Blanche Barrow
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Bennie Iva "Blanche" Frasure (née Caldwell) (January 1, 1911 - December 24, 1988) was the third wife of Marvin "Buck" Barrow and a member of the Barrow gang. Born in Garvin, Oklahoma, she was the only child of Matthew Fontain Caldwell (June 23, 1871 - September 19, 1947) and Lillain Bell Pond (c.1894 - February 24, 1995). At the time of her birth, her father was 40 years old and her mother was 16 years old. Her parents divorced while Blanche was still a young child, and she was raised by her father, who was beloved by her for the rest of her life. Her father made his living as a logger and a farmer. Matthew Caldwell was a devoutly religious man and occasionally preached as a lay minister, even though he was not an ordained minister. At age 17, Blanche was forced to marry a much older John Callaway, a marriage arranged by her mother, who offered Blanche to Callaway on the premise that Callaway had money and would reward both her and Blanche. Blanche ran away in 1929, and met Buck Barrow two years later. In her book, "My Life with Bonnie and Clyde", Blanche maintains that the experience with Callaway left her unable to bear children.
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[edit] Barrow Gang
Buck and Blanche married on July 2, 1932. After marrying Buck, Blanche participated in a string of armed robberies with him. At one point, Blanche persuaded Buck to turn himself in after having escaped from prison. When Buck and Clyde joined forces, Blanche spent several months on the run with Bonnie and Clyde.
While there is no evidence she ever fired a gun during this time, she was present at shootouts in Joplin, Missouri in which two law officers were killed, and in Platte County, Missouri at the Red Crown Tourist Court in which three officers were wounded and Buck was mortally wounded (and she was eventually to lose sight in one eye from her wounds).
After the Platte County shootout, they fled with Bonnie and Clyde to Dexter, Iowa, where she was captured in another shootout. Buck died at Kings Daughters Hospital in Perry, Iowa on July 29 of a head wound from the Platte County shootout.
Blanche was taken back to Platte County by Sheriff Holt Coffee, who had been wounded in the shootout. She was to remain in contact with the sheriff and his family, as well as Platte City prosecutor David Clevenger throughout the rest of her life. At the time of her arrest, Blanche weighed eighty-one pounds and stood five foot one inch.
[edit] Sentence and Later Life
Blanche was sentenced to ten years in prison for her part in the Joplin shootout, where the two officers had been killed. She served six years and received state-of-the-art medical treatment for her left eye, which was pierced with glass during the gang's flight from the Platte City tourist court, although she eventually lost all sight in the eye.
Following her release from prison, Blanche Barrow moved to Dallas, Texas. She was remarried in 1940 to Eddie Frasure. One year later, she completed her parole. In 1965, the couple adopted a 12-year-old boy named Ricky, from whom she later became estranged owing to his legal troubles. [1]Eddie died in 1969, and Blanche died from cancer on 24 December 1988, a little over a week away from her 78th birthday. She was buried in Dallas's Grove Hill Memorial Park under the name "Blanche B. Frasure" [2]. Her memoirs, My Life With Bonnie and Clyde, were published in 2004 (ISBN 0-8061-3715-0).
[edit] Reaction to the film "Bonnie and Clyde"
On April 10, 1968 at 40th Academy Awards ceremony, Estelle Parsons won the Oscar for best actress in a supporting role for her portrayal of Blanche in the film Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Blanche was unhappy with the film and is quoted as saying, "That movie made me look like a screaming horse's ass."[3]
