StoryGnat #23: An island home

Hey ho StoryGnatter,

In a couple of days, it’ll be the anniversary of the events that have come to be known as The Great Escape. The escape took place on 24-25 March 1944 (my slightly dodgy maths makes that 81 years ago) and it was the focus of the first ever StoryGnat I wrote. You can read it here.

It’s fitting, perhaps, that this week’s StoryGnat takes place in a (very different) kind of prison, which many tried to escape from over the years.

You’ll have heard of it.

Alcatraz. The famous island just off the coast of San Francisco served as a federal prison from the 1930s to the 1960s. It housed some famous names over the years, not least Al Capone, Robert Stroud (AKA the Birdman of Alcatraz) and George Kelly Barnes (AKA Machine Gun Kelly).

But did you know it was also home to…

The children of Alcatraz

I was surprised when I stumbled across this in a random podcast one day, but it makes sense, really. Although not all prison staff lived on the island, about 60 did. And many of those had families, so there were dozens of kids living in the shadow of the prison at any one time.

They tell their stories best, so I’ll hand over to them from here…

Am I the only one who had no idea about this?

Until next time,

Meg