University Daily Kansan, April 21, 1982
Page 3
Wives
From page 1
releasing any names," she said. "You're thinking, 'This time, it's really him that got it.'"
"You're thinking, 'I've been waiting all this time for nothing.' "
But even if her husband never left prison, the last seven years of her life would not have been wasted, she said.
"I really feel like I've had a good marriage these past seven years," said Martha, whose husband is due for parole in about eight months.
However, she said her view of her marriage may be less than realistic.
Mitchell said she saw one of her functions in Outside Connection as helping prisoners' wives to overcome their relationship with their husbands, but about themselves.
"The visits aren't enough to carry you through," she said. "I mean, my husband and I have these fantasies about each other being perfect where we weren't perfect before. It's probably not very healthy."
Prisoners' wives tend to "show out of proportion" their involvement in their husbands' crimes, she said.
The Lawrence wives said once they had cleared themselves of this guilt, they could understand and forgive their husband, and even the wife, who did not condone it.
AND UNDERSTANDING their husbands made it easier to stick by them. Martha said.
"When you know a person and once you've decided to love him, his vulnerabilities and weaknesses are as part of the person as anything," she said.
"Although I hold my husband "Allough I hold my husband responsible for his actions, I can't tell him. 'You're no longer a human being,' or 'I won't love you.'
Ann, whose husband was found guilty of armed assault, agreed.
"These men may have something
about them that they can't keep themselves together," she said.
For this reason, and because society often judges wives by the severity of their husband's crimes, the women who have been convicted by their husbands' conythes, they said.
"I tell people that's his story," said Ann, "because they wouldn't understand. I mean, that murderer may be the big brother who carried you home six blocks after you skinned your knee.
"That big-time dope dealer may be the husband who pitched in and helped you with the dishes or surprised you with roses."
Yet, loving a husband who is in prison does not ensure the marriage will work upon once he is reareased.
Although divorced her husband two years after his release, the breakup was neither party's fault, she said. After six years in prison, her husband simply could not handle responsibility, she said.
"I still get very angry about it," she said. "I don't think our relationship failed. I think the prison beat us."
Ann said her husband now was
originally working his way back to
prison.
But Martha and Beth predicted their marriages would continue long after their husbands were released.
"By now, our sense of survival is so acute that somehow we're going to make it," Martha said.
The children of prisoners are likely to land in prison themselves, according to Sister Elaine McKenna, who works with the Kills Institute for Women in New York.
"The handwriting is on the wall," said McKenna, who, for 11 years, has worked with prisoners' families as well.
McKENNA IS also director of a nursery at the prison for women who arrive there pregnant.
"Role modeling is the only way children learn in life."
"We've had children here who later returned as prisoners themselves," she said. "The bottom line is that prison does not work."
Although Martha agrees prisons are ineffective, she denies and resents any theories that markark her children for prison.
"I don't know how many times I've heard from professionals who don't know their ass from their elbow that they have the higher risk for criminality," she said.
But she agreed with McKenna's cause the children of prisoners to suffer.
In fact, one reason Martha moved to Lawrence was to enroll her son in a school where his father's status was not known, she said.
in the small-town school he first attended, everyone knew the truth about his father, she said. Still, her sister tried to protect his pride by lying about (almost) everything.
But one day, he stood on a chair in the school cafeteria and shouted, "My father's a prisoner—so what about it?" Martha said.
"I can't believe a kid in the first kind that kind of compare," she said.
"THEERE ARE TIMES during the middle of the week when you want to talk to your husband about something really important to your marriage," she said. "Like when my kid didn't make it in Little League, you know. It was something that he should have dealt with the kid about."
But usually, the consequences of being in prison are less severe, she said.
Another belief of McKenna's that Martha endorses is that although
McKenna said, "Our visiting room is definitely not overrun with male visitors. New evenborn babies don't get many visits from their fathers."
women often stick by prisoner-
husbands, the reverse is seldom true.
If a man's wife lands in prison.
If a man's wife lands in prison, Martha said, he usually will leave her.
In their own best interest, prisons should strive to keep families together. Mitchell said. One way would be to allow prisoners to spend occasional night with their husbands.
...
in the long run, such a concession would ensure that fewer prisoners committed another crime after they were released, she said.
"It's been shown that family support for a prisoner helps him to stay clean when he eets out," she said.
Martha, whose husband should be free in less than a year, said she thought he would stay on the outside for her husband. Martha talked about his reunion with the family.
For seven years, she has managed the family alone.
"He doesn't know how to handle family finances anymore," she said, adding that she always showed him her financial bills during visits. With such matters, she will have to force herself to trust him, she said.
"I will have to make a conscious effort to allow him to discipline the children," she said.
A key factor in a prisoner's period of readjustment is whether he respects his wife's years of independence or feels threatened by them. Brinkel said.
During her visits inside the prison, Brinkel tries to remind prisoners that their families also are suffering, she said.
One such reminder involved a production at the Lansing prison of poems written by George Wedge, a
professor of English at the University of Kansas.
After talking with some wives of prisoners, Wedge wrote a series of poems that later were acted out before an audience of prisoners.
BEAUSE SEVERAL wires told Wedge they suffered most during their husband's day behind bars. Wedge wrote this poem about a woman's arrival at home after leaving her husband at prison:
When I got home today,
There was only me to pay the baby sitter.
The children were asleep.
I wanted to wake them, hug them, tell them
You are gone away a while
More than a little more.
And will come back again before they're grown
Instead, I picked up toys left lying around.
Finding not a thing of yours-
You must have looked ahead thoughtful of me,
thought of me!
To be as neat as that!—
And made myself some coffee, shaking in salt.
The way I only do for you.
Now, they're awake themselves and asking me
Where are you.
What are you坐?
But I just sit here, eibows on the table,
Reading the paper like I always do,
Sipping your salty coffee.
Where have we got to, you and I, so quick
That what I know is true seems meaningless.
meaningless, Your time in jail so final,
And this empty day a burden I cannot put down?
"The first day your husband goes to prison." Martha said, "you feel like you're going to die."
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Overseas programs discussed
Although the application deadline is Oct. 1, 1982, Herzfeld said students were encouraged to attend the meeting so they can get the necessary papers to begin work on their applications.
"Anybody who thinks he is good enough should apply," she said.
The meeting will be at 3:30 p.m. in the Jayhawk Room of the Kansas Union.
Herzfield that students did not need any particular qualifications to apply, but that applicants should have the necessary education and —illing to study hard.
there will be an informational meeting tomorrow for graduating seniors and graduate students interested in studying abroad during the fall semester. Herzfeld, director of the office of study abroad, said yesterday.
Information will be available on the Fulbright program, Direct Exchange Scholarships, International Telephone and Telegraph grants, foreign government grants and other awards.
More information about the programs may be obtained through the office of study abroad, 108 Strong Hall, or by calling 864-3742.
FRESHMEN
DAN LOWE—PRES.
JULIE FLYNN-V.P.
DEANN JOHNSON—SEC.
KEN PRENDERGAST- TREAS.
SOPHOMORES
MARTIN PRYOR—PRES JENNY BLACKSHIRE V.P.
DAVE KELSEY—PRES.
JEFF ARENSBERG—V.P.
ANN CROMWELL—SEC.
LIZ DeSTEPANIS—
TREAS.
SENIORS
LINDSEY WELCH—SEC.
SCOTT SAYLER—
TREAS.
TODAY
VOTE