left leg, while trapped under the burning car. Clyde cared for her as much as he could, stealing or buying medicine for her and treating the wound to keep it from deadly infection. His devotion was incredible, for throughout the entire ordeal he was still expected to be the brains behind the operation—as well as the brawn at times. The stress of the entire ordeal was crushing down on him, and he was feeling increasingly trapped in the hell they had created. Still, they continued to run, narrowly escaping capture time after time, but not always unscathed. After a tip-off from the locals in Platte City about medical supplies purchased by Blanche and dinners paid for by silver coins instead of dollars, Kansas City police stormed the cabins the gang were staying in. Buck was shot in the head but survived, and Blanche was seriously impaired when flying glass struck her in the eye during the siege.

         In Iowa, another lawmen storm and shootout resulted in Buck being shot in the back, and Blanche again suffering from shattered glass in the eye. Buck died afterwards of complications after surgery in Kings Daughter Hospital. William Daniel parted ways with the Barrow gang the following month.

         Bonnie and Clyde regrouped and evaded another arrest attempt while meeting with family in Texas. Clyde masterminded and assisted in the escape of several inmates incarcerated in Eastham Prison, empowering both the state and Federal government to initiate a massive manhunt for the two fugitives. On May 23, 1934, without any issued warning, the couple was gunned down on a back road near Shreveport, Louisiana. Approximately 130 rounds were reported to have been fired into Clyde's stolen 1932 Ford V8, killing Barrow almost instantly, but witnesses later reported that a long cry could be heard out of Bonnie as the bullets shredded the side of the car.

          Bonnie and Clyde's constant devotion to one another, though embedded in less than righteous circumstances, is a shining example of how love can compel a person to do anything, even if it means following someone straight into the lion’s den.


This entry won first place for best historical essay (November 2008) in:

ID: 1364200   (Rated: 13+) Title: The History Contest  Description: A site wide contest. No prompts, just a whole lot of history! Now OPEN By: Acme