Saturday, January 10, 1998

Chaplain was born in prison

By LORETTA FULTON / Abilene Reporter-News

Linda Hill doesn't flinch when an inmate complains that "you don't know where I'm coming from, you don't understand me."

She just looks at him with dark, steady eyes and says, "I was born a ward of the state; I'm still a ward of the state; and I'll probably be here long after you're gone."

That usually stops the whining. Although she isn't a ward of the state any longer, Hill is an employee, serving since December 1993 as the chaplain for the Middleton Unit north of Abilene.

But Hill was born a ward of the state in 1964 in the Goree Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice at Huntsville. When she was 21 days old, the infant her birth mother had called Tonnia Marie was adopted by a couple in Lake Charles, La., through Catholic Charities.

Her adoptive parents, whose last name was Baldwin, named their new daughter Linda Ann. Neither the parents nor Linda knew until Linda was an adult that she was born to an imprisoned woman who was 90 days into a two-year sentence for possessing a forged instrument.

Baldwin, who now is married to Sgt. Greg Hill, a Middleton correctional officer, was haunted for years by the thought that perhaps no one ministered to her mother throughout the ordeal.

"I had often wondered how she felt -- was anybody there for her? That did haunt me for a very long time," she said.

Hill is no longer haunted. Instead, she turned that questioning into a career and now is one of only 10 female chaplains in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and one of only three assigned to a male unit.

Her birth mother, a French woman known only as Marcelle, would be amazed to learn that her one pleading request at the time of the adoption led to her daughter's career.

"She was adamant that I be placed in a Catholic home and be raised Catholic," Hill said.

Her upbringing eventually led Hill to the chaplaincy program in a roundabout way. While attending a Bible conference in Houston, Hill related the bizarre story of her birth.

A man at the conference told her afterward that he had been a chaplain at the Goree Unit when Hill was born and remembered the incident well.

"He was very teary-eyed," Hill recalled.

Hill was so moved by the conversation herself that she began wondering about her birth mother's ordeal and whether she had to endure it alone.

Those questions eventually led Hill to inquire about becoming a chaplain. Ordinarily the Texas Department of Criminal Justice requires a chaplain to be ordained, but an exception was made in Hill's case because the Roman Catholic church does not ordain women.

Hill had enough psychology hours and religious training to be accepted as a chaplaincy services assistant. In 1993 the head of the chaplaincy program for the prison system, Jerry Groom, talked to Hill about moving to Abilene to work in one of the new transfer stations that house inmates awaiting assignment to a permanent location.

Although she wouldn't be a full-fledged chaplain, Hill could recruit and train volunteers and coordinate religious programs for the inmates.

Hill accepted the offer and moved to Abilene in December 1993. On Sept. 1, 1997, she was promoted to full chaplaincy.

Being a woman in an all-male environment has not posed a problem, Hill said.

"They respect me as their chaplain, and what I represent," she said. "No one has ever said, 'I'd rather talk to a man.' "

Being a woman brings advantages to the job, Hill said, and she believes that eventually more women will enter the chaplaincy program.

"Women probably have a different level of compassion than men do," she said. "I've had a lot of them tell me I remind them of their mother."

But that doesn't mean she goes easy on anyone or allows herself to be manipulated.

"I'm very firm, very fair and very consistent," Hill said.

Hill has 2,000 inmates and their families plus 580 prison employees and their families to minister to. She has one full-time volunteer and about 50 others from the community who serve in various capacities.

Much of Hill's job consists of counseling, arranging spiritual development sessions, and dealing with families.

"The hardest part is to call someone into my office to tell them someone close to them has passed away," she said.

Hill's job brings a satisfaction that few on the outside can realize.

"I feel like I've been something to somebody every day," she said.

Hill believes God led her to the chaplaincy program for a purpose, just as she believes everything has happened in her life for a purpose.

After learning of her birth circumstances, she began to realize all the coincidences weren't just coincidences after all. She had chosen a college in Huntsville for no particular reason. She had learned through her work that by law the name of the hospital couldn't be left off the birth certificate as it had been on hers. She could find out where she was born if she wanted to.

She chose psychology as her major and studied French as her foreign language when Spanish would have been more practical. She took dance lessons all her life and loved ballet.

Only later would Hill learn that her French mother possessed a degree in psychology and that her grandmother was a professional ballerina in France.

The coincidences don't stop. Hill said she often wondered how her mother must have felt being an unwed, imprisoned mother who had to give up her baby.

June 6 of last year she gave birth to twins and for a brief period learned how her mother felt.

Because of birth difficulties, Hill had to leave the infants in the neo-natal unit for 14 days. Although Hill knew she eventually would bring her daughters home, for a couple of weeks she learned something of what her mother had experienced.

"I believe God gave me the opportunity to go home empty-handed," she said. "I knew for a short time how she must have felt."

Hill also believes God gave her the opportunity to work in a prison unit where mission possibilities abound. She counsels people who have lost their spiritual direction, and it's an opportunity she cherishes. She believes that punishment and education alone won't change an inmate's behavior and prepare him for living in society.

"They have got to have some kind of spiritual change in their lives," Hill said.

Trying to affect that change and watching it come about is as much of a spiritual high to Hill as it is the men whose lives she touches.

"This job has been an absolutely tremendous blessing to me," she said.