Stuart Woods - An Extravagant Life: An Autobiography Incorporating Blue Water, Green Skipper

In the late 1920s, in Detroit, Michigan, a nineteen-year-old youth stood in court and, having been convicted of the crime of stealing sixteen cars, faced a judge for sentencing.

His name was Stuart Franklin Lee, and he had been in trouble for several years. He was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1907, to one Arthur Lee, son of a prosperous builder, and Annie Lee Jones, who had led a hard life.

Arthur Lee had served as his illiterate fathers bookkeeper, secretary, and assistant in his successful construction business, but when his father died, Arthur Lee was unable to hold the company together. He moved his family north, to Detroit, where he found work as a circulation manager for a large newspapera somewhat inflated title, since it meant that he was in charge of filling and collecting coins from a string of newspaper vending machines. Arthur began to drink.

Annie Lee Jones, a farmers daughter, had been orphaned at the age of six and, with her younger brother, Willie, sent to a childrens home where little Willie later died in her arms, apparently of institutional neglect. Annie Lees fortunes took a turn for the better when she was adopted by a St. Louis family named Chevalier. (Their Missouri neighbors had apparently been unable to handle the French pronunciation of their name, so they pronounced it Chev-a-LEER.) The adoption was not an entirely altruistic one. Annie Lee was put to work in the Chevalier household and, although she was treated kindly, especially by her adopted older brother, Stuart, she was little more than a servant.

Annie Lee and Arthur had three sons, Ohree, Stuart, and Brown, and a daughter, Palestine, called Pal. Although raised in a strict Baptist household by their mother, their father was not much of an example, and the boys became wild in their teens. They got away with vandalism, but soon they turned to joyriding in stolen cars. As a result, Stuart spent some time in a reformatory, where he managed to get himself charged with assault with intent to kill, for hitting a guard who called him a filthy name. The charges were later dropped. After his release he turned to car theft and, eventually, tried to pull off an armed robbery. Finally, Stuart was arrested, charged, and jailed. While awaiting trial he escaped from custody and was recaptured.

The family rallied around him, concocting an alibi that he had been at home on the evening of the crime, playing pinochle. The defense called his parents, brothers, and sister to the stand, and each of them related the alibi. Then, when the prosecutor confronted Stuart with evidence that they had lied and threatened to charge the whole family with perjury, Stuart changed his plea to guilty.

At his trial, when asked by the judge if he had anything to say for himself, Stuart replied, A mans got to have a car.

Not amused, the judge sentenced him to fifteen years in the Michigan state penitentiary.

His uncle, Stuart Chevalier, meanwhile, had become a prominent attorney in New York and Washington, specializing in tax law. Stricken with polio at the age of four, he walked on crutches, and as a young man he was told by his physicians that he had only a short time to live. His reaction was to write a reflective book,