Abandoned by his parents, locked alone in hotel rooms while his mother went out on dates, and burdened with a scheming father who was in and out of jail, Truman Capote’s childhood was lonely and tragic. This week, we will explore the early years of Capote’s life, the relationship between his parents, and the ultimate custody battle that led to Truman Persons becoming Truman Capote.

Truman’s father, Archulus (“Arch”) Persons, was a dreamer and a relentless schemer, always chasing the million-dollar deal he believed was just around the corner. On the day he met Lillie Mae Faulk, she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. “She ought to have knocked me dead,” he recalled. He followed her through town and watched her enter a pharmacy, determined to speak to her despite his sweaty hands and heavy breathing.

For the first, and perhaps the last, time in his life, Arch was at a loss for words. Lillie Mae solved that problem for him when she emerged from the pharmacy. “Hello, Arch Persons,” she said. “Honey, I know you, but I’ve forgotten your name,” he replied. “Why, I’m Lillie Mae Faulk,” she answered. After that, he had no trouble talking to her, and soon they began a tumultuous romance.

Within six months, they were married. He was 26; she was just 17. Her mother had died five years earlier, and she was living with cousins in Monroeville, Alabama. Lillie Mae was almost immediately disappointed. Arch had presented himself as well off, and she believed he would provide for her.

On their honeymoon, he bypassed all the grand hotels and instead took her to a rooming house owned by a friend. Halfway through the journey, he ran out of money and the honeymoon abruptly ended. Unable to afford the train fare back, he put Lillie Mae on the train while he stayed behind to “raise some cash.” He told her he was working on a big deal, and that his money was temporarily tied up, but soon they would be living like royalty.

Lillie Mae spent six weeks in Monroeville with her cousins before Arch finally returned. At first, she wanted nothing to do with him. But his sweet talk and endless promises eventually won her over, and Arch moved into the house with her and the cousins. She hated Monroeville and had always dreamed of leaving, which is why she had chosen Arch over the local boys—and now here she was, still in her cousins’ house, with a broke husband beside her.

Determined that if Arch could not care for her, she would care for herself, she enrolled in business school. It was there, in 1924, that she fainted in class—and learned she was pregnant. For Lillie Mae, everything now felt hopeless. She had longed to escape the town, and suddenly it seemed impossible. Arch was away on one of his schemes when she discovered the pregnancy.

She turned to her sister Jenny for help, but Jenny refused. Getting an abortion in those days was extremely difficult, yet Lillie Mae was determined. When Arch finally returned, she pleaded and cajoled him for months to help her obtain one. In June, he finally relented—but by then, her pregnancy had advanced to the point where it was no longer possible.

On the morning of Tuesday, September 30th, her labor pains began. At about 3 in the afternoon, Truman Streckfus Persons was born. At first, Lillie Mae tried to play the role of the good mother. Arch kept a steady job for a time, and it briefly seemed that they might be able to build a family. But stability was not in Arch’s nature.

Truman’s father tried various schemes to make money. One year, he trained a prizefighter, but boxing was banned in the town before the match could take place. Another time, he tried a carnival act—a “Pasha show” in which he would bury a man alive for five hours. The act was popular, but Arch and the Pasha quarreled and parted ways.

Arch invested in magazines and organized popularity contests. “Money is the sixth sense,” he would say, convinced it was his destiny to be rich. Yet all his schemes failed. Lillie Mae had thought she was marrying a man who would give her security. As Arch’s ventures collapsed one by one, she lost all love for him, feeling deceived and trapped.

She began having affairs with other men. Arch would later claim she had 29 affairs in Truman’s first three years. She conducted some of these affairs openly, in front of Truman, assuming he was too young to understand—but he remembered them all. He later described witnessing his mother being strangled with a necktie during sex.

One affair was with former boxing champion Jack Dempsey. They met on a train, and Truman recalled how he and his mother were invited to Dempsey’s car, where she flirted shamelessly with “Gentleman Jack.” After a while, Truman was sent to get a Coke with Dempsey’s assistant, while his mother stayed alone with the boxer. “Things like that happened a lot,” Truman later said.

Arch, in turn, tried to profit from Lillie Mae’s affairs. He even used Dempsey to referee a wrestling match he promoted in Mississippi. An outdoor ring was built, and 3,000 tickets were sold. But on the day of the match, a heavy storm pelted the city, and not even Dempsey’s presence could bring in the crowd. Arch lost a fortune.

Both parents seemed oddly content with this arrangement: Lillie Mae having affairs, and Arch trying to cash in on the men she met. All of this was witnessed by Truman. When his mother traveled, she would lock him in the hotel room at night, instructing the staff not to let him out “even if he screams.” He did scream—until, exhausted, he finally fell asleep.

He developed a deep fear of the dark, knowing that night meant abandonment. Eventually, his parents decided his care was too much of a burden for their plans. Lillie Mae left Truman with her relatives in Monroeville, Alabama. Truman’s worst fear had come true. The cousins he lived with constantly bickered, and each day seemed to end with someone running to their bedroom in tears.

Monroeville was a small country town of about a thousand people, with no paved streets. When it rained, the town turned to mud. Life was simple: most people kept chickens, pigs, or cows, and everyone followed “farmer’s hours”—in bed by eight, up at five. The porch was the center of social life, where evenings were spent chatting and gossiping with neighbors.

Most days, Truman would swim in the pond or help in the kitchen. His only real friend was Harper Lee, the youngest daughter of the girl next door. Harper, called “Nell,” had her own troubles: her mother had twice tried to drown her in the bathtub. Truman and Nell spent hours in a tree house, acting out scenes from their favorite books.

Nell was considered too rough for other girls, and Truman too soft for the other boys. The bond that united them was loneliness and anguish. Years later, Harper Lee would model the character Dill in *To Kill a Mockingbird* after Truman. Dill is described as a small, curious boy in blue linen shorts that buttoned to his shirt, with snow-white hair that stuck to his head like duck fluff.

“He was a year my senior but I towered over him,” the narrator recalls. “As he told us the old tales, his blue eyes would lighten and darken; his laugh was sudden and happy. He habitually pulled at a cowlick in the center of his forehead.” People called Truman an affectionate and beguiling child, and he was exceptionally bright. But despite his charm, he was deeply unhappy.

He saw his cousins as cold and unloving, calling them “pursed-mouthed and pinchpenny spinsters.” His mother would appear occasionally in stylish, expensive clothes, shower him with kisses and affection, and then vanish again. He would stand in the road watching her leave, feeling like a dog waiting to be taken away. His father behaved similarly, arriving sometimes in a fancy car, honking proudly when one of his schemes seemed to be working.

At other times, Arch slipped into town in the middle of the night, hoping not to be noticed. One night, a marshal came to the door to serve him with a warrant, but Arch had left a few hours earlier. To the family, Truman’s father was a joke—a fool always chasing money he would never find. Truman, though, defended him fiercely, arguing with his cousins and insisting his daddy would come back and rescue him.

Arch promised Truman dogs, trips, and adventures, and the boy was endlessly excited by these dreams. None of them ever happened. The end of Truman’s illusions came one day when his father arrived to take him to lunch. Truman and his friends piled into Arch’s fancy car, thrilled at the outing.

Truman had two dollars in his pocket, given to him by a cousin to buy books in town. During lunch, Arch leaned over and quietly asked Truman for the two dollars. “I never trusted him again after that,” Truman later recalled. It was a small moment, but a decisive one.

His parents’ relationship ended after Arch tricked Lillie Mae into driving a carload of bootleg liquor into Monroeville. Despite this, he still paid for her to attend beauty school in New York. Lillie Mae had never worked before, and many suspected this was just another scheme. In a sense, it was—but it would also change her life.

The course was meant to last three months, but as the months passed and she settled into New York—the city she had always dreamed of—she was in no hurry to return. The money Arch had promised never arrived. In fact, he was in jail for writing bad checks. Stranded far from home, Lillie Mae finally took a job in a restaurant in Lower Manhattan and was soon promoted to branch manager.

Shortly afterward, she met Joseph Capote, a man she had fallen in love with five years earlier when they met in New Orleans. He was well-educated, from a solid middle-class background. When they first met, she was 20 and he was 25. Now older, he was an aspiring young executive on Wall Street, meticulous in his appearance and fond of spending money.

When Arch heard about Joe, he begged Lillie Mae to come back, claiming he had changed. But she refused. Arch had no job, was hunted by the police, and had never given her the life she wanted. Now she had a job, a man she loved, and a place in the city she had always dreamed of living in.

Eventually, Joseph Capote paid for her to return south. She picked up Truman and met Arch in Florida, where she demanded a divorce. Arch blamed her greed for his relentless money-making schemes, insisting he had done it all for her. He called her disloyal and ungrateful. She, in turn, alleged abuse.

Whatever the truth, they divorced in November 1931. On paper, Lillie Mae was given custody of Truman for nine months of the year and Arch for three. In reality, the arrangement existed only in legal documents. Truman remained most often in Monroeville with his relatives, with both parents largely absent.

Meanwhile, Lillie Mae moved into a New York apartment with Joe and simply left Truman behind. On March 24th, 1932, Joe and Lillie Mae were married. Finally, a year later, she sent for her son to come live with them in New York. Joe became an indulgent stepfather, caring for Truman and spoiling him, treating him in many ways as his own son.

Despite the fact that neither Lillie Mae nor Arch had truly wanted custody when he was small, their legal battle over Truman was bitter. Arch offered her a deal: he would give up his three months of custody if she would surrender her nine, and instead send Truman to the Gulf Coast Military Academy. Arch used every resource he had to push this idea, including writing to the judge, a friend of his own father.

He referred to Joe—a Cuban immigrant—in disparaging terms, insisting he did not want his son raised by such a man. On Thursday, August 24th, the case was heard. The judge saw through Arch’s maneuvering and awarded full custody to Lillie Mae. Arch received nothing.

Lillie Mae and Truman left for New York. On July 11th, 1934, she filed full adoption papers. At the age of ten, Truman Streckfus Persons was officially renamed Truman Capote. His new name, however, did not mean his childhood was about to get easier.

Join us next week as we continue the story of the troubled childhood of Truman Capote. If you liked this video and story, please like, share, and subscribe. Your likes make it possible to share more on this topic, and as always, thank you for watching.