Not One Man Was Missing

When Louis Lawes became warden of Sing Sing Prison in 1920, the inmates existed in wretched conditions. This led him to introduce humanitarian reforms. He gave much of the credit to his wife, Kathryn, however, who always treated the prisoners as human beings.

She would often take her three children and sit with the gangsters, the murderers, and the racketeers while they played basketball and baseball. Then in 1937, Kathryn was killed in a car accident.

The next day her body lay in a casket in a house about a quarter of a mile from the institution. When the acting warden found hundreds of prisoners crowded around the main entrance of the prison, he knew what they wanted.

Opening the gate, he said, “Men, I’m going to trust you. You can go to the house.” No count was taken; no guards were posted. Yet not one man was missing that night.

Love for one who had loved them made them dependable. –1001 Great Stories & Quotes, R. Kent Hughes (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1998), 266.