Blanche Barrow (born Bennie Iva Caldwell; January 1, 1911 – December 24, 1988) was the wife of the elder brother of Clyde Barrow, known as Buck. He became her second husband after his release from prison after a pardon. To her dismay, Buck joined his brother's gang. Blanche was present at the shootout which resulted in the Barrow Gang becoming nationally recognized fugitives. She only spent four months with the gang. Although she never used a gun, Blanche was blinded in one eye during a getaway. In the same incident, she rescued her husband under heavy police gunfire. She was caught along with her fatally wounded husband by a posse of local men in Iowa. She served six years in prison for assault with intent to kill the sheriff of Platte County, Missouri, but, he treated her sympathetically. Upon her release, she remarried and lived quietly thereafter. Barrow was extensively consulted for the fictionalized 1967 film about the Barrow gang, but disliked her portrayal in it, despite Estelle Parsons winning an Oscar for the role. Biography Early life Blanche Barrow was born Bennie Iva Caldwell in Garvin, Oklahoma, the only child of Matthew Fontain Caldwell (June 23, 1871 – September 19, 1947) and Lillian Bell Pond (August 25, 1895 – February 24, 1995). At the time of her birth, her father was 39 years old and her mother was 15 years old. Her parents divorced while she was still a young child. She was raised by her father, a logger and farmer. A devoutly religious man, he occasionally preached as a lay minister. Barrow had a poor relationship with her mother, who arranged for her to be married to John Calloway, a much older man, at age 17. Marriage to Buck Barrow On November 11, 1929, while hiding in Dallas County from her husband, Blanche met Buck Barrow, a twice-divorced criminal with children from a previous marriage, who was eight years her senior. Several days after they met, Buck was shot and captured following a burglary in Denton, Texas. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to five years in the Texas State Prison System. On March 8, 1930, however, he escaped from the Ferguson Prison Farm near Midway, Texas and Blanche hid with him. She and Buck were married, and she convinced him to surrender and serve out the remainder of his prison sentence. Two years later, he was not