Larry Schroeder

Facing Fear Larry Schroeder

Facing Fear depicts the true story of Evelyn (Billie) Frechette, the beloved companion of John Dillinger. The unyielding violence that ravaged the Native American Race made survival extremely dangerous. As society fought to overcome the Great Depression, Evelyn tried to make ends meet by taking work wherever it presented itself.




Evelyn, like many young Native Americans, was forcibly taken to an Indian Boarding School in South Dakota. She spent much of the next ten years learning Christianity. Western Culture believed it was necessary to civilize the Indians, thereby saving the man inside.




Evelyn's only relative that did not live on the reservation at the time was her sister Anna, who lived in Chicago, Illinois. On the trip from South Dakota, traveling alone, hitchhiking when possible, she was brutally attacked and raped.




In the aftermath of the forcible violation, doctors informed Evelyn she was pregnant. At twenty-one, she gave birth to a baby boy who was severely handicapped because of a syphilis infection. The deformities left him impaired, forcing Evelyn to leave him in the care of the Brooks Baby Farm. Authorities later suspected that Brooks let poor babies die or even had them killed, that he buried them in the woods behind the main house. One of the graves held the remains of Evelyn's baby boy, hence the nickname Billie.




One evening while out with her girlfriends 'cabereting, ' she met a man named Jack Harris. The relationship grew into something incredible, but in the end, Evelyn served time for harboring a criminal. After her release, she wrote a booklet about her experience. It sold for twenty-five cents. Facing Fear reveals the hidden life of Evelyn Frechette, John Dillinger's girlfriend. An incredible woman who faced the unthinkable.