by Kendall Crawford
The Family Reconciliation Center in Nashville, Tennessee, is not your typical Bed and Breakfast. With hot cups of coffee, throw pillows, and home cooked meals, the house offers a free place — free of judgement or material costs — for people who travel great distances to visit their loved ones in Nashville prisons.
August 19, 2020
Leaning back, soaking up the last bit of light of the day on the porch stoop, Bob Wilson looks like the kind of man who should be holding a beer. What more would you expect from a retired man, but to relax and peer out through his circular rims at Kentucky Avenue, sipping on a cool Bud Light?
Instead, at 4:30 p.m., Bob Wilson clutches a fresh mug of coffee in hand. Lines of exhaustion, not laughter, span his face. Outwardly, you wouldn’t guess the picturesque yellow house holds the overstuffed luggage of weary travelers from all parts of Tennessee and beyond. You wouldn’t guess the frayed and weathered, navy blue WELCOME mat, feels the impact from more than just the shoes of its guests. Bob Wilson, like the other guests who come into this house, is here because one of his loved ones is incarcerated.
Far and wide, people flock to the Family Reconciliation Center to stay a weekend and visit one of Nashville’s biggest attractions: its prisons.
Tennessee’s prisons, among the fullest in the nation, surge above the national average of prisoner population with 30,453 inmates in 2018, according to a study done by the Prison Policy Initiative.
Every one of those 30,453 people is connected to a web of parents, children, and friends, many of whose pockets aren’t populated with enough coins to spare on gas to drive to distant detention centers — much less the paychecks for a $200-a-night hotel room.
But, The Family Reconciliation Center doesn’t require inmates’ friends and families to pay. Only a 10-minute drive to each Nashville prison — Lois Deberry Special Needs Facility, Riverbend Maximum Security Prison, and the Tennessee Prison for Women — the house provides a bed, meals and a home for up to two weeks. Founded in 1984 by Kaki Friskics-Warren the non-profit is run entirely by volunteers.
When I arrived for a visit in February, Jason and Anna Rodriguez Masi greeted me at the door with their dog, Fibi. I had heard about the nonprofit and wanted to write about it and they welcomed me in for an evening. They’d been serving as house managers since 2018 when their priest at Christ Church Cathedral called with the opportunity for the two to open their hearts for hospitality. Although they already had their own respective careers, they accepted the volunteer position as house managers with the hope to transform the center into a home.
Growing up poor taught Anna Rodriguez Masi all she needed to know on how to make a home. She learned the subtle difference between functionality and beauty, between fast-food fries and a home-cooked meal, between neglect and presence.
“I cannot get your husband or wife or daughter or whoever it is out of the system. I can’t speed up their parole. I can’t get them off death row. I can’t change your finances. I can’t do any of that,” says Anna Rodriguez Masi. “But, I can fix you my mom’s spaghetti. I can give you a really comfortable bed. I can tell you for this night, at this place, you're OK for right now.”
Blank white walls and hospital blankets gave the place a sense of sterility before the Rodriguez Masis stepped in. They launched “Operation Throw Pillow,” to bring more warmth to the residence, one decorative accent at a time.
The message behind the plush mattress toppers, the “soft, rich-people linens,” the shelves of books, the holiday goodie bags, the closet full of toys, and the filled community fridge is simple: you are wanted here. You are not a burden or a challenge, but an honored guest in this home.
“Just because it is free, doesn’t mean you should be grateful for whatever we give you,” Anna Rodriguez Masi told me. “We want you here, and we want to signal with various gestures that we want you to take up all the space you want.”
They gain trust with a hot pot of coffee on the counter each dawn, which the guests come to rely on almost as much as the place itself. Especially Bob Wilson, who woke up with his other half, Joyce Wilson, at 3 a.m. and geared up for the four-hour drive to Nashville.
Joyce Wilson picked out her wardrobe carefully, knowing a dangling earring, a bra with underwire, or something too low-cut would warrant a prison guard to turn her away. Even so, her sparkly pink shoes and bejeweled jeans serve as a prison visitor’s Sunday best.
They arrive at the maximum security prison before 8 a.m. to secure their spot, undergo a pat down, and wait as long as they need to get a chance to finally be a mere few feet from their loved one. When 3 p.m. strikes and visitation ends, they don’t dread another hundred miles of driving. A home is waiting for them. Instead of packing up, they plant themselves on a porch stoop, or pursue the privacy of their pillows.
But, on Saturday evenings, the living room prevails as the place to plop. The plush purple couch serves as the setting to dish gossip on the guards, to comment on the cold visitation rooms and to bemoan the difficulty of getting an inmate a dentist appointment.
“A lot of people don’t have a clue of what prison is like,” says Joe Miller, who comes every weekend possible to see for himself what his loved one endures.
Around the wooden table, each guest nods knowingly. They all deal with their fair share of unasked opinions on inmates and their experiences — most times from people whose feet are foreign to the inside of a prison. It feels good to keep company with people that really understand.
Up to 17 guests can stay in the home at a time, but this weekend in early February only brings the five usual suspects: Bob Wilson, Joyce Wilson, Joe Miller, Karen Miller and Barb Carter. The conversation feels familiar. Like regulars at a diner, they ask about family, if you heard about so-and-so, or if you remember the name of that really good actor they like. The only difference is words like prosecutors, probation, and prison casually intersperse between swapping tales on the good ol’ days and doting on Robert Redford.
“When are we gettin’ the new warden?”
“We’re not. That was all junk. Someone just said what rumor we gon’ start today.”
Rumors on who’s getting out soon and the reasons behind a guard’s sour mood run their course and, inevitably, conversations always drift to the savoriness of signature dishes at past community dinners.
Carter, from a long line of good cooks, volunteers to share her signature dishes at the community dinners. She is famed around this family for making the best chicken and dumplings you’ll ever taste. Almost as famous as she is for her quick comebacks for any daring thing that reckons with her, or God forbid, her family.
“They are as near as nothin’ as they come,” she says of the group of guards who bully her loved one, shaking her head with a stubborn stare of resentment.
Most in the room harbor a complaint or two or a thousand about how the prison system works. But, between the bad and worse days, words of gratitude thread into the talk, a feeling of appreciation permanently sewed into the fabric of their stay.
Not only for Family Reconciliation Center, but for the ensemble of understanding around them.
“Quite frankly, we’ve all made friends,” said Bob Wilson.
Unfortunately, the family gatherings came to an abrupt end in March due to the coronavirus pandemic. The sanctuary on Kentucky Avenue closed its doors to the public out of concern for the health and safety of its clients.
When the first cases reached the Nashville area, the Rodriguez Masis were torn at the thought of closing the doors of the Family Reconciliation Center. But, ultimately, the two knew they could not risk the safety of the people they serve.
“We knew that families were desperate to see their loved ones; we knew that those same people were really terrified about their own health and safety, and we also knew we were a main entry point into the prisons,” said Anna.
On March 12, the Tennessee Department of Corrections suspended visitation to all state prisons. Suddenly, Bob and Joyce Wilson, and Joe and Karen Miller, and Barb Carter, and thousands of others lost the small moments of seeing their friends and family members.
Even with visitation provisions in place, Tennessee’s prisons were unable to avoid a heavy hit from the pandemic. By the end of July, Tennessee’s facilities had more than 3,000 confirmed cases, according to data from the Marshall Project.
With little opportunity for social distance, prisoners everywhere have proved vulnerable to the virus. As of early August, the top ten biggest outbreaks came not from nursing homes, but from behind bars with more than 100,000 cases nationwide, according to data collected by the New York Times. (The clients of Family Reconciliation did not wish to comment on their concerns with COVID-19.)
The temporary shutdown of the Nashville nonprofit means none of them can heartily pass around a plate of pastries together. They can’t lend one another classical records, nor can intergenerational debates on the importance of rap music battle out at the dinner table. More importantly, travelers from all over Tennessee and beyond cannot settle in one of the Family Reconciliation Center’s five bedrooms and get the chance to rediscover family.
Before the days of sold-out sanitation bottles, well-worn masks and six feet of distance separating us, Joe Miller sat at a table full of warm hugs, witty jokes and supportive handholds. He talked of visitation as a saving grace to his family member.
“It’s what he looks forward to everyday. If you’ve grown up with a close family, just because you’re in prison, doesn’t mean you have to give that up,” said Joe Miller.
After serving as hosts since 2018, Jason and Anna Masi, pictured with their dog, Fibi (first image) moved out in May. Now, Judith Clerjeune and Grant Collier are preparing to host guests at the Family Reconcialtion Center whenever Tennessee prisons re-open for visitors (second image).
When the prisons reopen their doors to visitors, the Family Reconciliation Center too will reopen its arms and take in the many men and women anxiously awaiting to be reunited with their loved ones.
When that day comes, the new house managers, Judith Clerjeune and Grant Collier, will be there to offer them a fresh pot of coffee and a soft bed.
The engaged couple moved into the yellow ranch in late May, as the Rodriguez Masi’s moved out and onto a new chapter of their life. Clerjeune and Collier stepped in, drawn to the opportunity to foster a greater community in their city.
“We really saw this as an opportunity to help. This is something that we’re passionate about. We want to recognize the ways that so many families struggle because their loved ones are incarcerated,” Clerjeune said.
Unfortunately, with COVID precautions in place, Clerjeune and Collier haven’t yet been able to meet these families. In the meantime, they’re making phone calls to check in on the people they’ll be hosting in the future.
“We really want to continue a lot of the work Anna and Jason have been doing in making sure that this place can be as welcoming as possible to all families,” Clerjeune said. “And, to make sure that whichever family needs this the most knows about it and has access to it.”
And then, one day, maybe, after two years or maybe after 20, cell bars will slide open. Footsteps of freedom will leave an orange jumpsuit abandoned at the prison door.
On that day, the folks at the Family Reconciliation Center will be able to see one more person find their way back home. Their work will ensure reunions result in long embraces, freshly dried sheets and home-cooked casserole instead of the common alternative of solitary uncertainty.
For the guests at the Family Reconciliation Center, this eagerly awaited day signifies a release from a prison of their own. Bob Wilson will finally trade out his weekend cups of coffee for something a little more celebratory. He’ll kick up his well-worn shoes — not out of fatigue, but out of an ecstatic relief.
That day, when his loved one is released, he may just start to feel free again.
* The names of Bob, Joyce, Joe, Karen and Barb in this article were changed to ensure the safety of their loved ones in prison.
Kendall Crawford is a writer living in Nashville, Tennessee with a passion for people. She currently studies journalism and theatre at Belmont University. She works as the Managing Editor of the Belmont Vision and occasionally writes for her hometown publication Cincinnati Magazine.