Family Life
George and Arizona had five boys named Herman, Lloyd, Arthur, Fred and Willmer. Arrie did everything she could to protect her boys and to keep them out of jail.
Some accounts claim that George Barker was an alcoholic. 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 August 29, 1927, in Wichita, Kansas. He shot himself after a shootout with police that lasted hours. In 1928, Lloyd was incarcerated in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, Arthur "Doc" Barker was in the Oklahoma State Prison, and Fred was in the Kansas State Prison. Miriam Allen deFord, in her 1970 biography titled The Real Ma Barker, wrote, "This was the period when George Barker gave up completely and quietly removed himself from the scene."
Read more about this topic: Ma Barker
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