I learned my first and most important lessons about being a good teacher from Dan Eckberg. We worked together teaching a World Studies course for about ten years. Now we find ourselves meeting for lunch to share stories about our adventures in retirement. He spends most of his wintertime in Florida, and that was the origin of this bit of story telling and book reviewing. The story telling part made me think of Northfield's Defeat of Jesse James Days. It seems that Northfield is not the only place to celebrate the downfall of some nasty people in order to attract tourists. Dan wrote:
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I spent a January weekend with good friends and former Hopkins colleagues ... in Lady Lake, FL. That's in the central part of the state about 60 miles NW of Orlando.
Saturday was "FBI/Ma Barker Day" in nearby Ocklawaha, FL. That's the town where the FBI and Ma & Fred Barker had a 4-hour shootout January 16, 1935. It is still the biggest gun battle in FBI history (3,000 to 4,000 rounds were fired). Ma and her son were killed.
The town reenacts the gun battle each year. The FBI comes on the scene, with their shotguns and machine guns, riding on the running boards of an old 1930 Ford Model A. (This year, all the agents were played by deputies of the local county sheriff's office.)
The head agent goes up to the door and says, as Ma comes out on the porch, "We're here to arrest Fred Barker." Ma says, "I'll see if he's here," and goes inside. A few minutes later Ma & Fred start firing out the second floor windows. The FBI agents return fire. There's a lot of shooting and the little kids in the audience are holding their ears.
After many shots on all sides, it's quiet. In a great example of 1930s racism, the head agent says to the Black gardener, "Willy, go check it out." Willy, armed with only a rake, goes in the house and soon comes out saying, "They're all dead." So ends the reenactment. Then Ma, Fred, and the agents pose for pictures in front of the house, while the kids scurry to pick up the many shell casings on the lawn.
That's when my friends and I went to Gator Joe's, a restaurant on stilts on nearby Lake Weir, just down the shore from the Barkers' rented home, for a great grouper sandwich lunch. Much fun.
In preparation for my first Ma Barker Days experience, I did some research. I purchased two videos on the Barker gang, obtained a CD of the FBI files on the Barkers, and read several books on the Barkers. One of the books, Mean Men: The Sons of Ma Barker, was out of print. So I called the author, Robert Winter, a retired Los Angeles detective, and he sent me a copy. It traces the history of the Barkers and their criminal friends from birth in Tulsa, OK to their deaths. (Herman, Lloyd, Arthur (Doc), and Freddie all died by the gun.) As the book cover says: "Whether a historian or true-crime buff, you will find these stories of blowing safes, sawed-off shotguns, and daring prison escapes fascinating and informative."
Another good book published by the Minnesota Historical Society is John Dillinger Slept Here: A Crook's Tour of Crime and Corruption in St. Paul, 1920-1936, by Paul Maccabee. It chronicles the corrupt Chief John O'Connor's St. Paul Police Department of the 30's. The Barkers spent some time in St. Paul and are included in that book. While in St. Paul, the Barkers were instrumental in the $100,000 William Hamm Jr. (of brewery fame) kidnapping and $200,000 Edward Bremer (of banking fame) kidnapping. (By the way an interesting tour is the St. Paul Gangster Tour. It starts at the Wabasha Caves and includes narrated drive-bys of crime sites, one of which is the house the Barkers rented.)
Essentially a children's book (What a topic for kids?) is "Ma" Barker by Sue L. Hamilton. From their "America's Most Wanted, Public Enemy #1" series, it's published by Abdo & Daughters, 6537 Cecelia Circle, Bloomington, MN 55435. (They seem to have found a niche. Others in the series are Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, "Pretty Boy" Floyd, "Machine Gun" Kelly, and "Baby Face" Nelson. Ma's book is only 32 pages long in large print with pictures of the Barkers, an interior of a bank they robbed, Melvin Purvis, and even J. Edgar Hoover. I'd be interested in hearing from elementary librarians as to the readership of these books. (My guess is that they might be big with grade 4-6 boys.)
An interesting sideline found online at Poeforward.com: "According to the FBI and Hollywood, Ma was the brains behind the Barker-Karpis mob; J. Edgar Hoover called her "a veritable beast of prey." However, underworld sources say that Ma was just a dumpy little old lady who took care of her family. Gang member Alvin "Kreepy" Karpis said, "Ma was always somebody in our lives. Love didn't enter into it really. She was somebody we looked after and took with us when we moved from city to city, hideout to hideout... It's no insult to Ma's memory that she just didn't have the brains or know-how to direct us on a robbery. It wouldn't have occurred to her to get involved in our business, and we always made a point of only discussing our scores when Ma wasn't around. We'd leave her at home when we were arranging a job, or we'd send her to a movie. Ma saw a lot of movies."
Well, that's one topic of my recent reading. Isn't it a riot what old retired teachers get into? |
Dan, it may be an unusual topic, but it's also an unusual tourist who does so much homework before a day out. Guess that just proves you're a former social studies teacher.
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By Ken Wedding. 08.19.02 Updated 08.16.04.
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