WEBVTT - The Flapper Bandit: Rebecca Bradley Rogers 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:02.720 Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:07.200 Hey Hey, Elizabeth Dutt, Hey, Hey, hey, good to see 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:07.600 my friend. 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:09.440 How you been pretty good? Pretty good? 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:12.600 Pretty good? Pretty good? Really good? Really neat? Yep, I 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:13.920 got a question for you, bride. 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:15.360 Asked, well, I got to ask you, how have you been? 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:20.560 I'm still here. I'm not pushing up daisies. 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:21.960 Above ground and getting paid. 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:24.360 I'm on the right side of the grass. It is 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:27.400 so question for you. Yeah, do you know what's ridiculous? 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:30.920 I do you like grilled cheese sandwiches? 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:32.960 I love grilled cheese. 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:34.320 Sandwiches, and you hate mayonnaise. 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:36.840 I'm not a fan, but it does make a good 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:38.080 spread on the outside, right. 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:40.080 I feel like I'm the one who convinced you of that. 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:41.800 I think you're the one to push me over the top. 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:43.559 I've had it try. I tried it once before, but 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:46.879 I never incorporated into my game after you introduced me 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:48.000 to it. Now I use it. 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:51.120 Yeah, tell anyone I won't. It's it's I've been using 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:53.600 like a hybrid when I make grilled cheese for my nephew. 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:55.600 So you use like a little bit of butter, a 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.880 little bit of mayonnaise, and then you. You know, grill 0:00:59.000 --> 0:00:59.480 the cheese. 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:02.080 Can you use it for eggs too? Because I use 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:02.800 butter for eggs. 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:05.240 Yeah, of course you use butter for eggs. 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:06.520 Can use mayonnaise f eggs. 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:13.920 It's it's made of eggs. Sort of cannibalistic anyway, So 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:17.560 tillamook cheese familiar though. Yeah, They're like, we know you 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:21.360 love grilled cheese. Guess what what, We also know you're lazy, 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:24.840 So we're going to combine butter and mannaise for you. 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:29.920 This we got this coming at us from every you know, platform, 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:31.399 people sending. 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:33.880 How does everybody find these things? I never see online. 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:36.280 I don't know what it's like. If if something drops, 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:44.200 we know about it because emails, Instagram, blue Sky, everything, voicemail. 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:46.360 The only thing the algorithm does right for me is 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:49.720 it shields me from all of this stuff. 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:53.280 So, like you know, I always find out first everywhere. 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:55.520 We're getting it every which way but loose right, And 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:58.880 so I looked it up and I'm like, this isn't 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:01.480 a lot of people like gross? Now it's not gross. 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:06.320 It was limited edition. Fifteen dollars got you a pack 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:11.640 of sliced cheese, a jar of this stuff. Butternaise. We're 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:16.480 calling it butnaise, and it's it's they they teamed up 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:17.679 with Cupie mayonnaise. 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:19.400 Oh is that a good man? 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:23.960 Yeah, yeah, it's good mayonnaise. And so they they, you know, 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:26.960 did this and it came with a little spreader. Oh 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:32.200 so cute. Fifteen dollars sold out online in two minutes. 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:34.400 You're getting much better at these mashups. This is now 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:36.720 that I think the second or third mashup that I 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:37.480 have not hated. 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:39.799 I'd be better if I found out about these things 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:42.680 before they happened, and then I could try and you know, 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:44.560 get my grubby paws on something like that. 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:46.600 But two minutes that's crazy. 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:49.000 Yeah. And then this writer for food and Wine used 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:50.240 it and said it was pretty good. 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:52.880 So they got it. They got in that two minute window. 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:55.000 No, I think because they're a writer for food they 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:59.680 sent them right. Yeah, of course, which hello brands right here, totally. 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.160 I'll make a grilled cheese read the word right, mash 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:05.200 it up anyway. That's ridiculous. 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:09.360 It is ridiculous, Elizabeth. It is, well, you know, I 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:10.160 got one for you. 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:11.240 Oh nice? 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:12.760 Oh, no, I guess is a fun one. I think 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:16.600 you actually might really enjoy this. I could be wrong, though, Yeah, 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:19.119 I've been wrong before. Yeah, I'll probably be wrong. 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:21.639 You know what happens to the best of Elizabeth? 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:23.680 Yeah, imagine it's the nineteen twenties. 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:25.040 Okay, I'm doing that right now. 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:27.680 You're a young married woman and let's say you go 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:29.880 out one day in your model teed. You decide to 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:33.480 rob one little old bank in Texas, and all of 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:36.080 a sudden, everyone from coast to coast is calling you 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:37.720 the Flapper Bandit. 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:57.160 Nice. 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:05.200 This is Ridiculous Crime, A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:10.880 ice and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:16.960 and one hundred percent ridiculous ridiculous. Yes, Elizabeth, Yes, zaren as, 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:19.040 I promise I've got a fun little crime story for 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:23.400 you today. It's about a woman known as the Flapper Bandit. Now, 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:25.800 when I say flapper, what do you think of? 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.920 Nineteen twenties, short haircuts, no petticoats? 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:33.360 Can he be even more specific? Like here, I'll give 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:38.159 you an example. I think of singing Sea Green Eyes. 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:40.919 It came from Ayward. Now I think of singing in 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:43.720 the rain and Debbie Reynolds when she's driving her nineteen 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:46.000 twenties car and then Gene Kelly is like running from 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:48.560 his adoring fans and he drops down from a street car, 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:51.000 I think, into her car, and there she is all 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:55.479 dressed like the ultimate twenties flapper girl, short hair, got 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:59.320 on her little hat, her little shapeless dress. So like, 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:01.480 do you have any images like that of like, oh, yeah, 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:03.359 this is a flapper I think of like a specific 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:04.240 well I had. 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:06.840 I just keep thinking of those drawings from the era. 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:09.680 Oh yes, those are fun. 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:13.280 Yeah, fun, you know, because everyone can see them as 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:18.560 as I speak, those drawings, those drawings see look. 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.440 So as you well know, the nineteen twenties were a 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:25.200 major turning point in the history of American women. That's 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:27.360 basically like when women became. 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:28.440 Modern, became people. 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:31.840 Yeah's honestly like for the nineteen twenty American women one 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.000 for themselves, the right to vote, correct, at least white women. Now, 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:38.400 women also started to become a common sight on college campuses. 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:41.440 They became more and more involved in the workforce. Young 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:44.680 women ditched the Victorian and Edwardian fashions of the day. 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:47.520 They started wearing their hair short. They preferred, as I said, 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:50.599 those shapeless dresses. They weren't accentuating their curves as much. 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:54.680 They ditched the exaggerated busts from girdles and the augmented 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:56.359 rumps from bustles. 0:05:56.120 --> 0:06:01.839 Well, and the corset, you know, augmented the curves. That's painful, 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:04.920 totally couldn't breathing. Women are fating, yes now. 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:07.599 Some women even started in the twenties, started wearing men's 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:11.799 clothes like suits, you get all that, they go sotal, yes, 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.760 pants right on. So women they also leaped at the 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:17.720 freedom all the new technologies that were on offer. They 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:20.560 started watching also the new stars of the silent movies, 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:24.080 so they're getting new images and role models. They listened 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:27.880 to the radio, They drove cars, which only further liberated them. 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:29.760 Women also got into devices. 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:32.760 You know, I love that they're already in devices. 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:35.160 I know. But they started smoking cigarettes. There's all the 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:38.720 whole like yeah, like, but is it Paull Mall and 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:41.040 not Virginia Slims. Is the Virginia Slims back then? I 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:43.800 don't know they had the cigarette brands for women. And 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:47.160 then they started drinking alcohol and smoking refrit jazz clubs 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:52.320 and speakeasies. Pandemonium, Elizabeth now per our interests there was 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:55.760 also a new wave of women getting into crime. Nice, right, 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:59.039 these many changes for young women, they all get magnified 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:02.880 as one one thing, a moral panic. So you know, 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:08.080 it's like basically people were complaining young women are unrecognizable today, right, 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:11.240 which we did not unfamiliar to us. Now. In the 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:12.920 media of the day, they love to blame all the 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:16.240 so called nonsense on the flappers, that was the term, right, 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:20.160 So these flappers were ruining the sweetness and innocence of girlhood, 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:23.800 and young women were sometimes also occasionally treated like, especially 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:26.160 the criminal ones, is like a gangster's mall, like, oh, 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.520 now you're helping these like serious hardcore criminals. You're a 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:32.640 willing partner in crime, you know, like think like Bonnie 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:35.280 and Clyde. Right, No, that's a little early, but anyway. 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:38.560 Also then there was the political women, because you had 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:41.320 you know, communists and anarchists. Some were called socialists or 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:44.960 usually at worse was anarchists. These are all new ideas 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:47.760 for America to be wrestling with. Now. I took a 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:49.480 look back at the headlines of the day when I 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:51.280 was doing research for this story, trying to get my 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:54.920 mind right, and it's wild how nearly any young woman 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:56.880 who was into crime or crime adjacent was called a 0:07:56.920 --> 0:07:58.440 flapper impress. 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:00.080 Oh yeah, it's. 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.320 So in order to kind of connect them to the 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:05.000 horrors of modernity. It was an easy way to stoke 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:07.200 that moral panic I was talking about, right, how women 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:11.760 were changing now, they were becoming god forbid independent. Now 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:18.560 enter into this nea millieu. Rebecca Bradley Rogers aka the Flapper. 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:19.760 Bands flapper Banda. 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:22.080 She was dubbed that by newspaper men of the day, 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:24.840 and she is who I want to tell you about today. 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:29.120 Nice Rebecca Bradley Rogers born Rebecca Bradley back in nineteen 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.680 oh five and Texarkana, Texas, which by the way, has 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.920 a mirror city across the border in Arkansas called Texar 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:35.960 Canada Arkansas. 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:38.240 Oh really there too, Yeah, I did not know the saying. 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:40.960 Yeah, it's not like cal Lexico and Mexicality. I love that, 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:44.160 which is much more fun. Anyway. Her friends, then family, 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:46.240 they all called her Becky, so we're gonna call her Becky. 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:49.480 At age six, in nineteen eleven, Becky's parents picked up 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:52.719 sticks and they moved west to Fort Worth, Texas. That's 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:56.040 where she attends elementary school, high school. That's also where 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:59.040 she meets her high school sweetheart, this ambitious, young plucky 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:02.800 lad named Otis Rogers. Remember that name, he'll. 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:04.600 Come back to Rogers, got it. 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:07.840 After high school graduation, the young couple, they both moved 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:11.559 to Austin, Texas to attend the University of Texas at Austin. 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:14.640 While they're there in college, the pair, they pop on 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:17.480 down to the courthouse in Georgetown, Texas, and they get 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:18.560 secretly married. 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:19.640 Don't tell. 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:22.760 Yeah. The year is nineteen twenty five, Elizabeth, and no 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:24.840 one knows about their secret and optials, not even the 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:28.439 bride's mother, who Rebecca was actually rather close with, now 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:32.160 officially known as Rebecca Bradley Rogers, the young co ed. 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:35.040 She goes ahead. She pursues a bachelor's degree in history 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:38.240 at the University of Texas at Austin. And I read 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:41.319 that her annual tuition at ut was three hundred dollars 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:43.640 a year, and she took out a loan to pay this. 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:44.920 That's a lot back then. 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:46.480 Yeah, I looked at U because I know you're always 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:49.720 into this. Yes, So nineteen twenty five three hundred dollars tuition, 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:52.920 This is annual tuition, right, So either both semesters or whatever, 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:55.320 four quarters, three quarters. 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:57.880 It's complicated, but yeah. 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:02.319 Okay, anyway, it would cost fIF fifty five hundred dollars today. Wow, 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:07.480 it's an annual tuition full year of school. So now 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:10.120 if like me, you're like, we're wondering how much that 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:12.040 compared to the current tuition at UT. 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:16.239 Okay, to keep in mind, this is a public institution. 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.040 Yes, Now this is for an in state student, because 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:19.959 that's what Becky was. 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:21.319 And we're talking tuition only. 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:25.280 No annual tuition costs eleven six hundred and eighty eight dollars, 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:26.800 so basically it's doubled. 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:30.160 Yeah, but that's not that's not that's just the tuition. 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:33.520 If you add it all up tuition, books, room and board, 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:36.400 as an on campus housing, you include the average really 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:39.200 miscellaneous school life expenses. The toll that they tell you 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:41.800 to prepare for life at UT for one year is 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:47.240 thirty two thousand dollars for in state tuition in state. Yeahs, 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:48.800 anyway back to nineteen twenty five. 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.600 But you know, it's a real return on investment there. 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:55.360 It wasn't easy to be a college student for a 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:57.920 woman in the nineteen twenty because you know, there was 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:00.640 a lot of limitations from professors from the just the 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:03.559 culture at large. So for Becky Rodgers, in order for 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:05.120 her to pay for school and her life as a 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:07.320 young married woman, she had to work a bunch of 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:09.480 different part time jobs, which is you know, I think 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:11.920 is kind of super relatable for twenty twenty five. 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:14.520 Well, I mean, yeah, I've worked part time jobs in 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:15.320 college totally. 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:17.960 But also just the idea that hustle culture is nothing new. 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:20.560 That's true, right, it just used to have a different name. Yeah, 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:22.959 it wasn't such like, oh, we're gonna dub this hustle 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:24.920 culture is just like, get a job called living. 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:31.000 We put a lot of dumbnant adult no culture its. 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:35.280 So what sort of part time jobs did Becky Rodgers 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:37.320 have to do to pay for her life and her schooling? 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:40.960 Great question, So glad you asked me. Well, for one, 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:44.400 she worked as a clerk at the state capitol in Austin, Okay, 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:46.839 got her right. And on campus she also had a job. 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:49.480 She worked as an assistant to a university professor named 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:53.200 Charles Ramsdell. He also was the head of the Texas 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.319 State Historical Association smart connect. 0:11:55.920 --> 0:12:00.040 For I wonder what she needed to do with that teach. 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:03.640 It doesn't show up in the newspapers. No one asked her, like, 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:04.440 would you want to use. 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:06.000 Your major for me in the ghost teaching? 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:08.400 I would assume, but maybe she wanted to go get 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:10.920 into the historical association like and do like you know, 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:14.600 state history. I don't re enactments could do that too. 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:17.400 Trying to break through that into that industry. 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:19.240 It was a new industry at the time, a lot 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:23.240 of openings on the possibilities. Now her secret husband Otis Rodgers. 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:25.640 He did manage to graduate from the University of Texas, 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:28.240 and he made plans to attend law school with obviously 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:30.400 the ambition to one day become a lawyer. Sure, more 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:32.720 on that later, But what this means for the young 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:35.240 couple is that Becky Rodgers has to keep hustling while 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:37.720 her husband is in law school and studying for the bar. 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:40.320 She's working for for both of their feeds. 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:41.680 Right, That's why he got married. 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:45.760 I mean, let's be real, be real. She had to 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:47.160 lock it down. She's like put a ring on it. 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:49.240 Maybe all he was like, I'm going to get away. 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:52.160 She can work while I go to school. Otherwise what's 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:52.720 he going to do. 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:55.480 That's a good point, you know, living at home. 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:56.400 I'm onto him. 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:58.360 So he did work in the oil fields in the summer, 0:12:58.400 --> 0:12:59.640 I can tell you that. So he was a little 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.800 bit into anyway. Becky graduates with a bachelor's degree of 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.240 her own starts working towards getting a master's degree in history. 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:07.360 She's like, I'm gonna double up. 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:09.040 Wow, Okay. 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:11.400 A lot of scrimping and saving in this family hustle 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:14.720 and saying yesterday and all opportunities. All in all things 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:17.320 that were going well for the young couple. That is 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:21.400 until one day her mother loses her job in Fort Worth. 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:25.920 That's when her now widowed mother goes to Austin and 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:27.840 she plans to come live with her daughter, who, may 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.480 I remind you, she does not know is married. Yeah. 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:32.760 So I don't know if her mother was like old 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:34.559 fashioned or if she just never liked her daughter's high 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:36.400 school sweetheart. I don't know what the deal was. 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:39.160 Her mom probably was like, why don't you get your education? 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:41.839 And then although I don't know that, like to marry 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:42.520 him off early. 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:43.679 Yeah. 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:45.719 I don't know, but my condolences to her on the 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:46.680 loss of her husband. 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:49.000 Can you let her know I will pass it on 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:51.880 so be's keeps her marriage secret from her mother, and 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:54.240 her mother did move in with her. Now I couldn't 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:56.440 find in the news stories where her husband with he 0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:58.000 was in the house or if he was staying like 0:13:58.160 --> 0:13:59.440 you know, with his like law school. 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:00.560 But they live together. 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:02.640 They did until the mother showed up. I don't know 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:04.560 if she if he stuck around then it's like, who's 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:07.360 who's your male roommate? Why do you guys kiss in 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:07.760 the morning? 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:09.480 Tell her. 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:11.600 Yeah. So, with even more of a now of a 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.199 financial burden on her in order to pay for herself, 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:18.800 her mother, her graduate studies, her law school husband, Becky Rodgers, 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.040 takes on a new challenge, one that will, in her hopes, 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:25.320 earn her even more extra cash. So her professor, the 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:28.160 one that she worked for, old Professor Ramsdell, He decides 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:31.000 to spend the summer away on sabbatical in nineteen twenty six. 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:33.920 While he's gone, he leaves Becky in charge of the 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:37.880 Texas historicals Association. Yeah, he asked her, see if you 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:40.560 can grow the membership, You're really you know, charming people 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.240 like you. See if you can get more members So, 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:45.520 since he knows she needs to make money, Professor Ramsay 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:47.400 also cuts a deal he's like, you know, we're gonna 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:50.360 do like some real recruiting numbers here. He tells Becky, 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:53.200 if she can increase the membership in the Texas State 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.840 Historical Association, she can keep a dollar forty from the 0:14:57.000 --> 0:15:00.160 three dollars of new membership dues almost half. 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:02.400 That's not bad, right, Why didn't he just go all 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:03.080 the way to half? 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:03.720 Yeah, I don't know. 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:08.120 He's like, it's kind of feeling like an MLM totally. 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:10.800 So Becky jumps at this offer since she sees as 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:13.280 an opportunity to make more money, which she needs, and 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:15.440 so she goes all in. Well, the professor is away 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:18.920 on his summer time sabbatical. Becky hires part time stenographers 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:22.880 to type up letters of solicitation meant to draw new members. 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:25.280 She goes down to the library because, you know, in 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:27.720 order to find folks to invite to the Texas State 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:31.360 Historical Association, she uses the Who's Who of Texas to 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:34.560 find luminaries and rich folks to increase membership. That's smart, 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:37.280 super smart, right do you remember before, by the way, 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:40.120 just side note, before the internet, flipping through the Who's 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:41.400 Who book each year. 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:44.960 It's such a scam. Who's Who books. Oh completely, people 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:49.800 pay the fortune thirty kind of they send the thing like, hey, 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:51.520 you know you qualify. 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:53.400 Yeah. By the way, how old are we that I 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:57.560 can say to both of us, you remember before the internet. Anyway, 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:01.360 in order to pay the part time scenographers that she hires, 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:04.000 Becky uses her own money. She does the same thing 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:05.760 in order to buy office supplies and you know for 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:07.960 the for the stenographers, all the paper or the envelopes 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:11.320 with the postage. Basically, she's like a schoolteacher today. She 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:13.720 doesn't show get anything done her job. She's using her 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:14.120 own money. 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:16.200 She's spending all the money ahead of time. 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:19.480 Totally. Basically good news for her is her gambit and 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:22.760 her ambition work out. Kind of, she's able to drum 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:24.920 up new members, a bunch of new members. However, she's 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:27.200 kind of like me with money. She doesn't keep the 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:31.400 best books right, so she's depositing money from the new memberships. 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:33.720 She's keeping the dollar forty out of the three full 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:37.600 dollars of membership dues. But once again, not great at bookkeeping. 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:39.960 So she's trying to keep up with the you know, 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:42.440 do the best with the records. But sometimes like she's 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:45.560 putting her own money into the State Historical Association account 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:48.160 for the new members and waiting for their dues to 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:50.360 show up. Other times she's taking money out and she's 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:53.560 using it to like drum up business and she loses 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:56.480 track Elizabeth. The funds get all mixed up. Basically, what 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.920 I'm saying is the Texas State Historical Association's ledger becomes 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.320 a mess with a capital M. When the professor returns 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.399 from his summer sabbatical, he discovers what she's done and 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:09.439 he's like this, this is not good. This is this 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:11.879 is really bad. He's like legally bad. So in a 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:14.480 letter to her friend, he writes about Becky's creative accounting. 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:17.720 He say he's gossiping about her. 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.040 Oh yeah, and he's like explaining like why he had 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:21.680 to like basically let her go. And she wrote a 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:23.320 letter explaining like I didn't mean to do it, but 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:25.640 this is what I was doing. It was all well intended. 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:28.760 And so he tells his friend the girl was undoubtedly 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:31.639 suffering from some sort of psychosis. Last year, many of 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:34.280 the records were entirely gone and others said, I've been 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:36.760 kept at all right, Like me I got telling he's 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:38.960 just like I meant to write that down. It's in 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:42.160 my head. So when the correct accounting is all done, 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:46.439 the Texas State Historical Association determines that Rebecca owes the 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:50.960 group twelve hundred dollars. Wait what that would be twenty 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:52.800 two thousand dollars in twenty twenty. 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:54.720 She's hiring all these people. 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:57.879 So yeah, I know, right, she should have gotten some 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:01.000 high school students with some typewriters, like an extra class. 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:02.560 She could get herself to a type. 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:03.480 You're an intern. 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:07.000 That's what you're working to make that manch Now, remember. 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.639 Her annual tuition is three hundred dollars per year, so 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:12.680 Becky now owes the Texas State Historical Association the equivalent 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:16.240 of four years of her annual college tuition. Be long 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:18.800 story short, this struggling young woman is screwed. So after 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:23.040 her summer debacle, Becky leaves Texas State Historical Association to 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:24.760 pay off her new debts as well as her rent, 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:28.000 her life expenses for her her mother, her husband, and 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:30.320 also her graduate program. She gets a new job in 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:33.280 the autumn. Becky gets a job as a stenographer. 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:36.760 She was good at typing, she hired herself. 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:39.159 She works at the office of Dan Moody, who at 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:42.000 the time was the Texas Attorney General. He's this rising 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:44.280 political star who within just a couple of years becomes 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:45.720 the governor of the state. 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:48.840