The Grandparent Bandit Diaries

The Grandparent Bandit Diaries By Michael Bonham Larson

Fleeing to California, it was the late 1930s and my grandparents were running from the Indiana state police. Settling in Monterey County they began new lives with their two daughters, my mom and my aunt. It seems my beloved grandparents were wanted by the authorities in several states for illegal gambling and attempted robbery. My aunt described them to me as a kind of Robin Hood version of Bonnie and Clyde. They never actually hurt anyone, as far as she knew, and once they arrived in California they made restitution for their crimes.

In the 1970’s when my aunt told me these stories, she read them to me out of a little black note book that she carried around with her. I was around eleven years old at the time and never questioned her integrity. I rather imagined what it would be like to have those adventures. Apparently, my grandparents were crazy in love and would do anything for each other. In my head, it was kind of like a Casablanca movie, Bogart and Bacall, two crazy lovers on the run from the law. As the story goes, my grandparents were really good at cards. My grandfather would play Black Jack while my grandmother would circle the game and give him hand clues on who was holding what cards. As they traveled along, they would hit various bars and taverns throughout the states, making a lot of money before they fled to California.

My aunt, who was three years older than my mom, remembered some of it, at least the feeling of being moved around a lot and staying on the side of the road in their Buick Century. She said it had a huge back seat where they slept and played games. She also remembered being told to stay in the car for hours at a time. Once she recalled my grandparents rushing back to the car and speeding off with the sounds of fireworks going off behind them. My mom on the other hand did not want anything to do with these stories for she believed they were fantasy. She told me once that she could not remember anything like running from the police, but did hear the fireworks one night, as my aunt had said.

In my youth, my grandparents co-owned a thrift store in my hometown. Having had many friends in the community, I could never quite imagine them actually robbing people. I knew them as hardworking, loyal and fun grandparents to be around. But looking back, I do remember one time around Christmas, my dad got upset with them while playing cards and walked out of the house screaming, “Swindlers!” My grandparents just sat there laughing at him. My mom once told me never to play card games with them and just left it at that.

Being young and an impressionable only child, I guess my aunt thought she could trust me with these little secrets. But as I got older, I ascribe these wild stories to what my mom would always tell me, that they were just the imaginings of her spinster sister. My grandparents passed away in the 1980’s and by then I had forgotten about these stories. My aunt also moved away around this same time frame so these grandparent tales faded into the past.

It is now the year 2021 and my aunt passed away in her sleep a few months ago. My parents had passed away 10 years previously and I was the only one left in the family to take care of my aunt’s estate. There was not much of anything left, for she passed away in a rest home in Indiana. Not long after I made her funeral arrangements to be cremated, I received her belongings, two parcels, plus a photo album. I did not think much of it and was about to pack everything up and send them to Goodwill, but while I was going through her boxes, I knocked the photo album off the bed and a small black note book fell out. It looked like the one she had showed me in my youth. I had not thought about it in years and even doubted its existence. As I read through it, there it was full of my grandparent’s secrets, just as my aunt had read them to me when I was a child.

As I scanned through it, I realized I was reading a part of my grandparents’ dubious history. And yes, they were indeed highway bandits, committing frauds and card swindling people out of their money. Surprisingly, along the way they would then find a church or orphanage here and there and leave large amounts of cash to the assembly’s. I guess this is where the Robin Hood story came from. And sure enough as I turned the page of the note book, there was a newspaper article cut out, called, “The Robin Hood Bandits.” It read, “The Robin Hood Bandits struck again, robbing people at Joe’s Bar and then leaving several hundred dollars in cash at the altar of the Wabash Lutheran Orphanage, along with a note saying,” “Please give this money to the needy children.” I cannot go into all of what I read or the sorted stories of their lives in these few paragraphs. But I will say that at this point is where my sixty year old life took a sudden left turn.

Going through the note book, it appeared like they had racked up a whole lot of money before they left Indiana and fearing to get caught, they stashed it into a bank account in Wabash. Each turn of the page revealed a world I did not grow up in and grandparents I did not recognize. At the end of this note book I turned the page and there before me was the name of a bank, a savings account number, along with a deposit box key which was taped on the page. I started laughing because I was sure they had withdrawn the money years ago and had spent it all by now. I was about to toss the little black note book into the photo album and forget all about it when the thought occurred to me, “What if they could not get back into the bank?” “They were supposedly wanted criminals. They would have had to prove their Identity and gone back in person. And if they had done that, they would have been caught and arrested.”

So on a whim I googled the bank name and sure enough it was still there, Wabash Savings & Loan, EST 1930. I called the number and asked if there was a bank account with their names and account numbers on it. The teller said yes and asked how she could help me. She asked my name, and as I paused, I gave her my grandpa’s name. She said, “Mr. Smith your date of birth please.” “Um, can you hold for a second? I have a bad connection.” As I was panicking, I looked down at my grandparent’s photo album and there on the back cover was a picture of their gravesite. I came back on line and I said, “06/19/1910.” (Egads that would make me a hundred and eleven years old!) I guess the teller did not pick up on that fact for she sounded very young and probably could not do the math. I discerned that she was new at her job for I could hear a voice behind her guiding her through the process. She said, “Mr. Smith your balance is $20.000” As I dropped the phone I stumbled to pick it back up again, and in a deeper, older shakier voice I said, “Ok thank you.” (Making my voice sound 111 years old was not easy.) She said, “Oh wait, that was the beginning balance, it is now $100,566.57.” I dropped the phone again. She giggled and said something about compound interest. I quickly got off the phone and slumped to the floor.

What on earth?! Many questions filled my brain all popping and wheezing with trepidation. First question sorted; why did my aunt not know or if she did, why did she not collect on the money? Second question is how will I collect the money of Ill-gotten gain? Do I want to? Can I legally? How do I prove that I am the last of the Smiths to this account? Actually my last name is not Smith which makes it even harder to prove. At least my aunt and my mom had the last name of Smith. Ancestory.com, here I come?

I went back to the photo album thinking it may have more clues for me to find, and indeed it did. As I followed the pictures starting at the beginning, I noticed that every once in while I would see a picture of my grandfather or grandmother holding this little black note book. In one of the pictures it was sitting on a table beside them. I also found a picture of my grandparents actually standing in front of the Wabash Savings and Loan. From there I followed the pictures and the pages of the book as they matched up. They cataloged each grandparent shenanigan with pictures and note book passages. The last of the pages of the photo album were of my grandparent’s last will and testament, birth certificates and death certificates and various papers regarding their thrift store. Not boring you with all the legal wrangling I had to go through, I was finally granted access to their accounts. It turned out that my aunt was left as a co-signer and could access the money. And once proving I was her sole heir, I was able to gain access as well.

Walking into that bank was like a trip through 1930’s past. They directed me to the Deposit Boxes and a private room. I was left alone with a rather large deposit box and shaking nervously, I opened it. Peering curiously inside, I could see that there were ten little black note books each wrapped by a cloth. As I opened them, I found each held their own story, along with a group or name of a person that was swindled. “Ouch, the Salvation Army was one of them!” There was also a letter inside the box that stated that whoever opened it, needed to make restitution to each person wronged. The first four note books were wrapped in a rubber band with a dated note in my aunts handwriting, “Made Restitution 07/10/2015.” I thought, “No wonder she died single she was too busy fixing the past.” Thinking back, 2015 was the year she went into the rest home, Shady Acres. (Well that’s a befitting name.) I remember losing contact with her around this same time frame because she had a stroke and it was very hard for her to communicate. I have a lot of regret around not keeping in contact with her over the years, but it looks like I have my work cut out for me to make it up to her. I have six more note books to go through and many generations to reach out to.

As I sat there looking at these note books, I then noticed a number on the inside top cover of each book. The book I had brought with me was labeled number two. The ten note books in the box were labeled three to twelve. That means there were twelve note books all together and number one was missing. A missing note book? I rechecked the deposit box again and indeed there were only ten. Where on earth could it be? I have all my parents’ belongings stored in my garage, could it there? Egads! A missing Black Note Book!