Chapter 5
Reform School: Indiana Boys School
This institution was originally called "The House of Refuge for Juvenile Offenders" and was located on a farm one mile southwest of the village of Plainfield, Indiana. It was occupied January 1, 1868.
The name was changed in 1883 to the Indiana Reform School for Boys and later to the Indiana Boys' School.
The school received boys from ten to sixteen years of age committed for violation of criminal laws and from ten to seventeen years for in-corrigibility, no commitment being for a shorter period than until the boy attains the age of twenty-one years.
My time at the “Reform School” was quite an education, in spite of the fact they would not allow me to attend school.
School Building and Church:
The Indiana Boys School had their own school building for the younger children, however I would be informed during orientation that I didn’t qualify for attendance at the school, because I was big enough that I would be needed to perform manual labor. There was also a church building that was large enough to hold all of the kids that were locked up on the property, except those in isolation. This is where they would hold mandatory Sunday morning services as well as show an occasional movie on Saturday afternoon. They even held a play there, that was performed entirely by the boys, including me in a small bit part as a police detective. I think the name of the play was West Side Story.
Visitation Room:
They had a visitation room, however since I only had one visit in over one and a half years of being locked up there, I couldn’t tell you anything about it.
Laundry and Swimming Pool:
The school also had it’s own laundry facility and I worked there for a short period of time, pressing shirts and pants on commercial presses. As I said, it was for a very short time, because I ended up getting into a fight with another inmate and was sent to isolation. The pool was NOT the most enjoyable activity for some of the boys, including someone like me, with the type of experience I endured as a young child. It turned out they would not allow the boys to wear bathing suits in the pool, so every one had to go around totally naked. I don’t know who the sadistic idiot was that thought it was a good idea to make large numbers of teenage boys about to reach the sexual prime of their life and were locked up together with smaller preteen boys, should all run around or swim totally naked. But whoever thought that idea up, should be incarcerated in a prison along with hundreds of violent sexual offenders where no one is allowed to wear any clothing, just to see how much fun it would be for him or her. Fortunately, due to my size and background, I didn’t have to worry about other boys getting too friendly with me.
Barber Shop:
They had their own barber shop, where inmates could learn to become a barber. Even though I was still a kid, my face already had a real heavy, thick facial hair and the doctor at the school wrote a prescription stating I needed to be shaved three times a week. So I would be escorted to the barber shop every Monday, Wednesday and Friday so some student could take a straight razor and shave me. Needless to say, I did end up with a few minor scars on my face and later in life, I kept my face covered with a beard for much of my adult life.
Commercial Kitchen:
They had a large commercial kitchen where they prepared all the meals for everyone that lived and worked on the property. While working in the kitchen, the things I saw and personally experienced would help to keep me healthy while I was there. For example, I discovered that if a person uses their bare hands to distribute large amounts of black pepper, they should always wash their hands before touching any private parts on their body when using the toilet. I also discovered that if you can ever get your hands on a full loaf of hot fresh unsliced bread directly out of the oven and have access to a one full pound square of real butter, you could break the loaf of bread in half and melt the butter right into the bread before you eat the whole thing by yourself. It can become a wonderful experience in a dreary hateful place.
On the protective side, I learned that on the mornings we were served rice and raisins for breakfast, if the raisins moved and tried to climb out of the bowl, you should NOT eat them. The same thing could be said of the Shit on a Shingle, which was basically ground beef in gravy that covered toast. If the ground beef started moving, before you put it into your mouth, it might be a good idea to skip breakfast that morning.
We always used large burlap sacks filled with real whole potatoes in almost every meal. They were dumped into an automatic potato peeler machine that was large enough to hold a 50 pound or 100 pound sack of potatoes at a time. I discovered that if you see workers pulling too many large rats out of that potato peeler or the commercial size pot of mashed potatoes that stood at least four feet tall and four feet in diameter, that you might want to avoid eating potatoes with that meal. The same thing could be said for the beans that come in large burlap bags and were cooked frequently.
While working in the kitchen, I also learned the school had their own dairy and would deliver large 10 gallon commercial size milk cans full of fresh milk every morning to each cottage that housed the inmates as well as to the kitchen I was working in.
Cottages:
The facility had a number of little houses or cottages that held the inmates. There were usually around 30 inmates per building. Each building contained a small kitchen area where they would divide up the food they received into individual servings, a large open living area containing chairs and a television set, as well as a dormitory with beds. There was also a large bathroom with a big round industrial type sink that would allow up to 10 boys at one time to wash their hands, and multiple showers and toilets. One unique thing about the cottages is the fact that no one except the guard, was allowed to wear shoes inside.
It turns out they had cut up old wool blankets into small squares jut a tad bit larger then a persons foot. Then wherever we were inside the cottages, we were required to keep these pieces of the blanket under our feet and “slide” our feet instead of actually lifting them and taking steps. The goal was to “shine” the floor every time we moved our feet from one place to another.
Store Room and Warehouses:
I was eventually transferred out of the kitchen and into the Storeroom, which was basically a one boy job where I could work alone. It was just one elderly guard and me to control the entire inventory of all the supplies for the entire facility. I would have to unload all of the semi-trailers by myself, that were filled with 50 or 100 lb burlap bags containing beans and potatoes as well as cans of fruit and any other foods that were not grown on their farm. We also stored all of the blankets, mattresses, soap, sugar, rice, school books and any other items that might eventually be needed by any industry or cottage within the school grounds.
There were multiple buildings where the items were stored and I had free access to walk outside of the primary storehouse building alone, and across the street to other buildings where inventory was kept. I was also allowed to get on the old rickety freight elevator that was made out of wood. I had to pull a rope that was attached to a large pulley, in order to move the elevator up to the higher levels or down to the basement. I did not care for the basement.
Since the “Painville” institution had its own power plant, there were underground tunnels large enough for people to walk through, that were connected to all of the buildings on the grounds. These tunnels contained the wiring for the buildings as well as the pipes for their sewer treatment facility. As a result of these tunnels being a good hiding place, people would occasionally sneak in there to steal things or have sex, and I never knew in advance what or who might be lurking down there. For example, I remember one day when I was required to head down to the basement to get something, but it wasn’t a large enough item that required the use of the freight elevator, so I decided to take the staircase down instead. As I approached the door leading to the basement, I opened it and before I could even reach in, to turn on the light, I spotted the figure of a person standing in the complete darkness, on the landing, right inside the door. It startled me so bad that my heart jumped into my throat and I immediately started to jump him. Thankfully, he was someone from the power plant that I knew and recognized as not being a threat, but my heart still pounds a bit faster whenever I remember that incident. The bottom line is that while at that institution, I learned to always keep my eyes and ears tuned to everything, while at the same time, keeping my mouth shut and my back against the wall whenever possible.
Power Plant:
The store room where I worked was right next to their power plant. That plant was powered by old coal burning furnaces and had a tall brick silo, next to the power plant that stored all of the old soot and ash from their furnaces.
The soot and ash that was in the silo, would be emptied out into a dump truck on a regular basis and then taken away to be dumped someplace we were never allowed to know about. Since I normally worked by myself in the “storehouse” unloading semi-trucks that brought us our beans and potatoes in 50 and 100 lb. burlap bags, and there weren’t any trucks coming in this one particular day, I was assigned to help empty the silo.
By the time I arrived at the silo, the dump truck was already parked under the “shoot” that would open and let the ash slide down into the bed of the truck. When they opened the shoot, the soot and ash started to come out just fine. But after a few minutes, it stopped flowing. So the supervisor figured it must have been excessive moisture holding the ash together, so he told me and one of the other boys to climb up the ladder located on the outside of the silo and then, when we arrived at the very top, we were supposed to open a trap door on the top and climb down a ladder on the inside of the silo, in order to help break the ash apart, so that it would flow through easier.
Since this was not a volunteer situation and we didn’t have a choice, we climbed up all the way to the top and then, after we opened the trap door at the top, we started climbing down the other ladder that was fastened to inside of the brick wall. We only had to climb down about 20 feet when we hit a solid layer of soot and ash. We had been given shovels to use, so that we could break up the hard damp material into finer pieces, in hopes of allowing the substance to flow through the shoot at the bottom.
We started using the shovels to “stab” the ash, trying to break it apart. After working there for 10 to 15 minutes, we suddenly realized the soot we were standing on, gave way and we started falling down into all of this crud. We were both too far away from the ladder to reach it in time and so we got sucked into the soot and buried alive!
A that point, I started to visualize many “photographs” or memories of my past and realized that I did not have many happy memories. I also figured that I would suffocate to death and could end up buried in their cemetery, hundreds of miles from my mother, brother and any other family.
But, since I was a fighter, I was not about to just give up. My feet where toward the bottom of the silo and my hands were stretched out above me, toward the top of the silo. So, I figured there would be less pressure holding my hands, than their was against my feet. So, I began moving my fingers, trying to see just how much movement I could get. As I kept moving them, I discovered the more I moved them, the easier it became, until I was finally able to put my fingers together and move them like I was swatting a bug. This moved enough ash to that I was able to twist my arms enough to pull then push them back and forth. At times it seemed like I was there for an eternity and was running out of breath.
When I finally got the point where I could use my entire hands as shovels to dig, I managed to get my left hand in front of my face, protecting my nose, so that I could breath, without getting all of the coal dust into my lungs. In the meantime, I was using my elbows and feet, in an attempt to move my body closer to the top of the pile of ash. I felt like I was turning in circles, but eventually I thought I could see a hing of lighter blackness above me, meaning I might be getting close enough to the top to see some light filter through all of the blackness. That encouraged me to struggle even harder, in my attempt to get where I could breath pure air again.
I REALLY thanked God, when I finally broke through and started gasping at the air. In spite of all the dust floating around me, that air felt like the cleanest air in the world to me. Then I realized the other boy that had come up with me, was still buried somewhere below me. Was he still alive or had he already died? I had no idea and started yelling for him, but there was no answer. So I dug around with my hands until I found a shovel that I could pull out of the ash and started digging down to find him. That is when I realized I better not use a shovel too fast or deep, because I didn’t know how deep or how close he might be and I did not want to end up hitting him in the head and killing him, IF he was still alive.
So, I put the shovel down, got down on my hands and knees, in order to start digging with my hands, while at the same time I continued calling out his name. It seemed to me like it was taking forever and I was afraid he might have already suffocated, when I felt something weird. It was too hard to be just ash or soot, but what was it? I kept feeling around until I figured out it “might be” the back of his head. So, I grabbed the shovel and started digging away from the body, in order to take the pressure off him, so I would be able to pull him up. Between him starting to move and me moving more ash away from him, we were both finally able to breath semi-descent air.
I have no idea how long or short of a time period we spent inside that silo, because somethings, like being buried and trying to breath, seemed to be an eternity, while other things like the surface we were standing on falling out from under us, seemed to happen in the blink of an eye. All I know for sure is we never made it back to the ladder, where we could climb out. But we were not totally out of danger yet.
I learned later that the crew down below had some long poles they were sticking through the shoot, in order to break up the soot and ash from below, so the ash would come through. I also found out they would open and then close the shoot, in hopes the vibration would help loosen the soot. The only way I found out they had been closing the shoot, was because another “cave-in” started and this time we were in a free fall like we were going to go all the way through and come out the bottom. I could see the light from down below, when suddenly it got dark. The guys down below, had closed the shoot and in less time then it takes to blink an eye, I screamed at the top of my lungs to “OPEN THAT MOTHER F***ING SHOOT”.
They must have heard me, because in the next instant, the shoot was open and I was aiming for it head first. I can’t say that I actually planned the next move. I guess it was either instinct or God watching over me, but my arms were stretched out in front of me, like I was going to dive into a swimming pool. I have no doubt that action saved my life, because just as I got to the shoot, my hands hit a solid bar that was located just above the opening of the shoot, and I grabbed it, allowing my feet to swing around, so my body went through the shoot feet first. I ended up in the bed of the dump truck on top of piles of ash, but close enough to the sides of the truck so that I could grab hold of a log chain and keep my head out of the ash.
I have been told many time throughout my life, that I must have nine lives. I don’t know if that is true or if it is simply God watching over me, combined with the survival and determination to fight that I inherited from my ancestors, or simply because God had a plan for my life and wanted me to live long enough to accomplish it. But for all of the trauma that I experienced throughout my life, I am thankful that I lived long enough to be able to spend decades of my life trying to help others instead of hurting them. For I am a firm believer that if we share the knowledge we have gained and experiences we have endured, throughout our life, with future generations, we just might be able to help keep them from making the same mistakes we made.
Back In California:
But for now, I had to figure out what I was going to do about my current situation in California. I was looking at the solid steel walls surrounding me, with not one iota of daylight or view of anything outside of this room, I was not sure which was worse. Dying in a cave-in or being held in total isolation, where I had no idea where I was, why I was being held, what would happen next and why this was happening to me. There is a certain catch phrase I used most of my life. It is, “I need more information.” and right now that phrase was vital for my sanity. I needed more information. Would I survive this ordeal? I never felt so helpless in my life. I couldn’t even find anyone else that could help me. I curled up in the corner of my bunk a scared confused little boy with tears streaming down my cheeks.
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