The Batson Gang

My grand father told me stories about meeting Bonnie and Clyde and their gang on a few occasions. He told me Bonnie was butt ugly, and Clyde never asked, but told how things would be.

He also told me how he taught one of the gang members how to use a cutting torch. (Was told, not asked by Clyde.)

Back in the 60's as a kid, I was fascinated with stories and Outlaw movies. Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, Jesse James and such.

I always wondered if I was related to any outlaws.

Little did I know our family had a dirty secrete!

I call that secrete "The Batson Gang"

They may have not been famous, or well known outside of 

Cleaburne Tx, but the name Batson was a name you did not want to have in Johnson County Texas back in the 1930's. Even up to the 1970's "Batson" stories could still be told, but not in our family! Most I have found in newspaper clippings, and a couple of family members, who heard stories whispered late nights.

The Batson brothers like so many others growing up in the early 1900's had it hard. Their father was a sharecropper most of their childhood. 

There were 4 brothers all together. One died at age 3, another died when he was nine years old.

One had part of his hand blown off at 12 years playing with a stick of dynamite, and the other was blinded in one eye. (Same dynamite.)

I remember meeting one of the Batson gang a few times as a kid.

He was always smiling, and seemed to be a happy go lucky, type of person.

The Batson brothers were my great uncles, on my mother's side of the family.

In the 1930's the two Batson brothers knew every speakeasy from central to north Texas. If there was an illegal card game they knew when and where it was.

One day in 1935 their father was murdered on Main Street in Cleaburne Tx by a Mr. William Scarbrough. (That is another story.)

A few days later one of  the Batson brothers robbed a speakeasy.

He was sent to Huntsville state prison for 10 yrs. Which is what the clipping I started this story with.

A little history of Gov. "Ma" Ferguson.

 Her husband was also the Gov. of Texas at one time. He was caught for taking bribes and sent to prison. He was well liked at the time, so his wife Ma, ran for Gov. and won. She lost the following election, and won it again after. Now while her husband was in prison she pardon over 400 prisoners.

It seemed that if her husband liked a fellow inmate, or was paid a bribe, she would pardon those.

I don't know if someone paid for Odell Batson to be pardon, or if her husband liked him!

A few years later Odell and his brother were at it again with the law.

   

The Baton gang served their time.

Odell died from Swamp fever, which he caught in prison.

Fred died in 1967 from a knife blade that that had broke off in his skull in a bar fight 30 years earlier that was never removed.  It became dislodged and went into his brain. 

My family never talked about the two brothers.

Well they did, but it was in a good way. They told about how much they were loved, and cared for. The good memories before they turned to crime. Those were the stories I heard. Fred was the one I knew, always smiling and Happy go lucky.