Corn Field Lights

By Margaret Montgomery Thomas – Special to the Navarro County Gazette

Corn Silks and Cotton Blossoms

Jim Bell resided on the county road running on the south side of the Eureka Cemetery towards the Lakeview Estates Development. Years ago, he shared with me a story about when he was a young boy regarding Bonnie and Clyde Barrow.

He says when he was around 12 years of age, he and some friends were playing late one afternoon out in the road near the Cemetery and his home. While throwing rocks, and shooting marbles and such, dusk was approaching and they saw a flicker of light in the corn field directly across from the Cemetery on the Worth Johnston property.

Of course, immediately they were curious what was that light flickering, so they made a plan to continue playing until dark, then sneak in the corn field and investigate exactly what was going on.

Dark soon arrived, the light in the corn field was still flickering, so they got on their hands and knees and began crawling across the county road ditch, through the barbed wire fence, carefully continuing crawling on their hands and knees down the corn row toward the light.

He says they had not gotten very far out in the field when all at once the corn stalks sprang open and Clyde Barrow was standing over them with a shotgun stuck down his throat. Upon seeing who it was, he asked what they were doing. Jim quickly explained while playing they had seen the flickering light and were curious what it was all about.

Clyde stepped back, removed the gun from his throat then warned them: “Don’t ever do this again, you can easily be shot if you do!”

It turned out Clyde, Bonnie, and Raymond Hamilton were all hanging out in the corn field awaiting dark so they could walk down the county road to the bottom of the hill where his uncle and aunt resided to have a visit with them.

Jim shared with me that day Clyde made a believer out of all the boys as they never investigated lights in a corn field again.

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