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"Kate Barker (born Arizona Donnie Clark; October 8, 1873 - January 16, 1935) better known as Ma Barker was the mother of several criminals who ran the Barker gang from the "public enemy era", when the exploits of gangs of criminals in the U.S. Midwest gripped the American people and press.
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[citation needed]. 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, is not known, but it is clear that he did not 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."
Though her children were undoubtedly murderers and their Barker-Karpis Gang committed a spree of robberies, kidnappings, and other crimes between 1931 and 1935, the popular image of her as the gang's leader and its criminal mastermind has been found to be fictitious.
Barker certainly knew of the gang's activities, and even helped them before and after they committed their crimes. This would make her an accomplice, but there is no evidence that she was ever an active participant in any of the crimes themselves or involved in planning them. Her role was in taking care of gang members, who often sent her to the movies while they committed crimes. However, she did battle the FBI to the death with a Tommy gun on January 16, 1935.
Alvin Karpis, the gang's second most notorious member, later said that:
“ The most ridiculous story in the annals of crime is that Ma Barker was the mastermind behind the Karpis-Barker gang. . . . She wasn't a leader of criminals or even a criminal herself. There is not one police photograph of her or set of fingerprints taken while she was alive . . . she knew we were criminals but her participation in our careers was limited to one function: when we traveled together, we moved as a mother and her sons. What could look more innocent? ”
This view of Ma Barker is corroborated by notorious bank robber Harvey Bailey, who knew the Barkers well. He observed in his autobiography that Ma Barker "couldn't plan breakfast" let alone a criminal enterprise.
Many, including Karpis, have suggested that the myth was encouraged by J. Edgar Hoover and his fledgling Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to justify his agency's killing of an old lady.
FBI Agents discovered the hideout of Barker and her son, Fred, after Arthur "Doc" Barker was arrested in Chicago on January 8, 1935. A map found in his possession indicated that the other gang members were in Ocklawaha, Florida. Agents surrounded the house at 13250 East Highway C-25 on the morning of January 16, 1935. Ordered to surrender, Fred opened fire; both he and his mother were killed by federal agents after an intense, hours-long gun-battle. According to the FBI, a Tommy gun was found lying in the hands of Ma Barker. Their bodies were put on public display, and then stored unclaimed, until October 1, 1935, when relatives had them buried—at Williams Timberhill Cemetery in Welch, Oklahoma-next to the body of Herman Barker."