I've always wondered about this. She married Roy Thornton when she was still 15 (just shy of her 16th birthday) and she never divorced him, but then how come she's always referred to as "Bonnie Parker" and not "Bonnie Thornton"? Even then she went by (and was called) "Parker." It just seems unusual for the time period that she would keep her maiden name. Or was Bonnie "thoroughly modern" and opted to keep her name, instead? Does anyone know?
shareHer husband was also a crook, who disappeared again and again without explanation (he was committing crimes and playing around on her). And then he got sentenced to a very long prison sentence.
From her Journal:
BONNIE'S JOURNAL
Dear Diary,
Before opening this year's diary I wish to tell
you that I have a roaming husband with a roaming
mind. We are separated again for the third and
last time. The first time, August 9-19,1927; and
the second time, October 1-19, 1927; and the third
time, December 5, 1927. I love him very much and
miss him terribly. But I intend doing my duty. I
am not going to take him back. I am running around
with Rosa Mary Judy and she is somewhat a
consolation to me. We have resolved this New Year's
to take no men or nothing seriously. Let all men
go to hell!
Bonnie writes well. I pictured here as uneducated. Was that not the case do you know?
shareBiographies describe her as an honor roll student and a creative writer while in high school.
shareThanks for the info. Interesting that for all her intelligence she would make the choices she did. Not that all criminals are unintelligent; it's just interesting that she would choose a life with no hope for survival.
shareThanks, rattdpp, I know all that, but that doesn't answer my question if she kept her maiden name or changed it to his upon marriage.
tallahasseelassie: Bonnie loved to dabble in poetry, too. Two of her most famous poems can be heard in the movie -- "The Story of Suicide Sal" and "The end of the Road" (also commonly known as "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde").