By Danna Shirley
Fictional story based on fact.
It looked like a castle
when we first pulled up. I didn’t know what to expect here but at least I was
out of Folsom Prison. I shouldn’t have been put in with those old men anyway.
My first experience was to have my head
shaved and dunked full body into a chemical bath to kill any lice or bugs. It
also killed my dignity. Oh well, at least I’m getting three squares and a roof
over my head; better than living on the outside and doing what I had to survive. So, what’s this Preston School of Industry, anyway?
I was assigned a room with another guy my
age, Eddie. He’d been here a while and showed me around. Eddie and I had a
fireplace in our room and across the hall, Earl and Clyde had the toilet. We
would share back and forth. Made sense to me. We all worked in the garden,
weeding and harvesting food for the cook. I was glad to be outdoors most of the
day.
I had it pretty good. This place really
was like a castle; 46,000 square feet, 77 rooms, 43 fireplaces, 257 windows
overlooking the foothills of Ione, CA on 330 acres. If I played my cards right,
I could graduate to one of the cottages that surrounded the castle.
My thoughts of escape subsided. They were
going to teach me the ropes as an auto mechanic. Now I would learn to fix
jalopies instead of hot-wiring them. If I kept my nose clean and didn’t make
waves I could play tennis after my work was done or lounge in the library. I’d
never had a book of my own but reading helped me escape to all kinds of
adventures. I could see myself as Tarzan wrestling lions in the jungle or Frank
Hardy solving mysteries. These stories took me away from the reality of the
depression and the incarceration at The Castle.
I learned the real bad apples were in the
Company B dormitory. I thought I was a pretty tough kid but I didn’t want to
tangle with any of them. Since I was grateful to be here, I couldn’t understand
why they would try to escape. When one went missing, a horn would sound and a
manhunt would begin. Whoever returned the kid got a $10 reward. I heard some
horror stories of the brutal punishment waiting for them; severe beatings with
two-by-fours, solitary confinement, and in some cases, the offender died.
Although we were all around the same age,
mostly teens, I was here as a “youthful offender” only; some of the other boys
were here as criminals. Some came with addictions to opium, alcohol, or heroin.
Some were very sick with TB. I heard the flu epidemic of 1918 wiped out half of
the staff and about a third of the boys. From the tower I could see their
graves surrounding the property. The infirmary was pretty busy with heat
stroke, or broken bones from fights, or the punishment given out to those boys
who tried to escape. I suspected not all of the graves on the property were
from that flu epidemic.
I came to Preston at age fourteen and
stayed four years. I learned a good trade and had read as many books as I could
from the 7,000 volumes in the library. I did what I was told and obeyed all
the rules. I left a better person than when I came; however, some of the boys went
on to become hardened criminals with longer incarcerations in state prisons.
Famous alumni successes of Preston School of Industry
Rory Calhoun (actor)
Merle Haggard (singer)
Lee J Cobb (actor)
Pancho Gonzales (tennis player)
Eddie "Rochester" Anderson (actor with Jack Benny)
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https://www.sacbee.com/entertainment/living/travel/sam-mcmanis/article25499146.html
Visiting Preston Castle (July, 2018) was a sad experience. I wanted to write a positive story of one of the boys. Even though it is fiction, I hope and pray there were some successes to come out of Preston Castle.
To see such a beautiful and majestic structure and then, by contrast, hear all the horrible details of severe treatment that took place inside, was hard to imagine. It's a wonder anyone came out of that environment intact.
Visiting Preston Castle (July, 2018) was a sad experience. I wanted to write a positive story of one of the boys. Even though it is fiction, I hope and pray there were some successes to come out of Preston Castle.
To see such a beautiful and majestic structure and then, by contrast, hear all the horrible details of severe treatment that took place inside, was hard to imagine. It's a wonder anyone came out of that environment intact.
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