Excerpt:
Ma Barker gang’s old West St. Paul hideout for sale
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“For much of her life,” Mahoney wrote, “she had endured dirt-floor poverty. … She wore beautiful clothing now. The icebox was crammed with good food. This house in West St. Paul had coal heat, running water, a warm bathroom and electric lighting. Her menfolk chauffeured her in a fancy new Buick.”
Maccabee’s book is also filled with delicious details of the gang’s 85 days spent in this “parody of domesticity,” details culled from a variety of sources, including FBI files and personal interviews.
“The gang had moved into Grandma Helen Hannegraf’s rental home. … They claimed to be musicians in a local orchestra and carried black violin cases to prove it,” Maccabee wrote. The “musicians” were accompanied by Ma. Writes Maccabee: “They called her Mrs. Anderson or Ma, and she was often seen walking her bulldog down Robert Street.”
These “speakeasy musicians,” as Mahoney describes them, didn’t keep to themselves; in fact, they were neighborly — or, “encouraged” to be neighborly by the Minnesota grandma who was their landlord.
“While they were living in the Hannegraf home, the gang drove Helen Hannegraf’s granddaughter Marian to Catholic school in the rumble seat of their car,” Maccabee wrote. “When it was time to pick up the children after school, Hannegraf would snare one of her boarders and insist that the gangsters drive her grandchildren home.
“Marian Johnson remembered the Barker-Karpis gang as ‘the nicest people,’ ” wrote Maccabee. ” ‘We’d hurry home from St. Matthew’s School because if we got home early, we could walk Mrs. Barker’s curly-haired dog. Whoever got there first, you’d get a nickel or a candy bar!’ ”
But they couldn’t completely hide their gangster lifestyle.
Read more at: http://www.twincities.com/2017/05/27/depression-era-gangsters-lair-for-sale-in-west-st-paul/
Some of us may have seen that movie, "Bloody Mama" with Shelly Winters, hard to see what the truth was with Ma Barker.
While at McNeil Island Penitentiary Karpis began to teach guitar to the young Charles Manson, then known as “Little Charlie”. Karpis was sympathetic to Manson‘s tumultuous, institutionalized upbringing which saw him in countless orphanages, reformatories, and prisons all throughout his young life. Karpis later wrote “it (was) time someone did something for him.” He later said, "There was something unmistakably unusual about Manson. He was a runt of sorts, but found his place as an experienced manipulator of others. I did feel manipulated, and under circumstances where it hadn't been necessary."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barker%E2%80%93Karpis_ganghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_Barker
