Alcatraz_ A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years - Michael Esslinger [88]
Now confined to a small and dimly-lit solitary cell, Stroud worked to better himself through correspondence courses and also took to painting and sketching. There is little documentation regarding his activities prior to beginning his bird research. Stroud’s biographer Tom Gaddis wrote that Elizabeth had taken a twelve-dollar-a-week job sewing satin casket linings and that Bob started to craft holiday cards to help supplement his mother’s income. It was also Gaddis who best captured the beginning of Stroud’s interest in birds. He claimed that Stroud found a baby sparrow in the isolation yard during a storm and brought the bird back to his cell to nurture it. Gaddis wrote that Bob would place a sock over the warm light bulb in his cell to create a warm bed, and would feed crushed cockroaches to the sparrow with a toothpick.
Before Stroud began studying birds, he hand-painted holiday cards to help support his mother.
Stroud was persistent with his new hobby, and persuaded the warden to allow him to keep and breed birds in his solitary cell. He slowly grew obsessed with this newfound interest, and began collecting materials to make cages, and rearranging his cell in efforts to accommodate his birds. Visitors to Leavenworth were often paraded past Stroud’s cell, and were shown the circus-style tricks performed by his small canaries. The guards however were not impressed by his antics. Former Alcatraz Captain Phil Bergen stated that the majority of the custodial staff at Leavenworth felt some level of resentment toward the prison administration for allowing Stroud the freedom to breed canaries.
Stroud launched into a new project of assembling a small laboratory in his cell, soon after some of his birds fell ill and died. He had become completely consumed with his birds and their needs. He maintained an observation journal to help understand how the various diseases affected his ever-growing canary population. As well as documenting his observations in detail, he began experimenting with birdseed blends and other pharmaceutically based mixtures. Stroud was allowed to subscribe to a variety of bird magazines, and wrote remarkably detailed theories based on his observations.
Stroud’s position was unique. He lived with the birds in a single room twenty-four hours a day and was unable to leave his study. Gradually the bird-fancying community began to take notice of this interesting new enthusiast named Bob Stroud. By late 1929 he was breeding his birds in a lucrative business, and he was able to fully support his mother. In addition to his bird sales, Bob also began marketing Stroud Effervescent Bird Salts and Stroud’s Prescription and Salts No.1, which rapidly became popular remedies for bird ailments. He claimed that the Stroud Specific remedies were the first treatments ever marketed to treat avian diphtheria. Stroud performed detailed autopsies to study the causes of death for his stricken birds and composed amazingly detailed illustrations of their organs and anatomy. What the public didn’t know was that the name and address in Leavenworth, Kansas, belonged to a twice-convicted murderer working from a solitary confinement cell in federal prison.
Della Mae Jones was a widowed middle-aged bird lover who exchanged letters with Stroud after he won a bird that she had offered in a magazine contest. She became intrigued when she learned that the seemingly gentle bird enthusiast who had written so many articles on bird ailments was actually a federal prisoner. Bob and Della began a steady stream of correspondence and quickly developed a close friendship. After a few years of exchanging letters, Della traveled to Kansas to meet Stroud in