Audio
Marvin Orr
Transcript
Dave: 00:00 I guess now. This is park technician Frank [Keeney 00:00:07] and Dave [Harbart 00:00:10] doing a tape recording on the Marvin Orr family. Frank Keeney, park technician, was also a correction officer here from 1948 to 1950, worked with Marvin here for a couple years. He and his family lived on the island from 1939 until he left in 1960, and so we'll go on from there.
Frank: 00:41 The biggest controversy we've got so far today has been about the showers, and if you can just get on tape, for the record right now, how you remember the shower room and the dressing room, the clothing area being over there?
Marvin: 00:55 Well, the shower area, as it is today, shows the shower stalls all having been removed, and there seems to have been some misconception somewhere along the line as to whether those stalls ever existed in the first place. Well, they actually did, because I was in charge of that department for some three or four years, and in that area where the main line population was, bathed each Saturday. The shower stalls were in a continuous row, back-to-back, some 48 or 50 stalls, and inmates were brought down from the cell house in groups enough to fill the stalls. They showered and returned, another group brought down. I don't know exactly when those stalls were removed. They were still here in 1960 when I retired. As to when they were removed, I don't know.
Dave: 01:54 How often were they showering when they were here?
Marvin: 01:58 How often did the inmates shower?
Dave: 02:00 Yeah.
Marvin: 02:00 Once a week, on a Saturday.
Dave: 02:01 On Saturday only-
Marvin: 02:02 With the exception of the culinary help, they showered every day.
Frank: 02:08 Marvin, there's another thing they talk about on the tours which I don't remember is that the reason they had warm-water showers is because they wouldn't get used to warm water and they'd be able to ... If they used cold water, their bodies would be accustomed to it, cold conditions, and they could swim away from the island. Do you remember that, when you were here?
Marvin: 02:29 No.
Frank: 02:30 I don't remember it.
Marvin: 02:31 Because, as far as I know, the hot water was in use when I came here in 39. The big hot water tank was there and the whole bit. During my tenure here, they never did shower in cold water. There was no cold water in the cells until later years.
Frank: 02:51 You mean there's no warm water in cells.
Marvin: 02:52 No warm water I meant to say, yes.
Dave: 02:55 But they didn't get... did they give people warm showers so they couldn't get used to the water in the bay? Do you think that was the reason they gave them warm showers?
Marvin: 03:02 I never heard it put that way, no. I never did.
Frank: 03:06 I never did, either. Somebody must have told the Park Service that they did do this, though, for that reason, but I don't remember it. I remember because a person just doesn't like to take cold showers. It's inhumane to take cold showers. Now about gas billies and about clubs that, in general, I've heard that there was and I've seen the movies where they had short clubs, long clubs, they had clubs, and I remember no clubs at all, except maybe a set of, once in a while down in the industry, maybe an officer would carry a gas billy. Is that correct?
Marvin: 03:45 Yes, the officers never carried clubs here, as a general piece of equipment. The officers working in the cell house area, clothing room, and in the workshops, the work area, they all carried gas billies.
Frank: 04:06 Up until the time you left?
Marvin: 04:09 Yes.
Dave: 04:12 We were talking about that 46 escape attempt, and you mentioned that they didn't carry the key, 107, but did they have a ring of keys that they carried normally, for the cell block?
Marvin: 04:22 You mean the Cell Block Officer? Yes, the west end cell block officer had a key rings. He had the keys to the control boxes on the galleries. He had the key to the door that goes from the cell house into the mess hall and various other keys for the lockers and so forth around the cell house. The key 107 that opens the outside door to the recreation yard from the cell house, was kept in the gun gallery at all times except when it was in use, then returned immediately. The same thing was true for the key that opened the door into D-block, the isolation unit.
Dave: 05:02 So they did carry keys that opened and closed the doors?
Marvin: 05:05 Oh, yes.
Dave: 05:06 But not anything you could-
Marvin: 05:07 During the daylight hours. At night when the final count was made and the lockup was made, those boxes were locked, and then the keys were sent out front to the control center and returned the next morning to open up.
Frank: 05:22 Earlier, Marvin, you and I went to the control center, and neither one of us could remember it being on the opposite side.
Marvin: 05:28 It wasn't.
Frank: 05:29 It wasn't. So in the later 60s, before the prison was closed, apparently they remodeled that area and made a complete change of that control center.
Marvin: 05:38 They did. I heard about it.
Dave: 05:39 The armory area in front of the prison?
Frank: 05:40 The armory area, right.
Marvin: 05:42 But I've never seen it. The control center was the nerve center of the institution. The officer in there was a busy man. He took all the counts that came in, he took the watch calls, he had the radio communication with the boat, he issued all firearms, all keys. The main watch particularly was a very, very busy place, a lot of activity there. There was some, in the course of a 24-hour period, there were some 15 or 16 counts took place, each and every 24-hour period. In general, every time there was a movement of the population, there was a count made.
Frank: 06:37 That's the way I remember.
Marvin: 06:37 Yeah, that was the general rule.
Dave: 06:40 Okay now, you mentioned some metal detectors, too. They had one on the dock-
Marvin: 06:46 Yes.
Dave: 06:46 For people coming on and off the island. Where were the other metal detectors located, if you remember?
Marvin: 06:51 There was one right outside, at the furthest area coming out of the cell house into the recreation area, right before those stairs. And there was one that went through the stairs, they went through the back gate out of the area, out of the recreation area. Then on the way out to the shops, there was one at each location there, and one at the dock.
Dave: 07:18 So even if they're just coming in and out of the rec yard, they go through a metal detector-
Marvin: 07:21 Oh, absolutely.
Dave: 07:23 As well as coming in and out of the [inaudible 00:07:26]
Marvin: 07:25 Yeah.
Dave: 07:28 Okay, well I think I'd only heard about the one outside the rec yard. I didn't know about the one inside the rec yard.
Frank: 07:33 Ah, there's talk about everyone that came on this island, regardless of who he was, had to go through that metal detector. As an officer, I don't remember going through the metal detector, but did the families? I don't remember the families... Did families go through the metal detector, too?
Marvin: 07:49 Yes they did.
Frank: 07:50 I guess-
Marvin: 07:51 But of course, they kept the controls on that box here.
Dave: 07:56 A lot-
Marvin: 07:56 Except for the [inaudible 00:08:00].
Frank: 08:00 Yeah.
Marvin: 08:01 In other words, you could pass through it with a-
Frank: 08:03 With keys-
Marvin: 08:05 With a reasonable amount of metal on you, like keys and pocketknife and so forth.
Frank: 08:06 Yeah.
Bob: 08:07 They used to be located around here, wasn't it-
Marvin: 08:09 Yeah.
Frank: 08:09 Yeah, right outside there.
Dave: 08:09 Yeah, I was pointing right outside the dock office there.
Marvin: 08:13 The principal object of that of course was for inmates' visitors.
Frank: 08:18 That's what I remember.
Marvin: 08:20 In case they carried firearms or something else.
Frank: 08:21 Yeah, right.
Marvin: 08:23 And, of course-
Frank: 08:23 Our visitors had to go through there, too.
Marvin: 08:25 Yeah, right. And the female visitors, of course, all had to submit their purses for the search when they came in. Some of them were a little irritated by it, but it had to be done.
Dave: 08:40 Were there any problems with the visitors? I heard a story about, it was a little before your time, I guess, when Al Capone was here. His mother apparently came out and had a lot of trouble. Did a lot of visitors not come back, say, after the first visit? She made the comment that she was embarrassed and humiliated for the whole process. Do you think that happened often?
Marvin: 09:03 Oh, I don't think so. I've heard of it in other instances but I don't think that's the whole thing.
Frank: 09:06 Well, now, the problem with Mrs. Capone is that she couldn't speak English and they had a hard time trying to listen to what she was saying. Secondly, she had a corset that had metal in it and metal stays, so she couldn't make the metal detector.
Marvin: 09:24 Yeah.
Frank: 09:24 So that's not a usual case.
Marvin: 09:24 Of course, with those visiting windows, there was absolutely no personal contact there at all.
Frank: 09:28 No.
Marvin: 09:28 No outside possibility of them because it's solid glass, and in the early days, there were not even any phones there. Later they put in-
Frank: 09:28 Yeah, they had a grill screen that they talked through.
Marvin: 09:28 Yeah, so there was no personal contact at all. If the inmate was having a visit, there was an officer sat right close to him, and he had to speak in a tone loud enough so the officer could overhear him.
Dave: 09:58 Before the telephone?
Marvin: 09:58 Before we got the telephones.
Frank: 09:58 Yes.
Marvin: 09:59 And if you'd lower your voice, they'd call him on it.
Frank: 10:09 Yeah.
Marvin: 10:09 Speak up so I can understand what you're saying.
Dave: 10:12 What about the lawyers when they came to visit? They get a little more privacy then?
Marvin: 10:12 Yes. The lawyer-
Frank: 10:21 I remember when the lawyer was brought around the other side and talks across the table.
Marvin: 10:24 Well, he-
Dave: 10:25 Well, he-
Marvin: 10:25 If you remember, sometimes in the main gate there, coming out of the cell house, when you get into the old sally port there, to your right, that was called the visiting area. That's where the inmate's visitor was placed, talked through those. Then they had a lawyer visit, they'd bring the inmate out and put him in that room at a table with his attorney.
Frank: 10:49 The way I remember it.
Marvin: 10:49 And-
Dave: 10:51 But they did get a private visit with the attorney.
Marvin: 10:52 Yeah.
Dave: 10:54 I see, but they watched them though?
Marvin: 10:55 How's that?
Dave: 10:56 Did they watch them physically?
Marvin: 10:57 Oh, yeah.
Dave: 10:57 Make sure they didn't exchange anything. They just couldn't listen to them.
Frank: 10:59 The officer who worked-
Marvin: 11:00 Right next to the main gate officer-
Frank: 11:02 Main gate officer was watching, that's what I remember.
Dave: 11:04 But they couldn't hear the conversation.
Frank: 11:05 They couldn't hear, no, because it's privileged-
Marvin: 11:08 Can't monitor the conversations unless they were talking-
Dave: 11:13 What about visiting privileges in D-block and in the dark cells? I understand you lost your normal visiting privileges there, but did you also lose visiting privileges with your lawyer when you were in D-block?
Marvin: 11:24 On some occasions, depending on the circumstances, yeah, but ordinary visiting privileges were canceled while they were in D-block.
Frank: 11:35 Right, except for Stroud. Didn't his brother come to visit him? Stroud?
Marvin: 11:39 Yes.
Frank: 11:40 His brother, he was probably one of the few that was in isolation that was allowed to talk with one of his family.
Marvin: 11:46 Yeah.
Frank: 11:46 Yeah, the brother lived up in Washington or something when he came to see him.
Marvin: 11:50 Yeah, I believe you're right.
Dave: 11:53 Did he have reading materials and writing materials while he was in D-block, there, too?
Marvin: 11:58 Oh, yes. When he was up in the hospital.
Dave: 12:00 In the hospital. How about in D-block?
Marvin: 12:02 Well, he wasn't in D-block too long.
Frank: 12:07 He was in D-block, he was in the hospital when I came here, but I understand he left D-block in 1948 and went to the hospital. Does that sound right to you, 1948?
Marvin: 12:17 Round about that time, I'm sure, yeah.
Frank: 12:18 Yeah.
Marvin: 12:19 Somewhere around there.
Dave: 12:20 The information we have said he got here in 42, spent six year in D-block, and then went to the hospital. Does that sound-
Marvin: 12:27 Mm-hmm (affirmative)-
Dave: 12:27 Okay. It's nice to get all this stuff confirmed. It helps a lot.
Frank: 12:32 Let's talk about the type of personality that Stroud was because we're asked quite often about that. I remember when I first met him, I was told by a lieutenant that he was a man to be very wary of, he was psychotic, do not get too close to him, he could assault you, he's done it before. So I was very wary of him. Later on I got to find out that he wasn't quite as bad as what he was pictured. Now, Marvin, I'd like you to respond to that.
Marvin: 13:04 Well, Stroud was basically a brilliant man, there's no question about that. He did extensive studying. He took courses from the University of California in physics and chemistry and so forth, and he mastered just about everything they could teach him, with the exception of the laboratory work, which he couldn't take. He was a brilliant man. He was also a cunning man. He never involved himself directly in any escapades or troublemaking, but he was a task master at inciting other inmates and working them up and working in the background. There's no question but what in spite of all that, he probably was a psychotic in many respects because anybody that possessed the talent that he did, and not have put them to a useful purpose, had to be psychotic in some respects. You know, I'll put it that way. But he was a brilliant man.
Dave: 14:08 Can you think of any specific incident-
Marvin: 14:10 Very cunning.
Dave: 14:12 Yeah. Can you think of any specific incidents where he may have aroused the inmates to a riot or strike or something?
Marvin: 14:18 Not anything specifically, but when he was in D-block, he more or less had them in an uproar all the time. He-
Dave: 14:27 Nothing they could catch him on, I guess.
Marvin: 14:28 That's right. He was very sharp about that, yeah.
Frank: 14:31 I was told when I used to shake down his cell that I was to have the least amount of conversation with him, that I was to try to ignore him. This was the indoctrination I went through, and of course, later on, I did get to talk to him because he was a conversationist, as you remember, but the administration here had a kind of a thing where you were supposed to avoid him, you were supposed to keep him in isolation, even from us. Is that the way you remember it? From the administration standpoint.
Marvin: 14:58 Oh, I suppose so, up to a certain point, yeah, but we had quite a bit of personal contact with him. I mean, in the course of the day's events, you know. I mean, I recall in Leavenworth, he wasn't a troublemaker back there. He was very docile and he might have been rude and so forth. He was allowed, in spite of his solitary status, he was allowed each Saturday to attend the movies with the mainline population, and an officer would pick him up from his cell in the isolation ward, bring across the yard towards the other building to attend the movies, and stay with him during the show, and then return him. And he came along very nicely, never caused any trouble.
Dave: 15:48 Was that at the discretion of the warden at Leavenworth? Who was the warden there that decided he had these extra privileges even though he was in solitary?
Marvin: 16:00 The warden did, yeah, with the sanction of the Bureau of Corrections.
Dave: 16:00 You remember which warden that was?
Marvin: 16:02 Warden [Zerks 00:16:04].
Dave: 16:02 Zerks?
Marvin: 16:06 And [Hudspeth 00:16:06].
Frank: 16:06 I remember visits from the Director of Prisons, Bennett, James Bennett, and, to me, he always seemed to be a friendly sort, compared to a lot of administrators. He'd come over and shake my hand and ask for my name and say, "How you doing?" And then he'd always ask for Robert Stroud.
Marvin: 16:22 Yeah.
Frank: 16:22 Do you remember him that way?
Marvin: 16:23 Yeah, yeah Bennett was a congenial sort of a guy.
Frank: 16:26 He was a very congenial man, and not like Swope-
Marvin: 16:29 Yeah.
Frank: 16:29 Where he was like God in heaven walking on water, you know?
Marvin: 16:32 Yeah.
Frank: 16:40 Is there anything else you can recall that you would think would be interesting to know? Anybody else got any ideas? How about Bob? You lived here for quite a few years.
Dave: 16:54 Yes, you mentioned earlier we were up there, incident about making a phone call-
Frank: 16:58 This is Bob, this is Marvin's son.
Bob: 17:02 Yeah, I did, to the tower up here-
Dave: 17:03 To the dog tower?
Bob: 17:04 Yeah, we wanted to sneak on the social hall and just go up here and phone the tower.
Dave: 17:08 Oh.
Bob: 17:09 You know, the officer picked the phone up, and he'd be facing that way, and we'd just run down the hill, and he couldn't see us, and we'd sneak up to the social hall.
Bob: 17:16 It was really not that much different from growing up anyplace else. You know, people find out you grew up here, and they say, you know, that's kind of weird-
Dave: 17:26 One of the-
Bob: 17:26 But there's a lot of kids.
Dave: 17:27 One of the volunteers was, I don't know if he got to ask her or not, he told me he wanted to ask you if, compared to how you grew up here and how you raised your son, do you think there's much difference? You had mentioned it wasn't a whole lot, but-
Bob: 17:40 No, not really. The only difference, I mean, go to school and I rode a boat, everybody else hops on the bus.
Dave: 17:46 How often did you not go to school because of weather? The boat not running?
Bob: 17:49 I can only remember that happening maybe three, four times.
Dave: 17:53 Yeah.
Bob: 17:53 You know, it was rough quite a few times, but I can only remember three or four times we actually never ran the boat because it was too rough. But the boats ran, as I remember, almost 12 times a day. When I was a little older, in high school, there was a few problems occasionally, and the last boat would leave at midnight, and I'd miss the last boat, so I'd sleep in my car.
Frank: 18:14 Yeah, right.
Bob: 18:14 Other than that, you know, it was-
Frank: 18:15 How did you feel, restricted on the island? What I remember about this place was, I was in the military twice and I hadn't seen anything so strict in my life. How did you, as a family member living on this island, feel restricted by this? Did you feel it at all?
Bob: 18:29 No. Because I knew where I could and where I could not go. You just didn't go on the other side of that fence.
Frank: 18:35 Right okay.
Marvin: 18:35 We had quite a bit of activity. We had the handball court there to play handball. They all had bikes and so forth. One thing about raising a family on the island here, one of the advantages, is the fact that you always knew where your kids were. They couldn't get away from you.
Frank: 18:52 That's right.
Bob: 18:57 The only contact I ever had with the inmates was when dad was running the store and I would be working the store. There was a barge that used to come over here, I remember it was three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Marvin: 19:08 Yeah the old water barge with the food and supplies on top.
Bob: 19:11 They'd deliver the groceries up to the store. An officer would bring one or two inmates up there, but I'd never like see them. They'd come unload the groceries but that was the only contact I ever had with them.
Frank: 19:22 Do you remember, I recall this, once in a while they'd come over here with one tug, pulling this barge. We'd be up there and it'd start going backwards. They had to bring another tug over to it to help pull that barge over. Do you remember that? When the tide was running so fast that one tug couldn't make it. They'd have to bring another tug to help pull that barge over there. They had a lot of water underneath it, they had to pull.
Bob: 19:48 Yeah it really wasn't that much different really than growing up any place else.
Dave: 19:52 Did you ever sneak over the fence on a dare? Get a little closer to the cell block?
Bob: 19:58 No. The only thing we used to do as far as going somewhere we shouldn't have went was down by the beach, something like that. Walking down that pathway or something like that. As far as climbing over that gate or anything like that going towards the penitentiary-
Dave: 20:10 I suppose there's a good chance you'd get shot by a guard-
Bob: 20:13 You just didn't do it.
Frank: 20:17 I always recall that when I worked here you never called anyone a guard. There was no guards on Alcatraz. You were a correctional officer or an officer. They call it that now I guess. That term was never be used. I don't remember calling anybody a guard.
Marvin: 20:33 That was the official title when I went into service?
Frank: 20:35 Was it? But it was-
Marvin: 20:37 It changed shortly after that.
Frank: 20:39 It changed highly. You couldn't even use that term guard. I'm not saying we can't use it now but the way the feeling was on this island, you were an officer.
Dave: 20:50 Was it ever [inaudible 00:20:51] CO-
Frank: 20:50 Maybe as a CO correctional officer we would call each other. Maybe it was CO, maybe it was your name as opposed to lieutenant or something. Remember, wasn't an instructor the next step up from correctional officer?
Marvin: 21:07 Instructor was another name for senior officer.
Frank: 21:10 Yeah, senior officer right.
Dave: 21:11 Then it went from correctional officer, senior officer to a-
Marvin: 21:16 Lieutenant.
Shirley Smith: 21:16 I can't resist, this is Shirley Smith, the large apartment on the end of this building here, building 64, was it reserved for the more senior guards?
Marvin: 21:30 This building?
Shirley Smith: 21:31 Yes. There's some larger apartments, the corner apartment on the second floor are much bigger and nicer.
Marvin: 21:37 Well they were assigned to people who had their family here.
Shirley Smith: 21:40 Oh so it wasn't by seniority it was by need?
Marvin: 21:47 It wasn't seniority, no. There was quite a bit of turmoil here when these new apartment buildings were opened up for occupancy in 1941. There was a waiting list to even move on the island by men that lived in town, in the city. Naturally, when they opened up these new buildings they were beautiful, beautiful apartments. Everyone that lived in this old building and some of those old colleges up there wanted to move in up there. There were so many applications, Associate Warden Miller had charge of assignments. He finally threw both hands up and said I don't want any of you to move. He filled those apartments with people coming on the island.
Marvin: 22:32 I moved from High Street right straight into a three bedroom apartment, brand new.
Frank: 22:37 That must have really got some of those old timers.
Marvin: 22:39 It means you're stuck there for a while.
Shirley Smith: 22:39 Was the rent any higher in the new apartments than it was here?
Marvin: 22:39 A little bit yeah. At the time, we had a three bedroom apartment, completely furnished, oak hardwood floors, fully carpeted, drapes, curtains, the whole bit, $35 a month.
Frank: 23:02 And laundry.
Marvin: 23:04 And your laundry.
Dave: 23:06 In 1939 right?
Marvin: 23:06 Yeah.
Dave: 23:08 What were you paying when you left?
Marvin: 23:10 $50.
Dave: 23:10 In 1960?
Marvin: 23:11 Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Bob: 23:11 I remember when they used to deliver milk up there too.
Marvin: 23:15 Yeah.
Bob: 23:16 Used to open the door and there was your milk, right out front.
Frank: 23:17 Who was delivering the milk? One of the boys that lived on the island or?
Marvin: 23:17 Inmates, with an officer.
Frank: 23:18 Oh inmate with an officer.
Marvin: 23:24 Mm-hmm (affirmative). We had several outside crews. We had the garbage pickup crew.
Frank: 23:32 I remember that. Levinson used to run that, didn't he for a while?
Marvin: 23:35 Yeah, what they called the clean up crew. They swept all the streets and so forth, took care of the flour bins and that sort of thing. There were different times when they might have an inmate electrician or plumber working down the road [inaudible 00:23:54]. Always with an officer.
Dave: 23:55 How about gardening?
Marvin: 23:59 The gardening that would be the clean up crew.
Frank: 24:01 They had some officers and wives that did some of the gardening too if they wanted to. They kind of did some of the gardening.
Marvin: 24:08 Oh a little bit, they'd tinker around after the flowers.
Frank: 24:12 The warden's secretaries-
Marvin: 24:14 The thing about this place as a maximum security institution, that included the entire area of the island, there was never an inmate at any time, any place, doing anything that he wasn't under direct gun guard.
Frank: 24:36 That's right. Every inmate I ever talk to he says he couldn't turn around without seeing one of us looking at him.
Marvin: 24:43 The outside crews, the trucks with the garbage crew would have two or three men assigned to it. The officer drove the truck and the inmates had to ride on the running board or they were inside of the tire [inaudible 00:25:00] so they could see them.
Dave: 25:01 How did that security compare with, say, Leavenworth when you left there?
Marvin: 25:04 Oh much different.
Dave: 25:08 Did they have a lot of time where they weren't supervised at Leavenworth?
Marvin: 25:10 Oh yeah, they had all kinds of outside assignments and trust and farm works and dairy and what have you. Hundreds of them that were out there.
Frank: 25:20 Why did you come to Alcatraz Marvin?
Marvin: 25:23 Well that's kind of a long story. When I first came to the service in '33, I came to Leavenworth, the designation then, the title of the job was guard. Shortly after that, the Bureau instituted this promotional set up. To begin with, everyone there, every correctional officer, we'd pick a study course every year and then we'd take an examination. From those grades, they held interviews and selected. I think at that time we had about 250 officers there. They selected 40 of that group to promote to establish the grade of senior and junior officers.
Frank: 26:15 Instructor.
Marvin: 26:16 They promoted 40 of us to senior grade. Then, there were a few, as time went on, a few promotions made even from that group to lieutenant and what have you. It got down to there were about 20 of us left. One day, Haddock, the Assistant Director came to Leavenworth and informed us and gave us the story that we were needed at Alcatraz. They were short of experienced help out here and this that and the other thing. In other words, he gave us the option of coming to Alcatraz or being demoted to junior officer.
Frank: 26:58 So that's-
Marvin: 26:59 Several of them stayed and took the demotion.
Dave: 27:01 Yeah, I heard something about that. A lot of people volunteered for the job here and a lot were volunteers.
Marvin: 27:06 I signed my transfer on the evening of the last day of the deadline. When we got here there were only, I think, two senior officers here. All together there were about 12 or 13 at that time.
Frank: 27:23 That's in 1939?
Marvin: 27:23 Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Frank: 27:27 Now, you probably recall, I sure recall, any new officers like myself that came to work here had a very short longevity of time. Maybe a few weeks, a few months. That would be the end of them, we wouldn't see them again we'd get somebody else new. That's the way I recall. Does that seem to be pretty much the picture?
Marvin: 27:47 What do you mean Frank?
Frank: 27:48 Well I remember I was here for two years. In two years time, for new officers starting work here, I'm not talking about the old timers who transferred here from other federal penitentiaries. New fellows who started here, particularly in the younger ages, either wouldn't put up with this type of set up they had here, I know very strict and inmates would put you through this hazing treatment of pulling tricks on you, they'd quit. They'd just have somebody else come in. Or they'd fire you because you couldn't take it. Do you remember that?
Marvin: 28:20 Yeah I think that's true in many cases. We had a lot of men come here. They got here and saw the picture and the set up. They weren't too happy about it.
Frank: 28:31 No.
Marvin: 28:32 And they moved on.
Frank: 28:37 Well because I think one of the main reasons was the older officers, or the ones who transferred from other federal penitentiaries, the inmates didn't put them through the same penitentiaries as they did with the newer ones, like brand new guys like myself. I know people once asked me how they knew I was new. Here I'm 21 years old, the warden said I looked about 19. They knew I was new. I went through the treatment.
Shirley Smith: 28:58 What kind of treatment?
Frank: 29:01 Well the treatment is they give you the old fish eye or evil eye. They give you thing finger by scratching their nose, they give you the middle finger this way.
Marvin: 29:10 Oh they'd try all kinds of tricks that they wouldn't try on an older officer.
Frank: 29:13 Right. They wouldn't do it to older officers.
Shirley Smith: 29:19 Mr. Orr did you have that done to you? Or did you escape that?
Marvin: 29:21 I don't think too much no.
Frank: 29:24 Well he came from Leavenworth so he wouldn't have gotten that.
Shirley Smith: 29:25 He was an older-
Frank: 29:27 Yeah. I don't know whether he went through it when he first was a new officer at Leavenworth though.
Marvin: 29:30 I knew a lot of these inmates at Leavenworth before they came out here. Word gets around you know.
Frank: 29:35 Sure.
Dave: 29:38 After the escape attempt in 1946, that seemed to have a prettY heavy duty effect on escape attempts until 1962, do you think that was a major thing that kept guys from trying to escape between those periods?
Marvin: 29:55 Oh I don't know. You mean did the success of some of those escapes encourage others, is that what you mean?
Dave: 30:05 Well the failure, the '46 one discouraging anybody from trying until 1962.
Marvin: 30:10 Oh I think that was true, yeah.
Dave: 30:12 There didn't seem to be many attempts or any problems between '46 and '62.
Marvin: 30:18 When the place first opened they had the silent system here. When I was out here it was with a shipment of prisoners from Leavenworth in 1938, it was little over a year before I transferred here. The silent system was still in effect here. It's surprising but how you get used to it, a situation and an environment and so forth. We walked in that cell block that day with the silent system and even after having worked in Leavenworth five or six years and used to penitentiary conditions and working with inmates, that environment in there it would really send a chill up your spine. You could feel the hostility in the air.
Marvin: 31:08 Once you get out of here and went to work there it wasn't long until you just seemed to absorb the whole thing and you went on with your work and paid no attention to it. You just took it as a matter of course.
Frank: 31:18 That's the exact way I felt when I came here. I felt that air of depression. I felt it for some time but, as you say, you get used to anything I guess. I got somewhat used to it. That's what I had to get over was that air of depression. When I came back here as a park ranger I felt the same thing again. I went through it again.
Marvin: 31:37 Probably.
Frank: 31:37 I walked through there and I was getting emotional on my tours. It was really affecting me mentally. I was going to quit. I went and I did the same thing I did when I became a correctional officer, I stuck it out. I felt the same way when I became a correctional officer, I wanted to quit. Don't you think that was why it was difficult for a new man to start here? To overcome these depressions?
Marvin: 32:02 We got so many men here that not only had they had no experience but they had no training. We went through a 90 day course at Northeastern Penitentiary in Lewisburg when we came into the service, we went to a school first before we were assigned. On top and in addition to that I had worked three years at the Kansas State Prison before that. At least I had a little background. A lot of these fellows came to work here directly off the streets. No training absolutely nothing.
Frank: 32:35 You're talking about me. I came here right off the streets and I was trained about three months before I left. After two years I finally went to a training class. That was just before I left.
Marvin: 32:47 Yeah.
Frank: 32:47 All that time was just strictly what a sub senior officer or officer like yourself or anyone would tell me what to do. That was it.
Marvin: 32:54 You had to keep a pretty close eye on a lot of them. As officer in charge of the cell house I was in there two or three years. You have the east end officer and the west end officer, junior officers, under your supervision, in addition to there were usually two or three or four extra officers in there. You'd use them to shakedown cells-
Frank: 33:17 Yeah, utility officers. I remember.
Marvin: 33:21 Sometimes you'd have to watch those fellows. They'd get clear out of line you know? Not intentionally but just from lack of training. You send them up there to shake some guy's cell down, the first thing you know you come by and he's up there, he and the inmate sitting on the bunk there having a big conversation.
Frank: 33:40 Yeah, I remember that.
Marvin: 33:44 They don't seem to perceive how to maintain control and still keep their distance. They get to fraternizing with them, they get too close to them. First thing you know the inmates got them around their little finger.
Frank: 34:02 Yeah.
Marvin: 34:02 We had an awful turnover too during the war.
Frank: 34:05 Oh I imagine.
Marvin: 34:05 A lot of our men and women in the service and they were hiring them off the streets here. All ages and descriptions. Old men 65 years old. Surprisingly, that period during the war was probably the smoothest period of operation that I ever experienced up here in my 20 years. I think the reason was there was a demand for the stuff we were making here in the shops. Cargo nets, rubber nets, and this immense load of laundry.
Frank: 34:39 Submarine nets for the Golden Gate Bridge Area too.
Marvin: 34:40 Yeah. All this laundry. These men were busy and they were making money in the shops there. Plus the fact that a lot of these fellows had relatives, brothers and uncles and so forth-
Frank: 34:57 In the service.
Marvin: 34:57 In the service.
Dave: 34:57 Could be the first time in their life they felt like they were being useful.
Frank: 34:57 Kind of a patriotic spirit would you say?
Marvin: 34:57 They weren't allowed newspapers but we had a bulletin board there right at the entrance to the mess hall. Each day the Warden's Secretary would come in there and write down the highlights of the news, the war news and so forth. They were deeply interested in that bulletin board. We had less trouble during that war period than any other time.
Frank: 35:15 You know what I recall-
Marvin: 35:16 With less experienced officers.
Frank: 35:18 Right. I think it was probably a patriotic feeling amongst them.
Marvin: 35:22 It was.
Frank: 35:23 What I remember about that board, Marvin, is an inmate, of course I came in later on, an inmate used to write the headlines down on that board.
Marvin: 35:31 Yeah.
Frank: 35:32 Do you remember that after, I guess the secretary did it but then an inmate would do it on in later years.
Marvin: 35:38 Birchman would scan the newspapers and select items, type them out on a sheet and bring them in and the inmate would write it on the board.
Frank: 35:46 Inmate would write. That's the way I remember.
Marvin: 35:46 It consisted mostly of sports and war news.
Frank: 35:52 Later on when I got here it was just general news because that was in '48 when I started.
Dave: 35:56 Let's get in a little bit more to what family life was like out here because we have a lot of guests who are really interested in what you did out here. [crosstalk 00:36:08]. Do you remember a day in the summer when you were 14 years old, what were you doing?
Bob: 36:16 We had a handball court there, you could go in and at least play basketball and volleyball. Dad painted a baseball diamond up there on the playground. We'd play baseball. I remember first living on the island, I remember when I first came on here you couldn't have bicycles. I don't know how long we were here before they said okay you can have bicycle.
Dave: 36:37 How about pets?
Bob: 36:39 No. That's the one thing I can remember. The only dog I've ever seen on this island was the one that belonged to the warden. It was a big Irish Setter. Every so often that dog would get out and get down to the playground. All the kids would chase that thing like-
Marvin: 36:50 There's an insight into Swope's makeup.
Bob: 36:55 Yeah don't do as I do, do as I say!
Marvin: 36:59 One of the men that worked at the lighthouse his wife had seen the warden coming here. Warden Swope had a big Irish Setter and brought him over here. That's the only dog that was ever on this island. Mrs. Wiley, the wife of one of the lighthouse keepers wanted a dog. She asked the Warden Swope if she could bring a dog. He said no and she said, "Well you've got one." He said, "Mrs. Wiley" at least he was direct about it, "When your husband gets to be warden he can bring his dog over."
Frank: 37:29 Yeah, it's always do as I say don't do what I do.
Dave: 37:36 Did you ever play around like the lower parts, building 64 here where the all casemates are, where we call it China Alley today. Did you call it China Alley down there too?
Bob: 37:49 Chinatown. Yeah we used to play in there, mainly up at the playground. When I was older, when I was a teenager, I guess it was a medical technician, Shoemaker, he had two daughters my age. He lived in that great big house up there next to the Warden's house-
Frank: 38:08 That the doctor used to live in before.
Bob: 38:11 There was a basement down there. It wasn't a basement, it had for our five different rooms in it. We had a club up there and we had dances up there and we played cards.
Dave: 38:19 Did you ever have dances in the social hall?
Bob: 38:22 Yeah. Used to have Christmas dances and we used to have movies down there.
Dave: 38:27 What about visitors from the mainland?
Bob: 38:30 Pardon me?
Dave: 38:30 Visitors from the mainland. Did you have friends over all the time? Did they have to go through any kind of special security?
Bob: 38:37 Well when you got on the boat you had to tell the officer they were with you and they'd write their name down and all that kind of stuff. They couldn't just hop on the boat and come over here, they had to be cleared to come over. I used to bring all kinds of kids from school over here.
Dave: 38:48 I bet they loved that.
Bob: 38:48 Oh yeah it was a big deal.
Dave: 38:51 Nobody else was going to have love this island.
Marvin: 38:53 He don't tell you quite all of it.
Dave: 38:55 Well go ahead and tell us the rest.
Marvin: 39:00 One time he and a group of boys his age, it was when I was running the store up here, one evening I'm-
Frank: 39:05 What age would you say that is Marvin? 14? 15?
Marvin: 39:08 I don't think they were quite that old. They were more like-
Frank: 39:08 12 or 10?
Marvin: 39:12 12 maybe.
Frank: 39:15 Okay.
Marvin: 39:15 One evening I was in the store and I had that back door open, it was warm you know. Pretty soon a guy by the name of Forbes, the kids used to call him Big Bear, he was on patrol that night. First thing I know he ducks in the back door and hollers at me and says "Your kid and some other kids out here are shooting water pistols at me." They'd hide around the corner and when Big Bear come around the corner they'd let him have it. He was a custodian officer with a flashlight and a pistol, coming in for me to get these kids off his back.
Bob: 39:49 Big Bear.
Marvin: 39:51 He's the guy that vacationed here one time. I don't know where it happened, around here some place, some lake or somewhere. He went out in a boat and his boat sprung a little leak of some kind. He lights a fire in the boat for a distress signal and burned a whole in the boat and sunk it.
Dave: 40:10 Oh man.
Frank: 40:13 That was Forbes. You know in '48 or '49 I was a new officer here. Remember how they used to play that corny music out in the yard on the weekends? Some of the younger inmates come up to me and ask me if I can get that music changed. They asked me what kind of music was being played then. It was a kind of a music called bebop music. That was the type of rage music back then. I was very naive at the time and I thought well I didn't like that music either when I worked out there. I'd like to have a change of music, so I told them I'd try to change it. I went to Madigan, it was the worst mistake I'd ever made in my life because he tore me up and down. You know his face was red, it got even redder when he looked at me, when I said that. He said Mr. Heaney, your job is to contain these inmates and not to be worried about the type of music. But he said it in a more stronger way and I was scared, scared stiff.
Frank: 41:05 Unfortunately I got a nickname which was called Bebop. I don't know if you remember that but I couldn't live that, once you got a tag on you you couldn't get rid of it. I got this Bebop tag and they called me Bebop. Here I was trying to do them a favor but you don't do those kinds of favors for them. You can't be a good guy too much otherwise you get in trouble.
Dave: 41:32 What were you saying about bringing cigarettes up there in the commissary?
Bob: 41:36 Yeah, running the store, anyone wanted to get cigarettes they came to me.
Dave: 41:41 How old were you then?
Bob: 41:43 I don't know, you ran the store how many times? Two or three different times.
Marvin: 41:46 yeah.
Bob: 41:48 The store used to open, the last time I remember working there, my brother and myself worked, the store used to open at 10:30 in the morning and it closed at 1:00 didn't it?
Marvin: 41:56 Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Bob: 41:59 Then dad would run it here. He was working 4:00 - 12:00. I would come home on the 3:30 boat and I'd run it from 4:00 to 5:30. It would close from 5:30 and either my brother or my mother would open it from 6:30 to 8:00 so it was open three different times but for like two or three hours. So we did that for, I don't know how many years.
Frank: 42:18 How was the family compensated? I know the Yates when I was there. How did they compensate families for running the commissary?
Marvin: 42:24 See the store belonged to the Officer's Club.
Frank: 42:28 Oh yeah that's right.
Marvin: 42:30 The Officer's Club paid them a salary. It was by election, they were elected store managers.
Dave: 42:33 So it was over and above your regular salary as a corrections officer?
Marvin: 42:36 Oh yeah, had nothing to do with it.
Frank: 42:37 Yeah, it had nothing to do with the government. Who ran the post office?
Marvin: 42:42 Don Martin's wife did for years. Before her was Ordway's wife when he lived on the island here. She died in ... After she died, Bill Owen's wife, who is of course deceased, up to the time I left.
Frank: 43:02 Was that a government paid job? Or how did that work?
Marvin: 43:05 Oh yeah.
Frank: 43:06 That was a government paid-
Marvin: 43:09 Post office department.
Bob: 43:11 It was just like the papers, one kid delivered all the papers.
Frank: 43:15 Every kind of newspaper? Every kind?
Bob: 43:17 The Chronicle, Examiner, News Call Bulletin, we had them all.
Frank: 43:20 You had them all?
Bob: 43:21 You had to went through Henry to get a paper.
Frank: 43:26 Yeah, right. So we had the Coast Guard governmental outfit and we had the Bureau of Prisons and the Post Office. Any other?
Bob: 43:35 There was also, at the post office, I don't remember who did it all, I remember one kid who used to do it, he even signed a contract. He'd pick up the mail bags when they throw the mail in the boat. He'd pick the mail bags up and take them to the post office. That was his, I think he got $30 bucks a month [crosstalk 00:43:52]. That was his sort of thing. Everybody had a little thing going.
Frank: 43:56 I can't remember how we got our mail. Did we go to down to the post office and pick up the mail ourselves?
Marvin: 44:02 It was open.
Frank: 44:04 I didn't get much mail because I-
Bob: 44:04 It seems to me it was open once in the morning and once in the afternoon wasn't it?
Marvin: 44:08 Yeah, mm-hmm (affirmative). Not all day long.
Frank: 44:11 Once in a while somebody wanted you to post their letters up there so they can get the Alcatraz seal on them. Right?
Dave: 44:19 We had a guy who lived down here, I can't remember his name, he was out here from '51 to '57-
Frank: 44:27 Is that one that you just interviewed?
Dave: 44:29 No this was the guy that lived out here. He said something about going fishing a lot for striped bass. At times they'd catch enough to feed the whole population out here. Did you ever get ... You might have known this guy. I'll ask one of the Rangers who he was.
Marvin: 44:43 I might have.
Frank: 44:44 Where did you fish when you fished on the island? That's what I remember, yeah down there.
Dave: 44:48 For striped bass? Down there?
Bob: 44:49 That and sharks. We used to catch sharks all the time. Just come down here and cast down.
Frank: 44:54 How about crabs?
Bob: 44:55 No.
Frank: 44:56 Didn't do much crabbing?
Bob: 44:58 No.
Frank: 44:58 There's still a lot of crabs down there.
Marvin: 45:00 Those striped bass would come in sometimes. I tell you, over on the other side of the island, the sardines would come in and you could always tell when they were because the gulls would hover around and the bass would follow them in. That run would only last maybe three or four hours and then they're gone. A couple different times there, I was patrolling one night and coming down along the sea wall there by the outside of the laundry building and those bass were in that water, you'd see them with your flashlight just churning in there. I called Fred May or somebody, 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. He gets some other guys, first thing you know the whole house is down there fishing. They caught two truckloads of bass down there.
Frank: 45:47 Is that right?
Dave: 45:47 That must have been what that guy was talking about because he said one of the guards called and said the bass were running and they all went down there and caught enough fish to feed everyone on the island for a couple of days.
Marvin: 45:56 Yeah, took a truck down.
Frank: 45:58 Didn't Fred have a daughter about my age? She would be in her fifties now. He had a couple of daughters didn't he? I think I dated one of his daughters.
Marvin: 46:06 One of them died.
Bob: 46:07 Judy.
Marvin: 46:08 Judy died. Freddy would be the one you're talking about. She was older.
Frank: 46:15 One of them I dated, one of those girls when they were living on the island. I don't know which one it was.
Marvin: 46:18 She married Warden Swope's son.
Bob: 46:20 Freddy did.
Frank: 46:22 Oh she did?
Bob: 46:24 Judy married an officer here named Charlie Tennyson. Was that his name? Charlie Tennyson?
Frank: 46:27 Yeah I remember Madigan had his daughter here and she married the nephew of-
Marvin: 46:35 Clyde Stewart, Stucker's [inaudible 00:46:39].
Frank: 46:38 Clyde, yeah. Like you said, he died not long ago. Well our tour will be going pretty soon in a minute.
Dave: 46:46 Yeah, we better wind this up. We thank you a lot, both for coming out.
Marvin: 46:51 Okay we certainly enjoyed it.
Frank: 46:54 I might see you, Bob are you going to be up at that-
Description
Park rangers Frank Heany and Dave Harbert discuss life on Alcatraz with Ex correctional Officer Marvin Orr, who lived and worked on Alcatraz with his family between 1939 and 1960
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