Ivy Fransioli, GPC Student

Lights Out in Two Minutes

            “Swish! Wham! Slam! Lights out in two minutes!” These were the familiar harsh sounds and words my grandmother, Miriam, vividly remembers hearing every evening around nine p.m. Although her bedroom was on the second floor of the jail and the inmates were housed on the opposite end on the first floor she could still hear the final words and closing of the doors for the night. The slamming came from the massive metal jail doors crashing shut, as her robust father announced to the prisoners that lights would go out in two minutes. My grandmother’s dad was the Sheriff of Hamilton County and the two-story home they lived in the small town of Jasper, Florida in the early 1940’s when my grandmother was between the ages of six to twelve, was also the Hamilton County Jail. During this time, the sheriff and his family was mandated to reside in the jail.  Living in the jail holds many tender memories for my grandmother and she enjoys sharing them with family.

            The two-story red brick and concrete home, had a third story tower with pyramid roof.  The third floor only contained one room, and it was for hanging. The second floor housed two small bedrooms upstairs, one of which was my grandmother’s. Downstairs it housed a roomy bedroom with coal burning fireplace, which was her parents’, a family room, spacious kitchen and the jail facilities. A partial wall of metal bars in the kitchen separated the family’s living area and the jail quarters. Within the wall of metal bars was a small wooden door to pass food to the prisoners. Being the sheriff’s wife meant that my grandmother’s mother, “Nana” was the cook for the prisoners and the children had to lend a hand with many of the duties involved in caring for the prisoners.  Although the facility where the prisoners stayed was shabby, each of the seven cells consisted of a small, quite worn, wicker chair, thin cot with scratchy woolen blanket, the prisoners were fed heartily. Cooking on a coal stove, my “Nana” cooked home grown collard greens, ham, fried chicken, fresh squash and okra and homemade biscuits for the prisoners daily. My grandmother often mentioned remembering her dad kidding “Nana” saying, ”Grace, with your mouth-watering meals, I will never clear this jail of inmates.”  Even at the young age of eight, one of my  grandmother’s many chores was to open the small wooden door in the kitchen and pass the food to the prisoners as they scuffled by, up one at a time, to get their meal. Likewise, after my “Nana” washed the prisoners dungarees in the old, iron clothes pot, my grandmother helped her hang the garments out on the clothesline to dry.  One summer afternoon while taking the dry clothes down, a frantic prisoner broke loose and went dashing through the yard and the clothesline to escape. While panicking in seeing the prisoner, my grandmother quickly threw the basket full of clothes down on the prisoner and the prisoner immediately tripped, fell into the clothesline and was quickly captured by her dad. Obviously, chores were not boring around the jail.

Likewise, being the daughter of the county sheriff also meant adventurous happenings around the rural county. On several occasions, after my grandmother’s continual begging, her dad would relentlessly “give-in” and let her go along with him to a neighboring county to pick-up an inmate.  Unfortunately, on one occasion, the irate inmate who was being transported pretended to pass out and when her dad pulled over and gave him medical assistance, he darted out of the vehicle and started running.  My grandmother also had the heartbreaking experience of watching a desperate father come to the jail looking for his son who, two weeks ago, had run away from home. Grandmother’s dad sadly informed the bewildered father his son’s body had just been found in the Suwannee River.  And then of course, there were the stories involving the town drunk who would come to the jail begging for food and shelter.  Some humorous, some saddening, all stories of events at the jail provoke an emotion in us every time we hear them.