Letters From Alcatraz - Michael Esslinger [97]
(Author’s Note: There is a long running debate as to whether Young is correctly referenced as “Henri” or “Henry.” His inmate case file provides references to both, and most origin documents refer to him as Henry. However, Young signed his name as Henri, and his attorney James M. MacInnis also referred to him both verbally and in written form as Henri. As a result, he is referenced as Henri throughout this chapter.)
Henri Young
In 1941, the name Henri Young would saturate newspaper headlines, with stories portraying the prisoner as a casualty of the strict and unrelenting regimen on Alcatraz. Young’s trial for the murder of fellow inmate Rufus McCain quickly turned into a debate over the appropriateness of confinement practices on Alcatraz. In the end, Warden Johnston found himself on the witness stand defending his correctional staff against allegations of physical and psychological abuse.
The premise that Henri Young was in fact a non-violent and passive inmate driven to murder by his years of confinement, allegedly in moldy and damp underground dungeons, was completely erroneous. In Warden Johnston’s personal memoir of his life at Alcatraz, he described Henri Young as an “alert, shrewd, intelligent, cunning, conspiring criminal with the exhibitionist’s desire to dramatize his position and relate his misdeeds.” Young’s inmate file contains an unpublished and unfinished autobiography that he penned after the trial. His memoir reveals a horrendously disturbed and deeply troubled life, with torrid tales of youthful crimes, sexual obscenities, and many painful memories. He claimed to have witnessed the brutal suicide of a relative at only thirteen years of age. Henri Young would become one of the most incorrigible inmates ever to reside on Alcatraz.
Henri Theodore Young was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on June 20, 1911. He described his own early life in a memoir he began writing during his years in prison:
I was born of Helen E. Young in Kansas City, Mo. Father David E. Young was present. Preceeding [sic] me by 2 years was one girl, Ruth E. Young. Additions were made to our family by one younger girl Naomi and one still younger boy David C. Young. This completes my family.
The true sequence of my earliest memories is hazy to me, but mother told me of fighting with a neighbor woman over some toys her boy and I had some trouble... Another time a cousin and I received a spanking for urinating in a garden. Then appears a ghastly white-faced boy who seemed delighted in eating caterpillars. This was repulsive.
We moved from Kansas City to northern Missouri. On a farm there father worked as a laborer. The owners and our family lived in one house. I one day drew a funny picture on the wall of the owners compartment in blue crayon. I would not admit to it. The woman owner was most gracious and I refused to become angry. Here was also a Negro woman cook from whom I would not accept food.
Father bought me a pony. This pony would head for his home each time I got on him. Mother came from a small stream dragging a turtle behind her on a rope, She cooked it. It was delicious. Our family moved from this place to a rickety old farm of our own. Once my uncle Bob whose farm was adjacent beat his horses terribly in full view of our farmhouse. I stood in the window and watched that, but God has been kind enough to obliterate all details of that horror... During hog killing time father became angry because his revolver would not shoot. He killed the hog with an axe. On the fence post nearby he placed the bladder of the hog commenting that “dried out it would make a good baby rattle”.
I was definitely hurt when my parents one night removed pigeons from the cote, killed them and made me hold their warm bodies. I feel that pain now...
Young’s memoir also indicates that his family lived in extreme poverty. It reveals that there were many mealtimes without enough food to go around the family table, that Henri only had one pair of trousers, and that he even had to wear his sister’s dresses while his mother washed his clothes.