Back On The Rock

‘Smiley’ Barrow and the children

I know this street. I know these people. My grandmother used to live around the corner from them when she was a kid.

The man’s name is Clyde (Smiley) Barrow. His son (Clyde junior) was in my grandmother’s class at school. The girl was an orphan, adopted by the family twelve months before this photo was taken. Her name was Bonnie and both her parents (the Parkers) died in tragic circumstances.

This photo was taken the day of Smiley’s wife’s funeral. Her name was Nelly and my grandmother told me she was a boisterous woman. She worked as a cleaner and part-time seamstress. She and the kids were always beautifully dressed.

Grandmother said Nelly had died after falling from the second floor window of the family apartment. Apparently she was cleaning the curtains. No one believed it was an accident. They thought she had been…