This is the transcription of the first interview. – KW

Three Lost Interviews about Robert E. Howard:

Introduction and Transcription by Will Oliver

Science Fiction Oral History Association Archives

Series WB: The Science Fiction Radio Show Collection

WB–10 (90) Both Sides.

Notes: Three men who knew Robert E. Howard in boyhood and all of his life tell in 1982 interviews of Howard’s growing up and his untimely suicide in 1936.  Leroy Butler, Jack Scott, and J. Brown Baum reminisce about the young author. Daryl Lane interviews. Invaluable material for Howard enthusiasts and scholars. There are three short (10-20 minute) individual interviews, one at the beginning of Side A (Leroy Butler) and two at the beginning of Side B. The last two subjects are not identified on tape.

First Interview—Leroy Butler

Daryl Lane (DL): Okay, our tape recorders are rolling on this end. Um, how long did you know Howard?

Leroy Butler (LB): I don’t remember just exactly when they moved to Cross Plains. It seemed to me like it was around 19 and 20 or 21. And that’s when I first became acquainted with him. He was probably 13 years old, something like that at that time

DL: What was he like when he was boy of 13?

LB: Beg your pardon.

DL: What was he like when he was a boy of 13?

LB: Ah, he was just another kid. You know, just an average small-town boy. His father was a doctor, you know. Just a country doctor. And his mother was, uh, Irish and she liked to use her Irish brogue, you know. She’d really practice on that. But Robert was very studious in school. He didn’t get out and play with the other kids a lot like most kids do.

DL: You lived right next door to him, right? Or was that next door to you?

LB: Yeah, we lived right . . . lots adjoined each other, and we lived just east of that house.

DL: Do you know, ah, when he got interested in writing?

LB: No, but it was before he finished High School. And I don’t remember just when he finished high school, probably . . . let’s see, probably about 1923, somewhere along in there. But he was already writing those stories. Weird Tales was the magazine that published most of them.

DL: Did you did you read any of them when they came out?

LB: No. I tried. I didn’t get interested into them. I was . . .  well, just wasn’t the type of stuff I was interested in. I was more interested in the western story type. Stuff that they published at that time.

DL: Yeah, he wrote, ah, he wrote some Western stories too, if I remember correctly, did you ever read any of those?

LB: I don’t remember. I might have. I don’t remember.

DL: Do you remember if he ever talked much about the stuff he was writing about of if he was kind of closed about that?

LB: No. He wasn’t closed about it or anything. He . . . But it’s been so long ago that I don’t remember. You know there’s been a lot of time that has gone by and I just don’t remember.

DL: Okay. You remember by any chance any . . . oh . . .  any, any stories about any stories about Robert, any any particular thing come to mind that, ah, was memorable about him?

LB: Well, about he, just his home life, his private life there. He had a, he had a . . . out in the backyard he always kept a big log there. The tree trunk, you know. And a big sledgehammer. I guess the thing would weigh about 12 or 14 pounds. And he get out and, for his exercise, for his daily exercise. He would get out there and beat on that log with that big ol’ sledgehammer until he had it beat to pieces and he’d get another log. But he was exceptionally strong due to the fact that he exercises with all his hammering, you know. And he do that for an hour maybe, or longer, just beat on that log with that big ol’ heavy sledgehammer.

And then he had a dog. Just a big old cur dog. And his name was Patch. P-A-T-C-H. And when he’d . . . when mealtime came, he’d pick up whatever the dog was going to eat, and he would get out in the backyard and start calling the dog. He’d call him . . . he’d call, “Chuck, Patch. Chuck, Patch.” He’d call that out a dozen times and this ol’ dog would come around wherever he was. (laughs). But it was chuck time. So that was principally the thing that he did.

Later on, he bought a car and he’d take rides out in the country, sometime with Lindsey Tyson . . . was a very good friend and single, and they’d go out in the country together in his car and just ride around, I judge.

Now Lindsey is dead. So, you won’t get to talk to him.

DL: When did he die?

LB: Beg your pardon.

DL: When did, when did Mr. Tyson die?

LB: Oh, just recently about two or three years ago.

DL: Okay, okay. Yeah, I’ve read about him in some of the research I’ve done on Mr. Howard.

Ah, yeah, ah, was Howard into hunting? A lot of west Texans are really big on hunting. Do you know if Howard was a hunter?

LB: He never did, so far as I know. As far as I know he did not own a rifle or shotgun. He did buy a pistol and that was the gun he’d killed himself with. And if I remember right, it’s been so long ago, I think it was a 32-20 caliber Colt. I may be wrong about the caliber, but I think that’s what it was.

DL: Yeah. On some of the stuff that I’ve read, and I’ve read a lot of different things, ah, one of the people said that some of the people in Cross Plains had a feeling that Howard was gonna commit suicide sometime because of, because of this his personality. Did you ever get that impression?

LB: Now what we heard . . . my wife and I were in California when he died. And this was in 19 and 36, or 37, somewhere along there. His mother got sick and ‘he was terminal. And Robert told his daddy, he says, “I don’t want to live after my mother’s gone.” And, uh, and so when his mother died, he went out in the car and set down and shot himself.

DL: Yeah, uh, one of the things we’ve been trying to, of course a lot of people have been trying to figure this out because Howard had become rather famous over the years as, uh, why he would have done that. You probably knew him fairly well. Could you give any speculation as to why he would have gone out and shot himself when his mother died?

LB: I don’t know. Like I say my wife and I were in California at that time and we had lost contact with him. But, ah, Robert never married, he never seemed interested in girls. And he did have one girlfriend there in Cross Plains for a time. I’d see them out in the car driving around once in a while. But I don’t think that lasted long. He was just wrapped up in his, in his work writing those stories.

And he had a glassed-in back porch on the southeast side of the house there, and it wasn’t too far from my mother’s bedroom. And a lot of times at night he’d wake her up with that typewriter clacking at, you know, one or two o’clock in the morning. Some inspiration, he’d probably be there laying in bed and thinking or something and he’d get up and write it down right quick. And he just worked all hours, you know, whenever he’d think of something he wanted to put in a story.

DL: Yeah, that’s very interesting. That’s very interesting. I don’t know, I kind of wondered myself, he did write a whole lot, ah, rather quickly. And I just kind of wonder if he was burning himself out?

LB: Hmmm, he could possibly have been. However, the last time I saw him, which was on about 1934 or 35, he seemed in good health.

DL: Yeah, uh, about that last time you saw him, what do you remember about that?

LB: Well, I think, in particular, just, you know, we say hello, across the fence and talk a few minutes. When we were still kids, Braches, Brannamen and Sons [sp?] was a big mail order house in New York, that handled all kinds of armaments and things from medieval times on up to modern. And we had ordered a couple of little—they weren’t fencing swords in that sense, I don’t know just exactly the name of them—but they had a round hilt on them, you know, where you protect your hands. But we ordered those things, and we’d get out the backyard and wrap bandana handkerchiefs around our heads like a pirate. And we’d get out and fence with those things cause they would of gone through you.  But we,ah, did that quite a bit. We had an immense live oak tree in our backyard, and we’d get out in the shade of that ole tree and pretend that we were back maybe in the dark ages or something. In time of the Spanish Main, things like that. He had things like that on his mind all the time.

DL: Yeah, I guess that, I guess that sort of shows how his imagination worked. He had a very vivid imagination.

LB: Yes, he did.

DL: Okay, let’s see. I’ve about covered all my questions here. I didn’t want to take up too much of your time.

LB: He had some relatives in Ranger Texas. Have you contacted anyone in Ranger?

DL: Ah, no sir.

LB: They, it may be that might have passed away now. But he had some aunts, one or two, aunts I believe it was in Ranger. And they were the only heirs to the Howard estate there. And they were up, up until two or three years ago, I think some of them were still living and still drawing royalties off of some of his stories that were still being published.

DL: Ah, yeah, I’ve heard of them, but we haven’t, haven’t attempted to talk with them. But, ah, . . .

LB: I’m sure de Camp, is that his name?

DL: Yes, sir.

LB: I’m sure he contacted them, but you can probably get all that information from him.

DL: Yeah, um . . .

LB: And Jack Scott, so far as I know, is your best authority in Cross Plains on Robert.

DL: Yeah, I talked to Mr. Scott before. He was quite helpful. He recommended talking to a Mr. Scott Baum and Mr. Scott Baum said, well, you need to call Leroy Butler, he knew him too. So we’ve been kind of going, you know, from one to the other to the other.

LB: I see. Unh huh.

DL: And, ah, I think, I think we probably got enough information here. We may call Mr. Scott again to see if he’s remembered anything else. So, there’s probably going to be a lot of publicity, or at least some publicity about Howard in conjunction with the movie that’s coming out in the latter part of May.

LB: I do know this. That Robert, during the time of the Depression, you know, until he was dead, had the best income of anyone in Cross Plains, including the bankers and the school teachers and all the other professions there. Cause Robert’s income from his stories was bringing in more money than anybody else in Cross Plains adjoined.

DL: Yeah, that’s, that’s interesting. More money than the bankers, too, hunh?

LB: [laughs]. Uh hunh.

DL: Nobody laughed at those stories, I bet.

LB: That’s right.

DL: All right, Mr. Butler, I think I’ve covered everything. I sure do appreciate it.

LB: Well, you’re quite welcome.

 

Will Oliver, in the words of Robert E. Howard, is just “some line-faced scrivener,” who has been a fan of the greatest pulp author since discovering him in 1979. He is a member of REHupa, has published on Howard in The Dark Man: The Journal of Robert E. Howard, and is currently at work on a biography of his life and times.