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DEPRESSION ERA - KATHRYN KELLY

Kathryn Kelly

1904 - ?

DEPRESSION
ERA

Ma
Barker

Helen
Gillis

Kathryn
Kelly

Bonnie
Parker

No two ways about it:

George "Machine Gun" Kelly was seriously "whipped." 

A good-natured slob, George was a bootlegger and a drunk before he met his bride Kathryn. Afterwards, he would become famous - a famous bank robber, kidnapper, and drunk.

Kathryn Frye Brewer Thorne Kelly was born Cleo Brooks in Saltillo, Mississippi in 1904 and grew up on her stepfather's Texas ranch where they gave sanctuary to fugitives on the run - for a price. Thus, she developed some excellent underworld connections.

Kathryn was married three times before she met George. At 15, Cleo married a laborer, Lonnie Frye, and had a child named Pauline. Believing the name to be more glamorous, she began calling herself "Kathryn." After their divorce, she was briefly married to a man named Allie Brewer. Thereafter, she married a bootlegger named Charlie Thorne. While she was away visiting relatives, she learned that Charlie had been unfaithful to her.

"I'm going to Coleman, Texas,
to kill that goddamned Charlie Thorne."
- Kathryn Thorne, to a gas station attendant

The next day Thorne's body was found shot to death. The coroner ruled it suicide.

"Remember that innocent little girl
I was going to show a good time?
She took me to more speakeasies, more bootleg dives,
and more holes in the wall
than I thought existed in all of Texas.
She knows more bums than the Police Department.
She can drink liquor like water.
And she’s got some of the toughest women friends
I ever laid eyes on!"
- Kathryn's Ft. Worth boyfriend

George Kelly Barnes (1897-1954) met Kathryn in Oklahoma City where she was the mistress of his boss, "Little Steve" Anderson, a local bootlegger.  By this time, she had a criminal record for shoplifting, robbery, prostitution, and receiving stolen goods. George and Kathryn fell in love and ran away together with Anderson's new Cadillac and his prized English bulldog. They were married in September 1930.

Ambitious Kathryn wanted George to be a "big-time" criminal. She not only became his wife; she became his press agent. She bought him a machine gun for a gift and also gave him the moniker "Machine Gun Kelly." But George wasn't meant for the major leagues.

George took part in bank robberies with a few small holdup gangs, but events went smoothly and George never had to kill anyone. George never did kill anyone.

Kathryn insisted they get into kidnapping like the big-time gangs. So, they formed a kidnap gang with a crook named Albert Bates. Armed with machine guns (as if they were expecting a photo op), they kidnapped millionaire oilman Charley Urshel from his home in Oklahoma City. Once they successfully collected the $200,000 ransom, Kathryn demanded they "kill the bastard," but George uncharacteristically, stood up to his wife, assuring her and the other gang members that Urshel should be freed or it would "be bad for future business."

Urshel was freed and his brilliant memory led to the FBI readily capturing the kidnappers. George and Kathryn were captured in a Memphis hideout. Although the press reported George screaming out, "Don't shoot, G-men," as the agents broke through the door, he was actually urinating in the toilet.

Sentenced to life in prison, George served some of his time in Alcatraz where the good-natured slob became known as "Pop Gun Kelly." He died on a heart attack on July 17, 1954 at Leavenworth Federal Prison, Kansas. Kathryn also received a life sentence, but was released in June 1958. She disappeared into history with her mother Ora. She was last rumored to be living in Oklahoma.

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