Talk:Ma Barker's Machine Gun/@comment-68.57.203.53-20100528000343

kate ma baker is a real gangster haha Early life [edit] Date of birth

Ma Barker is believed to have been born October 8, 1873, in Ash Grove, Missouri, near Springfield, and named Arizona Clark. On September 14, 1892, she married George Elias Barker in Aurora, Lawrence County, Missouri. At that time her age was given as 17. George Barker was the informant on Arizona Barker's amended death certificate. He gave her date of birth as October 8, 1877.

In 1920 "Arrie" appears on the Census of Stone County, Missouri, as age 45. In 1930 Arrie appears on the Census of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, as the wife of Arthur W. Dunlop. Her age is there given as 53. [edit] Family life

George and Arizona had four boys named Herman, Lloyd, Arthur, and Fred. George and Arrie were undoubtedly incapable parents and the boys became juvenile delinquents early on. Arrie did everything she could to protect her boys and to keep them out of jail.

Some accounts claim that George Barker was a worthless drunk, but it appears from the 1910 to 1930 censuses and the Tulsa City Directories from 1916 to 1928 that he was regularly employed. From 1916 to 1919 he worked for the Crystal Springs Water Co. In the 1920s he was variously employed as a farmer, watchman, station engineer, and clerk. George is last listed with Arrie in the 1928 Tulsa City Directory. Whether he was thrown out by Arrie, as some claim, or he left on his own accord when life with her and the family became intolerable, isn't known, but it is clear that he didn't desert his family when the boys were young.

George and Arrie's son Herman committed suicide on September 19, 1927, in Wichita, Kansas. In 1928 Lloyd was incarcerated in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, Arthur was in the Oklahoma State Prison, and Fred was in the Kansas State Prison. Miriam Allen deFord, in her 1970 biography entitled The Real Ma Barker, wrote, "This was the period when George Barker gave up completely and quietly removed himself from the scene."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_Barker