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The
officers who occupied the homes on the prison reservations were
allowed to have inmates for servants who were cooks, house boys or
gardeners. The officers had more prestige than the guards, as the
homes were nicer and their salary better. But there was little class
distinction that we can recall. It was a small community and we all
seemed to need each other. The work at the prison was confining and
the salaries were low. Guards received fifty dollars a month and
worked ten hours a day and seven days a week. Vacations were not
allotted and a day off was given only for a necessity.
There
were a few concessions that helped. Employees could purchase meat
from the prison at wholesale prices. Steaks were about ten cents a
pound. Excellent bread, baked in the prison, was available and a
large lug box of vegetables from the prison gardens was delivered
once a week at about twenty five cents a box.
Prisoners
to us youngsters, growing up in rather close association with many
of them, were pretty much like other adult men that we knew, except
that they wore striped uniforms, and we knew vaguely that they had
been convicted of some crime.
When
I used to tell people not familiar with the prison that I always
went to the prison barber shop manned by convicts, they were usually
interested and often surprised. The six chair barber shop was located
just outside the walled area of the prison and was for the use of the
guards, officers and their children. A small fee was assessed to the
employees of the prison to cover the costs of the material used, but
otherwise the services were free. I recall that the first shave I
ever had was performed by a convicted murderer.
The
prison also operated a laundry and a dry cleaning plant which was
also available to employees at a nominal cost. A shoe shop was also
available for shoe repair, and also this was available to the
employee's families. The shoe shop made all of the shoes for the
inmates, and employees could have shoes repaired or made for their
children. The price was right, but Oh how we hated those clumsy Con
Made Shoes. We learned to appreciate Store Bought
shoes very much.
The
town had access to the prison physician who lived in the village,
and they paid him his usual fee for his services. There was also a
resident prison Protestant chaplain who conducted services inside the
prison for the inmates, but also held Sunday school and church
services for the free people in the school house. Our early day
preacher was August Drahms.
A
Catholic priest came by horse and buggy each Sunday from San Rafael,
which was four miles distant. Mass was held for those of the Catholic
faith within the prison and at certain times of the year, a priest
came on Fridays and conducted Catechism classes for the children of
the employees.
The
schoolhouse, just outside the east gate, was actually on the prison
reservation, and was a one room school with one teacher and all eight
grades were in the same large room. Children of high school age had
to commute to San Rafael to go to the only high school in Marin
County. They had to take a horse drawn stage to Greenbrae, two miles
to the west, where they boarded a steam train to San Rafael. From the
depot, in San Rafael, to the high school was better than one-half a
mile. For this trip an early start had to be made in the morning and,
of course, repeated in the afternoon for the homeward journey.
Author:
William J. Duffy, Jr.
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