If you have any information on James “Danny” Hollinsghead, born in 1942 or 1943, please contact Ernie W. Webb III at erniewebbiii@hotmail.com.
I’ve written numerous times in this space how much my late father loved the movie “Shawshank Redemption,” even if he had nightmares afterward due to his experiences in various boys homes, jails and prisons into his late 20s.
The old man was Morgan Freeman’s Red at the Kansas State Industrial Reformatory (now the Hutchinson Correctional Facility) in the 1960s, hoarding cigarettes to run an illegal store and bookie business.
But it didn’t occur to me that his best friend, Danny, had a similar experience behind bars as Red’s best friend, Andy Dufrense, played masterfully by another Oscar winner, Tim Robbins, until recently. Like Andy, prison was “no fairy-tale world” for Danny during his first several years in the KSIR.
“Danny was my buddy, and they were on him all the time,” Dad said about several other inmates. “I saw things in there that you’d never want to see, son. There were guys in there being led around by a dog collar. In prison, there’s boy and sweet boy. If you’re a sweet boy, you’re getting (screwed).”
Dad had a reputation in Hutch and was left alone. That wasn’t the case for Danny, who was a “sweet boy” until the old man made him fight a fellow inmate who wouldn’t leave him be.
“Danny challenged him to a fight,” the old man said. “He got his ass kicked, but they left him alone after that.”
Like many of the people in the system, Danny’s journey to incarceration is a sad story. He was arrested in 1959 on charges of burglary in McPherson, where along with a friend and his mother, 33-year-old Edith Christiansen, he stole a gallon of milk, two pounds of bacon and half a pound of oleo (that’s old school for margarine) from a home on Nov. 10.
All one has to do is the math on that previous sentence to gain a little understanding to James Danny Hollingshead’s rocky youth: His mother was 15 years old when he was born in the early 1940s.
“I didn’t know much about his family,” Dad said of Danny, who went to prison on forgery charges in the 1960s. “I remember him talking about his mom, but not much.”
I’ve written about the ongoing search for more information on Danny numerous times, namely in my annual Twelve Days of Christmas series … the progress has been slow at best. However, I do unearth an occasional nugget, including one I found recently in a search of newspaper archives.
The year before his 1959 arrest, the Hutchinson News ran an incredibly sad story about a 9-year-old boy who raked leaves for several weeks to save money and buy his mother a Christmas gift. His mother was arrested and en route to the Kansas Women’s Industrial Farm that December when Bobby asked Judge E. Victor Wilson about his mom.
“C.W. Scott, juvenile court probation officer, knew Bobby’s mother wasn’t coming at all,” the article said. “Mrs. Christiansen will still get Bobby’s present. Judge Wilson arranged for the box to be sent to Lansing.”
Bobby’s mother, who did not get the little boy a present that year, the article stated, was Edith Christiansen. Obviously, a tough upbringing for Danny and his younger brother.
Sometimes, life is no fairy-tale world.
TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2024 FINALE: The ongoing search for James Danny Hollingshead
TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2023: More on James Danny Hollingshead
TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2022: Searching for Danny
TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2021: Updates on the search
TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2020: The search continues
TWLEVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2019: About Dad’s best friend
ABOUT MY SECOND BOOK: THE OLD MAN