Editing Barbara Graham (section)

==Early life==
Graham was born '''Barbara Elaine Ford''' in Oakland, California to Hortense Ford from [[Santa Cruz, California|Santa Cruz]], who earned her living through prostitution.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/mother-hell-hortense-wood-led-rise-barbara-bloody-babs-graham-article-1.446937|work=[[New York Daily News]]|title=Mother from hell, Hortense Wood, led to rise of Barbara 'Bloody Babs' Graham|author=Bovsun, Mara|date=May 8, 2010|access-date=July 9, 2016}}</ref> Hortense was of Portuguese ([[Azores|Azorean]]) descent on her father's side, the original family name having been Furtado. On February 23, 1925, Hortense, still unwed, gave birth to a second daughter, Claire Elizabeth.  On October 10, 1929, at the age of 23, Hortense married Joseph Wood Sr. in [[Alameda County, California|Alameda]]. Hortense, Barbara and Claire all changed their surnames to Wood. Hortense and Joseph's son, Joseph Robert Wood Jr., was born on March 27, 1930; however Joseph Sr. died on January 19, 1930, at the age of 28, before his son's birth.<ref>{{cite web |title=California, U.S., Marriage Records from Select Counties, 1850-1941 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA |url=https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=8797&h=2156876&tid=&pid=&queryId=d1aa95bd53cb1a0804c52d12d981af5b&usePUB=true&_phsrc=KhO1&_phstart=successSource |website=Ancestry.com |publisher=Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. |access-date=30 September 2021}}</ref> 

When Ford was two, her mother, who was still in her late teens, was arrested and sent to [[reform school]] and Ford was placed in foster care in which she alleged that she was beaten and treated poorly. Upon release at age 21, Hortense refused to allow Ford to live with her.<ref name="WBrownBook">{{cite book |last1=Brown |first1=Wenzell |title=Girls on The Rampage |date=January 1, 1961 |publisher=Wildside Press |isbn=9781479436071 |page=543 |edition=PBO |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rz9_DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA541 |access-date=30 September 2021}}</ref> Ford was raised by strangers and extended family and, although she was intelligent, she had a limited education. As a teenager, she was arrested for [[Vagrancy (people)|vagrancy]] and sentenced to serve time at Ventura State School for Girls, the same reform school where her mother had been.<ref name=oshea />

Released from reform school in 1939, Ford tried to make a new start for herself. She married Harry Kielhamer (1913–1993), a U.S. Coast Guardsman, in 1940, and enrolled in a business college and soon had her first two children. The marriage was not a success and, by 1942, she was divorced. Harry Kielhamer was awarded custody of their two sons.  Over the next several years, she was married twice more, but each of these attempts at a more traditional lifestyle failed.<ref>{{cite book|last=Nash|first=Jay Robert |title=Bloodletters and Badmen: A Narrative Encyclopedia of American Criminals From the Pilgrims to the Present|publisher=M. Evans|date=1973|pages=224|isbn=0-87131-113-5}}</ref>

After this string of failures, Ford is said to have become a worker in the sex trade, as her mother had before her: reportedly, during World War II, she plied her trade as what was known in some circles as a "seagull", or a prostitute who "flocked" in pairs or groups near naval bases.{{sfn|Cairns|2013|p=24}} It is supposed that Ford began working near the [[Oakland Army Base]], [[Oakland Naval Supply Depot]], and [[Alameda Naval Air Station]]. In 1942, she and other "seagulls" traveled to [[Long Beach, California]] and [[San Diego]]. She was arrested on vice charges in these naval cities and in San Pedro, California. At 22, with her good looks, red hair, and sex appeal, she worked for a time in [[San Francisco]] for a brothel [[madam (prostitution)|madam]] named [[Sally Stanford]]. She soon became involved in gambling and illegal drug circles, cultivating a number of friends who were ex-convicts and known career criminals. She served a five-year sentence for perjury as a false alibi witness for two petty criminals, serving her sentence at the [[California Correctional Institution|California Women's State Prison]] at Tehachapi, California. After her stint in state prison, Ford moved to [[Reno, Nevada]] and then [[Tonopah, Nevada]]. She obtained work in a hospital and as a waitress, but soon got on a bus for [[Los Angeles]]. There, she got a room on Hollywood Boulevard and returned to prostitution. In 1953, she married Henry Graham, who worked as a bartender at one of her frequent haunts. With him she had a third child, named Tommy.