Many, many of the inmates have been victims of molestation as children, but they try to bury the memories. Some go on to do it themselves. One inmate, Harry, now deceased, handwrote some stories from his life and gave them to me to type for him. He talked about his alcoholic parents turning him over to an older man to be molested frequently for a bottle of whiskey for them. He was serving time at Durfee State Prison in Springfield, SD for manslaughter committed when he was a teenager. He was frustrated after being turned down for parole a couple of times despite being a model inmate. He collapsed from a brain bleed and was airlifted to a hospital in Sioux Falls, unconscious when he arrived. He had no siblings and his parents are in a nursing home with dementia. He had worked in the chapel for many years so I knew him quite well. The deputy warden called to tell me he was in the hospital and not expected to live. I went to the hospital over several days at Christmas time as he lay dying.
He had given a retired social worker in Rapid City his power of attorney. She had worked with him and his family when he was growing up and he always remembered her kindness. The hospital asked about organ donations since he was only in his 40’s and she talked to me on the phone about it. He had always been generous with his time and belongings so we agreed he would want to do this. Since it was over Christmas, they kept him alive on machines an extra day or two to line up the recipients for his kidneys and liver. I was glad I could be there with him. He had no one else. The thought kept going through my mind that he would be free at last just not in the way he had intended. He had told me of his fears of going into the real world after so many years behind bars without any job skills. The transplant staff asked me to write a short bio about his life to be read to the transplant team and the recipients of the transplants. I was happy to do that. I wrote about his pride in his heritage, his generosity, his intelligence, his deep spirituality, and his ability to speak Lakota.
After his death one of the tribal officers said she would take his ashes. Instead of doing that, she had them shipped to the nursing home where his parents lived. My husband and I went to see them when we were in Rapid City. They couldn’t even comprehend he was gone. One of the nurses told me they had Harry’s ashes in their office and no one had come for them in 6 months. I told them I would take them and talk to his cousins to see what would be proper to do with them. They all told me he absolutely did not want to be buried in the cemetery where his parents would be buried. The decision was made to scatter his ashes in his beloved Black Hills, which I did along with my husband and an ex-inmate who knew Harry. I even prepared spirit food for his journey per Lakota customs and inmates made prayer ties for me to take along and hang in the trees.
We had a chapel service for him both in Sioux Falls and in Springfield after his death.
He wrote poetry, of which one poem is attached, “Remember Me and Understand Why”.
Mary Montoya
