Revisiting the 1981 story of Joyce Warner and her recollection of Butch Cassidy visiting her family in 1939.
It was in November 1939, 11 months after Matt Warner had passed away that a knock sounded on the front door of the Warner residence in Price. Joyce, Matt’s 10-year-old daughter, opened the door. There stood an elderly gentleman. He wore a black suit, a narrow-brimmed black hat, a white shirt and dark glasses. Joyce’s first thought was, “Why, it’s Butch Cassidy.”
Joyce recognized him from a picture her father had shown her. He was older, yes, but in her mind there was no mistaking the things her father had told them about Butch. He was the same height as her father, 5 feet, 9 inches, and had the same build. Both had a barrel chest and many of their mannerisms were alike.
Matt had often told Joyce about Butch’s eyes. He said they were the most piercing eyes he’d ever seen. The man standing before her was wearing dark glasses so it was impossible for her to see his eyes, but the other details were adding up.
His appearance was impeccable. He had the same kind of stance and looked like he did in that picture.
“Is this the home of Matt Warner?” he asked.
“Yes,” Joyce replied, “but my father passed away about a year ago. Won’t you come in, I’ll call mother.”
He came in, sat down and asked, “Did Matter ever mention Frank—–?”
Joyce’s mother thought she had heard the name before.
“Did he say what ever become of old Butch Cassidy?” he asked.
“Papa said that Butch was reported to have shot himself in a gun battle in South America,” Joyce remembered. “However, Papa stated that he didn’t believe it for a minute. He raised the money to send a man, named Walker, to South America to check it out. But even after Mr. Walker assured him it was true, Papa still insisted Butch was alive somewhere. I believe up until the last few months of his life, he expected to hear from him.”
“I’ve been to South America, too,” the man said. “I got into a gun scrape and parted a fellow’s hair too close in the middle and had to set sail.”
Joyce got up, and taking a picture off the library table, she passed it to Frank. He took a look at it for only a couple of seconds, then thrust it back into her hands.
As she resumed her seat across from him, he removed his dark glasses and wiped the tears from his eyes and looked directly at her.
“His eyes seemed to pierce my very soul and goose pimples came on my arms,” she said. Whatever doubt she may have had as to his true identity was dispelled. She knew for certain that Frank was Butch Cassidy.
Frank left, but was back within an hour.
This time he stayed about five minutes. As he was leaving he gave Joyce and her mother another clue to his identity.
“Matt was born April 12,” he told them. “I was born April 13. We used to celebrate our birthdays together. Matt was three years older than I was.”
He was back again within another hour. This time he told how he and Matt had robbed the Moffat Bank in Denver. That was a story Matt had told his daughter and no one else. He wasn’t too sure that Pinkerton Detective Agency couldn’t still arrest him.
Frank’s story of that robbery coincided perfectly with the one Matt had told.
Frank then left once again and returned in a short time. This time Joyce asked him, “You are Butch Cassidy, aren’t you?”
He breathed a sigh, relaxes completely, sank into the leather rocking chair and said, “Yes, how long have you known?”
“From the moment I opened the door the first time, I thought you were Butch Cassidy,” Joyce told him. “You still look like a picture we have. I was convinced that was you when you looked at me without your glasses. Papa told me a lot about your eyes.”
Joyce told him how her father had looked for him so he could give him the governor’s message.
Frank then unfolded the fantastic twist his life had taken. After he and the Sundance Kid landed in South America, Sundance wanted to go on a raiding spree almost immediately.
Butch said he refused. He wanted to let things cool. Sundance joined up with another partner who he called Butch for some illusive reason. (Butch said it was a joke.) Sundance and “Butch” covered a good portion of South America plundering.)
“I made one trip back to the United States in 1909,” Butch recalled. “But things were better than ever. Because of Sundance’s little joke, I was wanted on two continents.”
Frank said he returned to South America and lived quietly on a cattle ranch. He returned to the United States only after he had been reported killed. He was free from his past at last. He decided to remain dead as far as the law was concerned. The only way he could do that was to establish a new identity, stay in the eastern states forget old friends and make new ones.
Eventually he married and had two daughters. Neither they nor their mother knew he had another name.
Joyce said Frank told them his two girls used to ask, “Daddy, haven’t you got any relatives at all?” His answers would appease then for a time, but the same question or more difficult ones would be asked over and over when they got older.
He went to work for the railroad and lived in the eastern states. He came west again in 1925, mainly to see his parents and family.
“I never went back again and I never will go back. We had a family argument. I was told my mother had died of a broken heart because of me,” Frank told Joyce.
On his first trip back from South America he gave a man $500 to find Matt and tell him how to get in touch with him.
The man reported to Butch two months later that Matt had been killed in a brawl in a saloon.
Butch retired from the railroad after 20 or more years and spent several months each year thereafter prospecting around Goldfield, Nev. He had a lifetime railroad pass on any line he chose to travel.
He was on his way to Goldfield, and was almost there when he picked up an old copy of Cosmopolitan magazine and aimlessly leafed through it. He was startled by a picture of Matt under the title “The Last of the Bandit Riders.”
When he saw it he shouted aloud, “My God! It’s old Matt Warner!” and threw both hands above his head.
“When we reached Goldfield I caught the next train back to Price,” Butch told Joyce. “All the way I rehearsed what my first words to Matt would be. I could hardly wait, and I never knew before how slow a train moved.”
“When I got here, I inquired where I could find Matt. That he might be dead was on possibility I hadn’t planned on. I am broken-hearted that he is gone. If only I could have picked up that magazine a year or two ago. If only I could have investigated Matt’s reported death myself. If only …” Butch’s voice trailed off.
“Have you ever seen a strong man cry? Well I have and mother and I cried along with him,” Joyce said.
“God,” Butch choked, “life can be cruel.”
Although Joyce and her mother had an extra bedroom, he would not stay over. It was getting dark, about 5:30 or 6 p.m., when he left to catch the train.
Joyce and her mother followed him outside. When he got to the bottom of the steps, he turned and said. “Don’t tell anyone the name I am using now– not for 30 years anyway,” he said laughing.
It will be 42 years this November since Butch walked in and out of Joyce’s life.
“He wrote three letters to us, the last one in the spring 1941,” Joyce said. “In it he said he was going east for a while.”
And that is the last Joyce or her family ever heard of Butch.
In 1975, a Utah historian started writing a biography on Matt Warner, in cooperation with Joyce and her late brother, Boyo. The book will be published sometime within the next two years. Joyce reveals for the first time in the book, the name Butch used when he settled in Goldfield, Nev. The historian has documented proof of Butch Cassidy’s identity and also his gravesite in Goldfield.
Joyce decided recently to put her father’s things on display at the Emery County Museum in Castle Dale so others can enjoy and learn about her story in conjunction with the display about her father.