It’s long been rumored that the Colonel killed someone before he left Holland. It’s true. He did. He killed Andreas van Kuijk and gave birth to Tom Parker. (More on that in a bit.)
But that’s not all. Rumors persist to this day that he murdered the twenty-three-year-old wife of a greengrocer in Breda, Holland, in a botched robbery and then ransacked the home for cash. Police reports still exist, though they never pointed to him as a suspect or, for that matter, even a person of interest. The only “evidence” to emerge was in the late 1970s when Albert Goldman was assembling his salacious book Elvis, and he collected some ragtag quotes from Lamar Fike, a disgruntled member of the Elvis’s Memphis Mafia, about Parker’s occasional violent temper.
It’s true: there was no love lost between Colonel Parker and Lamar. The two went at it like cats and dogs, but those were verbal spars and usually brought on by Lamar, who tended to run his mouth and stick his nose where it didn’t belong. Lamar was Elvis’s friend and felt safe under his protection, but whenever he said something the Colonel didn’t like or questioned something about how things were being run, the Colonel let him have it. And trust me, it was warranted.
In the late 1990s, another rumor emerged from a British tabloid that Parker had knifed a man to death in a fairgrounds brawl, but no proof was ever offered. Again, mere speculation.
This I can tell you with great certainty: Colonel Parker wasn’t a criminal—he wasn’t even a hustler. Crime wasn’t in his blood; hard work was. If he needed money, all he had to do was work, which he did in abundance in Holland. As a child, he learned to get jobs by working hard for free, such as watering the animals at a traveling circus. There was nothing in his background that jibed with his becoming a criminal. Some people might argue that he was a con artist. I think of him as a man who saw angles that no one else did.
Killing defenseless housewives and knifing people in brawls? From a man who loved every animal he ever saw? Not likely.
The more likely answer is that his hasty and mysterious departures were interpreted as suspicious but were just due to Andreas not being much for goodbyes. The Dutch are extremely private people. They don’t like to draw attention to themselves, they don’t discuss their accomplishments or property, and they are reserved and formal when dealing with outsiders. They don’t ask personal questions and definitely don’t answer them. They don’t even discuss personal matters with close friends. Sentimentality was a wasted emotion as far as Andreas was concerned. He told me many stories about his past over the years, but it was because he might offer it up as a life lesson or get a good laugh out of it. There was never much nostalgia attached to his stories.
When Andreas jumped the train in Huntington, West Virginia, he was looking for work and came across a small carnival. He was fascinated by American horses because they were much smaller compared to the huge animals he had known back in Holland. Andreas introduced himself to the owners of Parker Pony Rides and told them about his experience in handling animals. He must have made an impression because he was hired on the spot. Soon he was on the road with the owners, traveling from city to city throughout the South, setting up their small concession in any location they could find. Self-service grocery stores, the precursors to the supermarket, introduced around 1915, were ideal locations, since many parents took their children with them while they went shopping.
The Parkers took a strong liking to the hardworking, personable Dutchman and decided to legally adopt him. They ventured to the courthouse in the small town in Georgia where they were working and filled out the necessary paperwork. Andreas felt that since he was enjoying a new life, in a new country, with a new family, it was only appropriate that he should have a new name as well.
He chose his first name after his distant cousin, the clown. The middle name was the Americanization of his own given first name, and he took on the surname of his new parents.
Andreas Cornelius van Kuijk was dead. Thomas Andrew Parker was born—a man in the New World. He would go on to create much more in his life, but his promotional legerdemain was the result of seeing opportunities no one else saw. Elvis Presley and the other entertainers he propelled to stardom had natural talent.
However, Tom Parker was his greatest creation, and would always remain so.
Shortly after the adoption proceedings, the Parker family realized their new son should also be baptized. Catholic-born Andreas Cornelius van Kuijk was now, in the eyes of the Lord, Thomas Andrew Parker, Protestant. People leave the Catholic Church for many reasons—better music, better sermons, fewer rules, a spouse of another faith. In Tom’s case, he left the church for a new family.
That, however, didn’t last long. The ocean beckoned. Tom traveled with Parker Pony Rides for a few more months until his wanderlust kicked in again. No one who has ridden the rails can stay tethered to one spot on the Earth for long. (In the 1980s, one octogenarian ex-hobo took off and rode the rails again because he missed his peripatetic life as a young man so much.)
But this time Tom was getting homesick too. His mother’s birthday was coming up in September, and he wanted to surprise her. He reluctantly told the Parkers of his plans and promised he would rejoin them upon his return to America.
Tom quickly found deckhand work on a freighter bound for Europe, and on September 2, 1927, nearly eighteen months after leaving Holland, he showed up on his mother’s doorstep in Breda, bearing gifts for her as well as his brothers and sisters.
His return also coincided with the celebration of his sister Adriana’s engagement. The eighteen-year-old drifter was warmly greeted and was soon the center of attention at the party. He adamantly refused to tell them what he had been doing in the United States, and he certainly wasn’t going to tell them he had a new American name and had switched religions. Everything was on a need-to-know basis.
It wasn’t long before the merriment of the moment began to wear off. Breda had changed considerably after his departure and, from his perspective, not for the better. The city was growing and becoming more industrial. Breda had always been a center of food and drink production. Hero conserves and lemonade, Mentos mints, licorice, and chocolate were all made there, and the factories were growing bigger, attracting more workers. The once-sleepy town of thirty thousand was booming now.
Not one for idle time, Tom took a menial job on the waterfront loading and unloading barges while keeping his eyes open for a position on one of the larger boats. The Dutch were the leading European sea power for more than a hundred years, beginning in the late sixteenth century when they dominated the Baltic trade. Around the same time, the Dutch East India Company was born, quickly tossing the Portuguese out of the East Indies (now Indonesia) and monopolizing the rich spice trade. Whether dragging for cod or sailing to the far side of the world for cinnamon and pepper, every Dutch boy felt as comfortable at the helm as he did at the plow.
Luck was with Tom, and he found a deckhand position on a ship that traveled between Breda and Rotterdam. Since the company had small dormitory-style rooms above their offices in the larger city, Tom moved his trunk and meager belongings there. With some seniority under his belt, he got better jobs, first on short trips to nearby ports, and then to exotic ports in China, Japan, and the South Seas. In later years, when he might make a mention of a foreign city or country to me, Colonel Parker would comment, “I was there in nineteen-whatever,” and spoke knowledgeably about the country or region. It seemed as if there wasn’t any place in this world he hadn’t visited.
Life aboard the freighters was not easy. Ships were half the size they are now but had twice the crew—living conditions were extremely crowded (the seamen slept in stacked canvas hammocks) and fresh water was limited. Personal hygiene was not a priority. One sailor working on a tramp steamer during the same period said his berth smelled like wet chickens, a high school locker room, and diesel fuel. They put in long hours, and there was little to do when off duty other than gamble, sleep, or pursue a hobby like macramé or shell art. Tom often went to sleep serenaded by a variety of night sounds that he had never heard around the lakes in Breda.
He spent many off-duty hours on the top deck by himself just to collect his thoughts and breathe in the fresh sea air. Standing nearly six feet tall, he was quickly accepted by his older and much shorter shipmates. He felt, at last, that he was a member of a family that cared about him. His hands grew strong and calloused. When he had blisters, he rubbed fat and salt into his palms, making them strong as elephant hide. He learned how to tie a variety of knots and how to use a knife.
Despite the living conditions, Tom loved the water and was mostly happy aboard these ships. He was eating regularly and traveling the world. He signed on with any vessel that had a destination he had yet to experience. He mastered many trades about the ship and was a quick study. Steamers were coal powered, which meant the “black gang” (because they were covered in coal dust) shoveled coal to keep the steam up. Temperatures could get up to 120 degrees in the fire room. One man’s job was to break up big chunks of coal in the boiler with a fourteen-foot-long steel bar, all the while trying not to get thrown against the hot boiler in pitching seas. After spending a short time below deck, Tom had learned how to take an engine apart like a seasoned mechanic. These engines were not like car engines. They had personalities and quirks. He told me one ship’s engineer started a pair of Fairbanks Morse diesel engines by dropping a lit cigarette into the cylinder. He didn’t know why it worked, but it did.
Tom especially liked helping the ship’s cook because it meant he ate well. After a few days at sea, their supply of fresh meat would be quickly depleted, so they’d switch to fish and more fish, sometimes replaced with salt pork. He discovered there were only so many ways to cook fish, and his taste for salt pork waned after a few days at sea.
On many of his sojourns he’d leave the ship for a while and take odd jobs on shore just to eat something different. Tom was not only cheerful but could do the work of several grown men and was a welcome employee no matter what job was at hand. He would return to his room in Rotterdam from time to time to stay rooted in Dutch culture but did not return to Breda. By now, he was a citizen of the world. Going back to the draft horses was not an option.
One of his favorite memories was of the captain serving every member of the crew a loaf of bread and a liter of wine on Friday evenings. It was always good for morale, because any form of alcohol was strictly forbidden, although most of his seasoned mates smuggled aboard a bottle of wine or rum. It was on these ships he developed his lifelong habit of dipping a piece of bread into a glass of wine during his meal.
On a trip to Spain, he disembarked in Madrid specifically to take on local supplies. He soon fell in with a band of wandering gypsies because of his ability to handle horses. They accepted him as one of their own, and he joined their nomadic travels around Spain. His reluctance to eat leftover foods most likely stemmed from this short period in his life, as the band of gypsies had no refrigeration, and anything not eaten at a meal had to be tossed. Although he enjoyed his new “family,” Tom overheard two of the elders discussing plans for him to marry one of their tribe’s beautiful women. He pondered it for a minute but decided he didn’t need marriage to weigh him down. He quietly slipped away in the night and returned to the docks.
While snaking up the Rhine River valley in Germany on another trip ashore, Tom visited the town of Cologne. It was in this city where he came across “4711 cologne.” He felt it was much more than just a nice-smelling men’s cologne and thought it actually held therapeutic properties. He often recommended it to anyone who had a headache or sinus issues and gave away many bottles over the years.
During his early travels, Tom got a taste of dialects and languages and could mimic just about any foreign accent. His mind was like a sponge, soaking up information from every person and place he’d ever encountered. There wasn’t anything in the world he wasn’t interested in, and he spoke with great authority on many topics.
His learning wasn’t limited to the differences in cultures. On many of their trips ashore, crew members would gather in the sleazy dockside taverns and drink. To no one’s surprise, all that testosterone and alcohol resulted in many fistfights between the seamen and the locals. Tom didn’t enjoy these ugly confrontations, but he quickly learned that if there was going to be a brawl, it was best to get in the first punch. He didn’t always win, but it did swing things in his favor. He later admitted to being a fair boxer when he joined the military, but soon gave it up because he wasn’t a fan of getting hit.
While his travels took him to many ports throughout the world, Tom especially grew to love the Far East. However, he never found a city or country that impressed him enough to leave the ship and find a permanent job ashore.
After the First World War, many European countries needed help in becoming self-sustaining, and the United States supplied much of that assistance. Tom quickly surmised the United States offered not only lots of variety, but the best quality of life. He yearned to return there, this time legally. However, he learned from his shipmates that his chances of immigrating to the country were slim.
Following World War I, immigrants poured into the United States from Europe as their lives were upended from the brutality. These immigrants were looking for a gentler, more prosperous way of life. In 1921, Congress passed its strongest immigration laws to date. It established a quota system for all aliens throughout the world. The cap was set at 3 percent of current foreign-born residents from each country. For example, if there were already a thousand Dutch living in the US in 1910, no more than thirty new immigrants from Holland would be admitted that year. Immigrants also had to find an American sponsor who had the financial resources to guarantee they would not become a burden on the state. The chances of an eighteen-year-old runaway from a small country being granted permanent resident status were almost nil.
A decade before, tens of thousands of poverty-stricken families abandoned their farms in the Dust Bowl and poured into California. By 1936, losses hit the equivalent of approximately $500 million per day in 2022 dollars. Animosity toward the “Okies” and “Arkies” was high. Many were turned away or beaten by police at the California state line.
The famed Ellis Island immigration center in New York had been the portal for most starry-eyed immigrants, but that door was now slammed to almost everyone. Canada, also suffering from depression and drought, enacted policies like its southern neighbor.
On one of his final voyages, in 1929, Tom and his shipmates found themselves stranded on a small island in the Dutch West Indies. Rather than paying the crew, the captain of their ship simply sailed off to another location. Without funds, many men were forced to sign aboard the first ship available. Tom had severe misgivings but really had no choice. The captain of this new ship was roguish. The new crew members were not permitted to go near the cargo area. Tom’s instincts proved correct, as the ship was carrying illegal rum to the Prohibition-controlled United States. As the ship entered the Gulf of Mexico and approached the shores of Alabama, they were greeted by the US Coast Guard. The captain was ordered to sail into Mobile, where he was arrested. Thankfully, the crew was released without having any of their papers checked.
Tom wasn’t on Easy Street just yet. He was without papers and had very little money in his pocket. The only clothes he possessed were those he was wearing. Doing what came naturally to him, Tom hopped the first freight train he could catch and jumped off in Atlanta, Georgia.
When he reached the Peach City, it was time for another life-changing decision. Did he want to continue traversing the world, living hand to mouth, scrounging for meals and shelter, or was it time to find some stability? He obviously chose the latter, because he did one of the most unlikely things expected of him. He joined the United States Army on June 20, 1929, (six days before his twentieth birthday) and did so under his American name: Thomas A. Parker. However, he acknowledged his Dutch birth and told military authorities he had immigrated to the US four years prior—a fact that is inconvenient to some in the Elvis World who want to sling mud at Colonel Parker for hiding his true identity.
World War I had been as unpopular as the Vietnam War later was. Immediately afterward, and into the 1930s, the American people, congressional representatives, and presidents pursued a policy of avoiding future wars with major European powers. The orders of the day: maintain a minimum army for defense, avoid embroilment with the Old World, and promote international peace.
Defense budgets were slashed. Rifles were outmoded. Mounted cavalry were still in use. One active officer had fought the Sioux.
Regular army life was devoted to nonmilitary tasks only the army had the resources and organization to tackle. These were the same types of jobs FEMA and other federal agencies take on today—showing up to floods, blizzards, and hurricanes with cots, blankets, and food, improving navigation and flood control by working on rivers and harbors. For a short time in 1934, the Army Air Corps carried air mail. The biggest job began in 1933 when President Franklin Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and ordered the army to administer it.
The CCC was a voluntary work relief program that employed millions of young men on environmental projects during the Great Depression. They received housing, food, clothing, medical care, and $30 per month (equivalent to about $650 in 2022 dollars), with $25 required to be sent home to their families. About 300,000 young men joined the CCC, many becoming soldiers and sailors in World War II.
The CCC provided “three hots and a cot” and a job in a nation where employment was hard to come by. Many veterans swear the military gave them discipline and focus. Tom already had that, plus a strong will, a sharp mind, and the work ethic of twenty mules. But he needed food, a paycheck, and a place to lie low until times got better. All that spelled army.
Tom’s timing was fortuitous. On June 20, 1929, a few months before the bottom fell out of the stock market and plunged the nation into the Great Depression, Thomas A. Parker signed up for a two-year enlistment with the 64th Coast Artillery, and six days before his twentieth birthday, the future “Colonel” became a buck private, serial number 6363948.
Uncle Sam was taking just about anyone who didn’t have a contagious disease, wasn’t missing a limb, or didn’t have a felony on their record. Germany had been roundly defeated with American help, but the war had been extremely unpopular. The army had been slashed to the point that it was the size of the Portuguese army (about 12,000 officers and 125,000 enlisted men). Cavalry patrolled the Mexican border. Except for a dozen experimental models, they had no armored vehicles.
The army recruited heavily for men to send to the bases in Hawaii—officers like General Douglas MacArthur believed the next war would be with Japan, and it would be mainly naval. Shoring up a forward base like Hawaii was a priority. The Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931, then thumbed their nose at pressure from the US and the League of Nations to make them leave. It was a harbinger of things to come.
Because of Hawaii’s distance from the mainland, most married men didn’t want to leave their families in the States. Tom figured it was just another 4,300 miles between Holland and Hawaii and told his recruiter he’d be happy to go.
The same year Parker was inducted into the army, Inter-Island Airways began offering the first scheduled air service in six of the largest Hawaiian Islands, but large parts of the territory were still remote and uninhabitable except to natives. Many Hawaiians existed as they always had: casting nets in the surf for mullet, spearfishing at night with torches, tending small taro patches, and living in grass huts. Japanese immigrants worked on the vast pineapple and sugar plantations.
Tourism was growing. About twelve thousand people vacationed in Hawaii annually. (Today, approximately fifty thousand people arrive daily at Honolulu International Airport.) The iconic pink Royal Hawaiian Hotel was built on Waikiki Beach in 1925. The most popular—and the most expensive—rooms overlooked the gardens because no one wanted to look at the ocean after a long voyage. Waitresses wore kimonos (that practice ended overnight on December 7, 1941). Luxury liners began arriving in Honolulu, which now boasted paved streets. Because Hawaii was so remote, island vacations were long. Some tourists brought their cars on the ships with them. “Beach boys” taught them how to surf and paddle outrigger canoes.
After basic training, Tom Parker was shipped to Fort DeRussy near Waikiki, arriving on October 19, 1929. Once there, he received a week of instruction before being transferred to Fort Shafter. Built in 1905, it is the oldest fort on the island of Oahu, sitting three miles north of Honolulu at the base of the Koolau Mountains on former Hawaiian crown lands that were turned over to the United States after annexation.
Tom was one of several thousand soldiers who helped protect the naval base at Pearl Harbor, manning three giant sixty-inch searchlights in defense against attack by sea. Beyond that, they didn’t do much. A posting to the “Paradise of the Pacific” was prized in the army. Senior officers vied to serve their sunset tours there. The weather was balmy, the beaches spotless, food exotic, and scenery spectacular. There was so little to do one department commander in the early 1920s assigned soldiers to scrub oil stains from the pavement. Life in the “Pineapple Army” was as laid back as the military gets.
The only opportunity the troops had to go anywhere was on Sundays, when they were permitted to attend chapel service. It was there that Tom first noticed a young woman in the choir. She was quite plump but popular. Then again, she lived on an island full of GIs.
Tom discovered the singer was the daughter of the base commander. Most soldiers wouldn’t dare to make an approach, but Tom sought her out after the service to compliment her on her singing voice. She was easily charmed by his manner and tall good looks. He casually asked if she had a manager. She did not, she replied.
“The only places I have ever sung are in school and church,” she said.
That left an opening, and Tom offered to become her manager, citing his “many years of experience” in the entertainment business and the fact that he had a famous aunt in Europe who traveled with the opera. Impressed, she readily agreed.
A few days later Tom was called before his first sergeant and was told the base commander wanted to see him right away. The sergeant was not happy; he didn’t want any of his soldiers rocking the boat and undermining his authority or making him look bad.
“Private Parker!” he barked. “What kind of trouble could you possibly get into at church?!” Tom simply shrugged his shoulders and grinned.
A military staff car arrived and drove him to the base headquarters where the general’s daughter was waiting. They talked briefly and made plans for him to visit her at home with her parents. The base commander and his wife took an instant liking to the personable young man who had given their daughter confidence. They quickly approved of her “business” relationship with this soldier.
Once a week the general’s staff car would pick Tom up and drive him to their home so he could advise her while she practiced running through the scales. He remembered that his opera-singing aunt had used a metronome, so he suggested she obtain one, although he wasn’t quite sure what it was used for. Sitting in the parlor he would start the metronome and smile encouragingly as she sang. Unfortunately, her only “bookings” in Hawaii were the chapel service and the base Officers’ or NCO Club.
She did make sure that Tom accompanied her to each event, which meant he was able to meet many important people, both military and civilian, and enjoy a much better lifestyle than other privates. Whenever he saw his name posted for KP duty, he quickly added an extra rehearsal with his prized client, managing to avoid KP on a regular basis, much to the chagrin of his sergeant. He did get called up unavoidably for nighttime guard duty and ended up protecting the base cemetery for an eight-hour shift. America was at peace during this period and things were still fairly calm in Europe and Asia. For Tom Parker, life was mostly good.
Back in Breda, no one knew of his American military service or, for that matter, if he was even alive. In late spring, his family received a trunk containing all his personal possessions. The shipping company needed his room and could no longer store his items. His mother had no idea what was going on until some time later when she received a letter, written in English and signed by a “Tom Parker.” Subsequent letters were accompanied by small photos and just enough information to let her know that he was alive. There was never a return address. Maria also received small payments from her son’s payroll deduction that came out of Washington, D.C.
Of course, sending money home left Tom short on cash. What he did have was “invested” in craps games. He had learned to gamble while working on the freighters. Between sending money to Maria and the dollars he made and lost from craps, he was broke most of the time. He did, however, always have enough for regular trips to the base barber shop. The barber’s wife baked the most delicious pies, and soldiers could sign up for a haircut and take a pie with them. It wasn’t necessary to get a haircut to obtain a pie; you just had to pay for it. One might think the troops were almost bald, based on the number of haircuts shown on their books.
Near the end of every month, Tom’s money was depleted, and he’d have to obtain a loan from one of his army buddies to get by until the next paycheck. He entered the army broke and exited the same way.
Throughout his young life, Tom was routinely being “adopted” by a family, and the same thing happened in Hawaii. Tom’s friend Arnold Kufferath recalled: “My father was walking our Russian wolfhound in the park one day when a slender young man began asking questions about the dog and petting it adoringly. It was obvious he loved animals.” The senior Kufferath invited Private Parker home for a Sunday afternoon dinner.
Arnold took an instant liking to Tom, as did his sister, Louise, and her husband, Sonny Cortes. He was invited to the Cortes home often for backyard barbeques and was told he could bring an army buddy or two with him if he liked. All his life he took pleasure in sharing with others the good things that came his way, so he jumped at the chance and loaded the car with friends the next time he went.
He was, even during his army days, an organizer. Arnold recalled that after the cookout, Tom’s friends couldn’t get everything they’d brought with them to fit back in the trunk, so he showed them how to reload it before heading back to the base.
“Tom Parker was one of the most intelligent men I ever met,” Arnold said, who remembered that he had lost all traces of his Dutch accent. “No one could pull the wool over his eyes.”
Arnold Kufferath remained friendly with Tom over the years, and he and his family were always invited to visit Elvis and the Colonel on a movie set or in their hotel room when they visited Hawaii.
“Once, when they arrived by ship, my daughter Gale and I were permitted to board the ship before it docked,” he fondly remembered. “Tom took us to Elvis’s cabin, where Gale had her picture taken with him. She was certainly the star at her school the next day.”
In 1931, Tom Parker was shipped back to the Coast Artillery Training Center at Fort Barrancas in Pensacola, Florida. Situated on bluffs overlooking the entrance to Pensacola Bay, the fort dominates the deep harbor. When Tom was stationed there, the army used the fort as a signal station, small arms range, and storage area.
This was a spit-and-polish military operation and not as relaxed as Hawaii. The Florida Panhandle was not the land of aloha ‘oe. Consequently, Tom couldn’t get away with the stunts he had pulled in Hawaii. He had few if any stories to relate about his duties there.
“The Colonel never spoke too much of his army days,” Loanne Parker once told me. “We discovered that his military records were destroyed2 in a fire, though he did obtain his honorable discharge certificate in 1982.”
While at Fort Barrancas, Tom befriended three men from Louisiana and maintained a lifelong friendship with them. They were Leonard Speaks, Roscoe Van Ander, and Conway Baker. Baker went on to play pro football with the Chicago Cardinals and later landed a job with the Shreveport Police Department.
On June 19, 1932, Thomas Parker was discharged with the same rank he held when he entered the army: buck private. Three years in the army and discharged without a single stripe! It’s obvious that he still questioned authority at the most inappropriate times. He was doing things his way despite what price he might pay for that privilege.
He must have been a glutton for punishment or realized that the security of the army in the throes of the Great Depression was not to be underestimated. He reenlisted for duty the very next day and, a month later, on July 18, was promoted to private first class. He stayed on for another year. On August 19, 1933, Thomas Parker was given an honorable discharge and a final paycheck of $117.57.
Now a civilian once again, Tom Parker was ready to start anew and take steps to finally fulfill his destiny.