But perhaps the strongest message was a telegram sent to Missouri Democratic headquarters by one man, whose mother and whose wife, Bess, were faithful Neighbor Dorothy Show listeners. A man with, you might say, a lot of influence with the Democratic Party in the state and beyond. The telegram simply said:
LET THE LITTLE LADY RUN!
HARRY S. TRUMAN
Earl Finley was in a fit. Not only was Truman on her side, but public sentiment was running higher and higher against them. As he paced the room he ranted at the top of his voice to the men at the table, who sat motionless. "Dammit to hell, they've got our asses in a sling. Why?
I'll tell you why. You can't insult a widow with two kids on television, that's why. You can't touch her. If you don't let her run like a man, you're a no good son of a bitch and if you do treat her like a man, you're a no-good son of a bitch. It's frigging emotional blackmail," he said, stopping to pound the table with his fist.
At the end of the day, they had no choice but to dump Carnie Boofer and let the little lady run.
Even though Betty Raye was now running on the Democratic ticket again, the public-opinion pollsters' opinion was that she still had no hope of winning. Vita had believed that. But when she saw what the response to Dorothy's show had been, it gave her an idea to do something that had never been done before in the history of the state or in the entire country, for that matter. They would forget trying to convince and beg the men to take her candidacy seriously and go after the women's vote.
It was a slim chance but it was the only one they had. This approach had been an old trick of Hamm's. Vita would run Betty Raye as the underdog and the more she was attacked for being a woman, the better. The big push was on and the newspapers and the other candidates pushed back, making the same mistake Carnie Boofer had. Some said she was unqualified.
One man said, "All she has to offer the state is a "Kitchen Cabinet."
Once the national press picked it up, as Vita had hoped they would, telegrams for Betty Raye started pouring in from everywhere.
GOOD LUCK. I AM PULLING FOR YOU. MAMIE EISENHOWER
BEST OF LUCK. PATTY, MAXENE, AND LA VERNE ANDREWS
WISHING YOU THE BEST. MRS. LURLEEN WALLACE
BEHIND YOU IN EVERY WAY. LADY BIRD JOHNSON
But the telegram that absolutely floored Betty Raye was from a Missouri woman, the first movie star she had ever seen, when Anna Lee had taken her to the Elmwood Theater to see Kitty Foyle:
GIVE THEM HELL, KID… GINGER ROGERS
Women started to listen and read what Betty Raye had to say about how if elected she would not only continue her late husband's policies but implement new ones of her own, of interest to them. She promised to introduce state laws forcing state monies to be spent on facilities for women and girls as well as the males. She talked about the inequities of the women's salaries compared with the men's, subjects that they had never heard another candidate speak about, and they liked what they heard. When Ada Goodnight and her sister Bess, who were now traveling around Arizona in their Airstream trailer, read that she was running all by herself and was being attacked, they turned around and headed home to help. Ada knew about the plight of women in a male-dominated world. In 1945, when the male soldiers started coming back home from Europe, she and all the other women pilots that had served as WASPs during the war were unceremoniously told to go home and never received a dime or even thanks from the government. When a WASP friend of hers had been killed flying a mission, the army had refused to pay to send the body back to the family. Ada was more than ready for a fight. When she got back she organized all her lady-pilot pals and they all went up in their counties all over the state and dropped thousands of leaflets, urging women to vote for Betty Raye. Bess organized the entire state's ladies' bowling-league teams to get out and roll for Betty Raye.
Pretty soon the ladies' auxiliaries of the Elks, the Moose, and the Lions and members of the Eastern Star got behind her. The wives of the Allis Chalmers tractor company took out a full-page ad in the farmers' weekly that went all over the state.
The women of Elmwood Springs jumped in and did their share. Aunt Elner donated fifteen jars of fig preserves to be raffled off at the VFW bingo game. Norma lobbied all the wives of the men in the Missouri Hardware Association, and Ruby Robinson, who was a bigwig in the Registered Nurses of Missouri organization, brought them in as well.
They were easy. Having been pushed around by male doctors every day, they knew how it felt to be bullied by men. Dixie Cahill put on an outdoor show downtown called "Tapping for Dollars" that raised quite a bit, mostly to get them to stop tapping, as Ed the barber claimed. Even Poor Tot, who could not afford it, donated a day of beauty care to raise money. Mother Smith called an old college friend of hers, Juliette Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts, and got them on the march. Verbena did not have a lot of money but she did threaten to lock her husband, Merle, out of the house if he said one more word about how a female had no business in politics. That was something she could do at least and it did shut him up.
The widows of the men who had disappeared with Hamm, Mrs. Seymour Gravel and Mrs. Wendell Hewitt, and even the former Mrs. Rodney Tillman, went on the campaign trail to try to help Betty Raye, and Mrs. Ursa Figgs, mother of the late Cecil Figgs, despite being a lifelong Republican, donated a great deal of money to the cause. Money came in from hundreds of pancake suppers and bake sales and a lot of poor farm women just sent in their egg money, but it added up. The men were now threatened and really started to go after Betty Raye with the most vicious attacks yet.
Finally, Minnie Oatman had had enough. She went to the phone on the wall outside the dressing room in Columbus, Mississippi, and dialed.
"Elvis," she said. "It's Minnie Oatman."
"Oh, yes, ma'am," he said, happy to hear from her. "How are you?"
"Honey, my girl Betty Raye is running for governor of the state of Missouri and they is beating up on her pretty bad. I need you to make a personal appearance at one of her rallies. Could you do that for me?"
"Yes, ma'am. I'd be glad to, just tell me when and where you want me. I'll be there."
Elvis loved gospel. Although he made his money on rock and roll, it was still in his heart his favorite. Mrs. Gladys Presley, Elvis's mother, was Minnie's biggest fan and he'd grown up hearing the Oatman family and had gone to many of their all-night sings in Memphis when he was a boy. Minnie had always been nice to his mother and his daddy, Vernon. That went a long way with him. He would be there if he had to cancel something else to do it.
If one thing could be said about gospel people, it was that they were loyal, or, as Minnie put it, "When the chips is down, gospel people will stand behind you." Not only did Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and the Carter sisters show up, but every other gospel group in the country came to Missouri at one time or another to help her out.
And that went a long way with the voters. As did the hundreds of buckets of free fried chicken at every rally that Bobby Smith, who was now running the entire Fowler Poultry Enterprises, had donated to help out his friend. After all, if it had not been for Betty Raye he would never have gotten out of grammar school. As her numbers started to rise in the polls, Vita began to worry a little more about Betty Raye's safety. There were bodyguards, of course, but Hamm had also had a bodyguard and it had not helped save him. But Vita need not have worried. Betty Raye had something Hamm did not: Alberta Peets. Alberta never left Betty Raye's side for an instant. There was not a man or a group of men alive that could get past her to Betty Raye and live to tell the tale.
As for Betty Raye herself, as time went by she became more confident and sure of herself. She was finally able to speak to groups of people without shaking or dropping her papers. It had happened during one of her campaign stops. Vita knew Betty Raye had turned a corner when, speaking in Clark County, she had remarked to the crowd, "You know, I have a special place in my heart for Clark County. My late husband and I spent our honeymoon a few miles down the road… so you might say that Hamm Junior got his start right here."
Hamm Jr., who was sitting behind her at the time, turned beet red, but she did receive 78 percent of the Clark County vote.
On the morning after the special election, Neighbor Dorothy did her show as usual and at the end, before she signed off, she said, without fanfare, "Well, congratulations to our brand-new governor. We always feel sorry for the other fellow that loses but, as they say, may the best man win. Only from now on we might have to change that old saying to "May the best person win." This is Neighbor Dorothy with Mother Smith on the organ saying have a nice day and remember… you make our days so happy, so do come back and see us again, won't you?"
In 1970, after a long illness, the Smith family lost Mother Smith. That same year, Bobby and Lois had another boy. The world in general had changed very little except that a man had walked on the moon and everyone in Elmwood Springs was elated that America had done it first.
Aunt Elner had been the only one over at Macky and Norma's house that night at the moonwalk party who felt sad about it. When Linda asked her why she was not as excited as everybody else she said, "Oh, but I am. It's just that I can't help but feel sorry for that poor Neil Armstrong."
"Why would you feel sorry for him, Aunt Elner?"
"Because, honey," she said, "after you've been to the moon, where else is there to go?"
She had a point.
Linda Warren, Macky and Norma's daughter, was a pretty girl with reddish-blond hair and although Norma had tried to be different, she wound up saying and doing all the annoying things to Linda that her mother had when she had been a teenager. Her favorite complaint, when Linda did not do what she wanted, was "You're just like your daddy."
However, there was some truth to the statement. Linda, a real daddy's girl, was much more like her father in likes and temperament. She loved baseball and fishing and "was great at sports. And despite all the nagging and pleading by Norma, she had refused to take the course in domestic science in school and much to her mother's horror, had taken shop instead. Linda told her mother that she would much rather learn how to make a birdhouse than bake a cake and, as usual, Macky agreed with her. "I don't know how you expect to raise a child and take care of a husband if you can't even boil an egg or make a bed!" said Norma.
When Betty Raye had been elected for her second term as governor, the first thing she had done was to appoint Vita Green as the state's first female lieutenant governor. So, unbeknownst to most people, Hamm's wife and mistress wound up pretty much running the state. They had the help of Peter Wheeler and other smart people who were brought into the administration. Betty Raye also named her old friend the former short-order cook to an office she had created, as adviser to the governor on disabled veterans' affairs. After the Trolley Car Diner closed, Jimmy moved to Jefferson City and did a good job helping her out with many things. Alberta Peets, what with the murder and all, could not serve officially but she did get an early pardon and stayed on as Betty Raye's private secretary. Earl Finley said he would not live to see the end of the Hamm Sparks era and he was right. He had a stroke in 1969.
But Betty Raye was not the only Oatman doing well. In 1970, the State Department put together a goodwill tour featuring a tribute to American music and the Oatman Family Gospel Singers were chosen to represent southern gospel. They traveled to sixteen countries and had a wonderful time, especially the night of the performance in London at the Royal Albert Hall.
Minnie was so excited to meet the Queen Mother that after she did the curtsy they had taught her, which on a three-hundred-pound woman was more of a dip, she clapped her hands in delight at the very sight of her.
"Well, if you are not just the cutest thing in your little crown. I know we are not supposed to touch you but I could just hug your neck." The Queen Mother, fascinated with the large American woman in the red dress and rhinestone glasses with her hair piled up almost a foot high on her head, listened to her prattling on. "You know, you may not know it, but you and me has a lot in common. Your girl turned out to be a queen and mine is the governor of the state of Missouri. So we must have did something right, didn't we, honey?"
"Indeed we did, Mrs. Oatman," said the Queen Mother, smiling as she moved on to greet Rosemary Clooney.
* * *
As to the ongoing mystery of what had happened to Hamm Sparks, Jake Spurling had far from given up. He had worked long and hard for the past three years and in January 1970 there was finally a break in the case.
When Jake received the call about the abandoned hearse down in Louisiana he ordered it and the entire area cordoned off Some kids who had been down at the river playing found it in the woods. It was rusty and the upholstery was ripped with age. He had his men go over it from top to bottom. The hearse, an older model, was traced back to the Cecil Figgs Mortuaries car lot in Kansas City, where all the older models were kept. A check on it revealed that a hearse had gone missing sometime after Hamm and the men had disappeared. The man in charge of the lot at the time was located and questioned about why he had not reported it. He said those old hearses were stolen all the time by kids wanting to joyride, so he'd figured that was what had happened. Jake flew in to Louisiana and walked around the area but there was nothing there except an old falling-down boat dock.
Jake was curious about who it belonged to and had it traced. His ears pricked up when the name was found. The registered owner of the land and the boat dock in 1967 was Mr. Buddy Leo, uncle of Mr. Anthony Leo of Kansas City, Missouri. A man with definite ties to organized crime.
It might turn out to be nothing at all but it was too much of a coincidence, as far as Jake was concerned. The boat dock had not been too far from Hamm's last known location in Jackson. Maybe he had come by boat. After a long search it was discovered that in May 1959, a brand-new thirty-five-foot Chris-Craft cabin cruiser had been purchased in Kansas City in the name of Mrs. Jeannie Micelli, sister of Mr. Anthony Leo. This might be the connection Jake was looking for. The abandoned hearse, the boat dock, and the missing men were all connected back to Kansas City.