THE BARROW GANG CLYDE 5 BONNIE BARROW «& PARKER The Real StoryCHAPTER I THE BEGINNING Clyde Barrow was born in a small community called Felice. This is located in East Texas near the town of Ennis, which at that time, in the year 1909, was also just a village. Ennis is still alive today, a growing town, but Felice just sort of fell by the wayside. Clyde's parents were very poor. They shareeropped and moved from place to place. Like most people in those days, they never did have very much and just barely got by. The Barrow boys, Clyde and his older brother, Buck, had to quit school and work. They weren’t too sorry about this because other kids at school often made fun of them because they wore ragged clothes and sometimes didn’t even have lunch to eat. A lot of people won’t buy it, but you could nearly say they were forced into a life of crime. Nearly all of us, no matter how honest, would probably steal if we got hungry. Buck Barrow was the first to get into trouble. He got caught stealing several times and was in and out of jails. Clyde naturally followed in the footsteps of his big brother. Finally Buck was sentened to spend a year in the county jail at Dallas. This put him out of circulation for a while. The Barrow family meanwhile moved several times and finally settled in Eagle Ford, a small community on the edge of Dallas.Clyde, getting braver now, decided to quit just stealing little things and go in for armed robbery. His specialty was gas stations. He would drive in, have the attendant fill up his gas tank, then he would pull out a pistol, rob him, and speed away. This went on for about three months. Then one morning bright and early the police pulled Clyde out of bed. He was in the Dallas county jail before he was good awake. His case went to trial and he received a sentence of from two to five years in the state penitentiary. So the Barrow boys’ career of crime had now come to a temporary halt. In May of 1931, Clyde, now twenty-two years old, was granted a parole after serving three years. He had been a model prisoner, except for one incident where he chopped a couple of his toes off during a work detail. Some said he did this on purpose to get out of the work detail. After his release he started looking for a job. When peo- ple learned that he was an ex-con, they didn’t exactly wel- come him with open arms. The United States was struggling along in the midst of its greatest depression. Times were really hard. Before long, Clyde began to drift in with the wrong crowd. He started roaming around with Raymond and Floyd Hamilton. Together, they held up several gas stations and grocery stores in the San Antonio area. Clyde Barrow was now a wanted man, but he was really living it up — always wearing fancy clothes and driving fast cars. Floyd and Raymond were real ladies’ men. They both had a long string of girl friends. Clyde was a little different. — hs