| Billie Frechette | |
|---|---|
| Born | 15 September 1907 Neopit (Menominee Indian Reservation), Wisconsin, US |
| Died | 13 January 1969 (aged 61) Shawano, Wisconsin, US |
| Charge(s) | Harboring a criminal |
| Status | Deceased |
| Occupation | nursemaid waitress singer |
| Spouse | Welton Sparks (1925–1933; his incarceration) |
Mary Evelyn "Billie" Frechette (September 15, 1907 – January 13, 1969) was an American singer, waitress, convict, and lecturer known for her personal relationship with the bank robber John Dillinger in the early 1930s.
She is known to have been involved with Dillinger for about six months until her arrest and imprisonment in 1934. However, some sources believe their relationship began much earlier. She finished her two years in prison in 1936, then toured the country with Dillinger's family for five years as the "Crime Did Not Pay Show", and eventually lived her remaining decades in a quieter, married life on the Indian reservation where she was born.
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Frechette was born in Neopit, Wisconsin on the Menominee Indian Reservation.[1] She described the background of her mother (née Mary Labell) as "half French and half Indian",[2] and that of her father as simply French. (Her paternal great-grandfather was Moses Frechette Sr., a fur trader born in Quebec, who moved to the U.S. in 1850, becoming a US citizen in Brown Township, Michigan,[3] and living in Menominee, Michigan. He was an ancestor of, as of 2009, about 90 people there named Frechette.[4] His wife—one of Billie's great-grandmothers—had parents named Mawsawquot and Poway. The first of eight generations of North American Frechettes preceding Billie came to Quebec City from France between 1655 and 1680.)[1][5]
The parents of Moses Frechette Sr. were Charles and Ursule (Girouard) Frechette. Moses was born in Quebec on 10 December 1824. He married Marie LeClair Nokishiki, and they had 12 children. Moses Frechette Jr. and two of his siblings continued to reside on the Menominee Reservation, and he became the father of Evelyn Frechette.[3]
Her father died when she was eight years old.
In 1925, she married Welton Sparks, who was convicted and imprisoned the same year for a post office robbery.
Cook County, Illinois, records indicate that Evelyn Freschette and Walter Sparks (Welton Walter Spark) were married on August 2, 1932 in Chicago. Spark was sentenced, with two others, on July 20, 1932, to a 15 year term at Leavenworth for three counts of robbery of postal substations in drug stores. Walter Spark and co-defendant, Arthur Cherrington, both married the same day, Cherrington to Patricia Young. Their marriage ceremony was conducted at the Cook County Jail by Chaplian E.N. Ware. Spark and Cherrington entered Leavenworth on August 13, 1932.
Frechette met Dillinger in October 1933 and was arrested on 9 April 1934, on the charge of harboring Dillinger in her Twin Cities, Minnesota apartment, and served two years in federal prison for harboring a criminal. During her arrest, Dillinger and a companion watched from a block away; he wanted to attack the lawmen and rescue her, but accepted the argument that he would die in the attempt. She served two years and a day under the Federal Harboring Law at the Federal Correctional Farm at Milan, Michigan, and was released in 1936.
Frechette returned to the Menominee Reservation, where she had two subsequent marriages. She died of cancer on January 13, 1969 at age 61 in Shawano, Wisconsin. She is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery next to her third husband, Arthur Tic.[6]