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Granddaughter of Jesse JamesDeclares He Was a GentlemanBY DAN DE LUCE.LOS ANGELES. t.f\ Jesse James robbed banks; fata granddaughter Is a banker. Whatever the judgment of his own bloody age, she calls him a two-gun gentleman.He carried a Bible in his pocket and was unsurpassed in prayer. He wore a brace of six shoters In his belt and no one ever beat him on the draw. They sang balads about him on the middle border. When he died, it was with a bullet in his back, fired by a false friend. He had his boots on.Jo James, a comely, blue eyed brunette, still treasures these boots. They are neat black and sire 7, almost as small as a woman’s shoes. The scripture-quoting outlaw kept them carefully polished. Jo is the escrow expert in a branch of the Bank of America. She lives in a staid old west side Los Angeles home with her father, Jesse James, jr., retired Kansas City lawyer. With his encouragement, she started out four years ago on a biography of the grandstre slain before she was born.It’s nearly ready for the printer now. this story of and by the Jameses. A Hollywood studio bought the screen rights. For the picture Jo won’t take responsibility, but for the biography, she says: “It's time somebody got the facts straight after a half century of blood - an d-th unde r dime novels about my grandfather. I don’t wish to glorify him. but I do hope to show that, right or wrong, he had a reason for everything he did.Efficiently catalogued are the reasons and the deeds that Miss Jam.es and her collaborator, Rosalind Shaffer, have collected. They went after “angles” the world thought buried with Jesse James in 1882. First, they got some jot-ted-down memoirs from “Uncle Billy, last surviving member of the band. He held the horses when the Northfield. Minn., bank was robbed in 1876. Here in California, hia past unknown, he carved out a prominent niche as an attorney. He died not long ago. Most of those who rode with Jesse James kept mum, including hia brother, Frank, who explained; Tf I say I took part in a holdup, I’m a scoundrel. If I say I wasn’t there I’m a liar. When they ask me questions, I don’t answer.”It was Frank, however, whoj once quashed a legend that a certain cave w as the James hideout.' He shook his head and winked. “No sirree, that wasn't our cave. We never went into any place we couldn’t leave by the back door.”Frank mellowed with the years. He stood trial in three states and ’ was acquitted each time. He liked j that. He said it vindicated Jesse's i memory. He died, without boots I on, in 1915.Jesse James, Miss James and I Mrs. Shaffer set forth in their | book, w^as no more lawless than his age. His father was a preacher and he, himself, wanted to be a man of peace. But he grew up, of a Kentuckian family, on the Missouri battleground of the slavery issue. As a boy plowing in the fields, Jesse was horsewhipped one day by federal militia. So he went off to Quantrell’s guerrillas. If the confederacy had won he might have been a schoolbook hero. The conquering north granted him no amnesty. He tried to come back and work his farm. He was accused, unjustly, hia friends said, of various crimes. He became an outlaw,Bank robberies, to Jesse, were “putting money on deposit. He would help an impoverished southern family to pay off its mortgage to a carpetbagger. Later he would “draw- the money out of the bank. Train holdups were “educational enterprises,’’ Jesse learned bow to unload a gold shipment from a baggage car without wraking up the train passengers.For 16 years he was a fugitive, but much of the time he wasn’t in the saddle. He lived quietly for, long periods in Kansas City, Nashville, Tenn., and St. Joseph, Mo. Desperadoes traded on his reputation 8nd bragged to victims that they wfere Jesse James. Once, the real Jesse rode with a posse in their pursuit.He was a black-bearded, prosperous cattle broker in St. Joe wrhen he made a fatal mistake. He stood unarmed, with his back to a camp follower, Bob Ford. Most of the townfolk, who knew Jesse as the church going “Mr. Howard, mourned at his bier. Even when he was in his grave imposters croped up—at least 17, his granddaughter estimates. They got sideshow jobs and publicity. But they steered clear of the James family. There was only one Jesse James.
Newspaper Details
Lincoln Nebraska State Journal
Lincoln, Nebraska, US
Tue, Jul 05, 1938
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Joplin P.
MO, USA 26 Sep 2024
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