Living My Life - Emma Goldman [218]
On New Year’s again the prison was filled with noisy hilarity. Fortunate indeed are they whom each year brings nearer to the passionately longed-for hour of release. Not so the poor creatures sent up for life. No hope or cheer for them in the new day or new year. [ ... ]
With the New Year came the shock of David’s death. For months rumours of the boy’s end had hung like a pall over his family. Helena’s appeals to Washington for news of her son had brought no results. The United States Government had done its duty; it had shipped David with thousands of others to the fields of France. It could not be bothered by the anguish of those left behind. It was from an officer returned from France that Stella had learned of Dave’s tragic fate.
The boy had preferred a responsible position, though dangerous, to the safety of the military orchestra to which he had been assigned, his comrade reported to Stella. He lost his life on October 15, 1918, in the Bois de Rappe, in the Argonne forest, killed one month before Armistice Day, in the prime and glory of his youth. My poor sister was still ignorant of the blow awaiting her. She would be informed as soon as official confirmation was received, Stella’s letter said. I foresaw the effect of the terrible news on Helena and I felt sickening apprehension for her sake. [ ... ]
The hardest thing to bear in prison is one’s utter powerlessness to do aught for one’s loved ones in distress. My sister Helena had given me more affection and care than my parents. Without her my childhood would have been even more barren. She had saved me many blows and had soothed my youth’s sorrows and pains. Yet in her own greatest need I could do nothing to help her. [... ]
With Easter came spring’s awakening, flooding my cell with warmth and filling it with the perfume of flowers. Life was gaining new meaning—only six more months to liberty!
April added another political, Mrs. Kate Richards O’Hare,I to our company. I had met her once before, when she had called at the prison on her visit to Jefferson City to see Governor Gardner. She had been convicted under the Espionage Law, but she was emphatic that the Supreme Court would reverse the verdict, and that in any event she would not serve time in our place. [ ... ]
Soon we politicals—Kate, Ella,2 and I—were nicknamed “the trinity.” We spent much time together and became very neighbourly. Kate had the cell on my right, and Ella was next to her. We did not ignore our fellow-prisoners or deny ourselves to them, but intellectually Kate and Ella created a new world for me, and I basked in its interests, its friendship and affection. [ ... ]
Meanwhile Kate was bringing about changes in the Missouri penitentiary which I had in vain been trying for fourteen months to accomplish. She had an advantage in the presence of her husband nearby, in St. Louis, and access to the press, and we often banteringly discussed which of the two was of more value. Her letters to O’Hare, criticizing the lack of a library for the women, and her condemnation of our food, standing for two hours before being served, had appeared in the Post Dispatch and brought immediate improvement. The head matron announced that books could henceforth be had from the men’s department, and the food was served hot, “for the first time in the ten years I’ve been here,” as Aggie3 commented.
In the interim an unusual feature was introduced by the Warden independently of Kate’s influence. It was announced that we were to have picnics every second Saturday in the city park. So extraordinary was the innovation that we felt inclined to consider it a joke, too good to be true. But when we were assured that the first outing would actually take place the following Saturday, that we could spend the whole afternoon in the park, where the male band would play dance music, the women