Inmates’ families receive a touch of hospitality
HUNTSVILLE — On execution days, the dinners at Huntsville’s Hospitality House are bland — soothing to the stomach if not the soul. But no one dies tonight, and the out-of-town guests, some whom have driven all day to visit relatives locked up in eight area prisons, are in for a spicy treat: Debra McCammon’s beef stroganoff.
Preparations for the evening meal begin at midafternoon as McCammon slaps four packs of ground beef into an electric cooker. “We can’t afford beef tips,” she admits, tossing in a dash of powdered garlic, a pinch of pepper and dollop of sour cream. Rounding out the menu, are canned green beans, salad, cantaloupe and fruit cups of peaches and oranges.
McCammon cooks with the verve of Julia Child, drawing on recipes she learned from ladies at church. But for McCammon and her Baptist preacher-turned schoolteacher husband, Joe —
“When we pray, we pray to make the best of the circumstances. We see that someone can serve the Lord in prison. We try to show them someone cares.” Debra McCammon, director of Huntsville’s Hospitality House
her designated assistant — kitchen duties are only a beginning. Together they run what may be Texas’ most unique bed and breakfast, one where the guests — some 3,000-plus each month — sleep and eat for free and bring with them worries that demand a sympathetic ear.
Guests can stay for free up to three days, depending on the distances they have traveled. Some are regulars.
“We’ve been coming two years,” says Brianna Bonneville, who traveled with her husband, Don, from the North Texas town of Sanger. “They help you mentally to get up in the morning,” she says of the McCammons.
“They give you the love of God.”
Earlier this year, Hospitality House, built by Baptist volunteers and funded through donations, was honored for community service by the Governor’s Criminal Justice Volunteer Service Award program.
“Through their grace and their love, these volunteers touch the lives of many Texans,” said Criminal Justice Chairman Oliver Bell.
“They assist agency staff and they help the offenders and their families have a chance for a better life, impacting generations to come.”
History, aesthetic
Located just blocks from Walls Unit, the Texas’ first prison and the site of the state death house, Hospitality House opened its doors in 1986. With 17 bedrooms in a light-filled, lowslung building surrounded by blooming gardens, Hospitality House routinely accommodates more than 60 travelers at a time. At a glance, it resembles an ordinary bed and breakfast, with the requisite charm.
The Bluebonnet Room is decorated in a floral motif; the Cow Girl Room is shocking pink; the John Deere Room evokes sweated leather and a life outdoors; the Cowboy’s Watering Hole is best left undescribed. A Bible is in each room. A table covered with a red cloth is topped with a 750-piece jigsaw puzzle lake scene in progress. A wall-mounted flatscreen television displays images of a crystal clear brook whose murmuring fills the room.
“Let your faith be bigger than your fears,” reads an adage featured in a painting.
The McCammons’ first acquaintance with Hospitality House came when Joe McCammon pastored a church in nearby Cook Springs in the early 1990s.
“We’d bring Christmas toys for the children’s groups and help decorate the tree,” Debra McCammon says.
When the couple returned to Huntsville after pastoral stints in Wharton and Mesquite, a formal connection with the bed and breakfast seemed natural. Debra McCammon became executive director in 2009; Joe McCammon, now an elementary school special education teacher, became chaplain.
‘Under a lot of stress’
They had encountered the ups and downs of human emotion during their years as church leaders, but the emotional and financial need they witnessed among inmates’ families tugged at their hearts.
“I’ve learned that there are realities of life’s situations that stick to you and don’t go away,” says Joe McCammon. The incarcerated relatives of some Hospitality House guests, he says, may never be released.
“When we pray, we pray to make the best of the circumstances. We see that someone can serve the Lord in prison. We try to show them someone cares.”
Debra McCammon says many families simply can’t afford the $40-a-night fees of Huntsville motels.
“They’re under a lot of stress and money hardship,” she says.
“There are mothers working a lot of jobs; grandmothers raising grandchildren.”
Beyond a place to sleep, Hospitality House tries to offer families desperately needed support. It maintains a library, and volunteers read to children and help them in their studies. Families are offered food and clothing to take back home. Children are outfitted with backpacks and school supplies. In adjoining buildings are a “Santa shop,” where mothers may fill plastic bags with toys and a recently opened art therapy studio where a volunteer art professor from the local university leads youngsters in painting, sculpting clay and making jewelry.
One incident at the studio, says Debra McCammon, underscores the trauma children endure.
As a teacher and junior artists watched, Amanda, 16, whose father was an inmate, traced the outlines of hands on her drawing paper before furiously filling in the blank areas with a black felt-tip marker.
“She was angrily making it as black as she could. I didn’t know what to say,” McCammon says.
“Finally, I said, ‘Amanda, tell us about your picture.’ ”
“This is my hand. This is my dad’s hand. We haven’t been able to touch in three years,” the girl spat.
“He was so selfish to do that robbery. I do all the laundry, cook all the meals, clean house, take care of two brothers. My mom is working three jobs. I can’t take driver’s training.”
“She was screaming this out,” McCammon says.
“Then she broke down in tears.”
‘It’s peaceful here’
Inmates’ parents also carry a heavy burden.
“Dealing with a child in prison is a hard thing,” says Bonneville, whose 36-year-old son is serving a 19-year sentence for sexual assault.
The McCammons “understand. It’s wonderful to have people care about us. The world looks at someone with a kid in prison like the whole family is like that. It makes you sort of isolated. … It’s peaceful here. You feel the peace of God.”
Lucio Sanchez, who came to visit his 34-yearold son, serving an eight-year sentence for sexual assault, agreed. “There’s a touch of home here,” he says.
“You get to meet other people. I really enjoy that.”
Sanchez says his wife is dead and a daughter has small children and a demanding career.
Sanchez, who spent time in the Middle East in the military and as a contract worker, expresses sentiments common to inmates’ parents.
“He grew up without me,” he says of his son.
“When I was doing contract work, he hardly spent time with a father figure. I blame myself. When their mother died in 2010, I was working in Iraq. I came back for 15 days and went back. I hoped they could cope. If I had stayed it probably would have made a difference.”
‘Emotional upheaval’
Execution days — 12 Texas killers have been put to death this year — are the darkest times at Hospitality House.
“As a pastor,” says Joe McCammon, “I’d conduct funerals. Execution days are like being at a daylong funeral. It just goes on and on.”
As the hours pass, condemned inmates are permitted to make a final telephone call to their families, who anxiously await the ringing telephone at Hospitality House.
“There’s a huge emotional upheaval on those days,” says Debra McCammon.
“There’s all that frustration and grief. … Mothers and grandmothers are wailing and screaming and crying. … They come in exceedingly angry. They think we’re part of the (prison system). They don’t know that we’re a standalone agency. After about 15 minutes, though, we usually can defuse it. We’re serving them a hot meal.
“We always cook a lot of food,” she says.
“Beef stroganoff, spaghetti chicken, chicken pot pie and ‘chicken delight’ — the guests named that one,” Debra McCammon says. Often she puts meals together using whatever is handy in the pantry.
“Comfort food” is what’s offered, she says.