Queer Places:
714 St Peter, New Orleans, LA 70130
Metairie Cemetery
New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, USA
Samuel Louis Gilmore, Jr (September 24, 1891 - September 28, 1972) was a New Orleans
poet, former associate magazine editor, and World War I veteran. In 1927 New Orleans Life magazine had a two-part feature on "Popular
Bachelors of New Orleans." Seven were famous creoles, and three or four of
those -
William Spratling,
Weeks Hall, Sam Gilmore, and probably one other - were homosexual, or at least not
exclusively heterosexual. The same could be said of
Lyle Saxon,
Cicero
Odiorne, and Pops Whitesell - at least a half-dozen famous creoles altogether.
Some - Spratling and Saxon - were very discreet. Weeks Hall and Sam Gilmore
were another matter.
Samuel Louis Gilmore, Jr, was the son of Samuel Louis Gilmore (1858-1910),
a US Congressman, and Martha Frazer Nolan (1864-1946). He graduated from Columbus University's Class of 1916. He was
the author of "Vine, Leaves and Flowers of Evil" and was on the staff of the
"Double Dealer", a famous literary monthly published in New Orleans in the
1920's. The volume was a double work, the first part being a collection of
Gilmore's poems and the second section a translation of the poetry of
Baudelaire.
The New Orleans Illustrated News, December 1920, announced that The Double
Dealer's first issue would be forthcoming in January and that its motto would
be "a plague on both your houses." This motto would change. The covert were
drawn by artist Olive Leonhardt until June 1922, when she left for an extended
European trip. Beginning in August 1922, an enlarged double-faced Roman coin
appeared on each cover. According to the Illustrated Nears in December 1920,
The Double Dealer editors would be Julius Friend, Basil Thompson, Paul
Godchaux, Jr., and Albert Goldstein; its advisory council would include John
McClure, Sam Gilmore, Olive Lyons, Gideon Stanton, W. Weeks Hall, and
Marguerite Samuels, However, Weeks Hall name never appeared in any capacity.
Lyle Saxon was initially listed as a
staff member but his name quickly disappeared from the monthly publications.
Natalie Scott published reviews of
each Double Dealer issue, from its 1921 beginning until its 1926 demise.
In May 1921 Natalie Scott and Sam Gilmore wrote a farcical play, What,
Again?, that became the featured production at Le Petit Théatre.
Helen Schertz played the lead
role. Lyle Saxon gave the comedy a glowing review in the Times-Picayune, as
did the enthusiastic New Orleans Illustrated News, spicing their critiques
with photographs from the production.
Natalie Scott made her second French Quarter restoration during February
1922, after purchasing a century-old, double-level, Creole-style cottage at
714 St. Peter. She cleaned, repaired, and repainted the place, again
inexpensively leasing space to artists and writers and leaving it to her
tenants to decorate their abodes as they pleased. Sam Gilmore became one of
her lodgers here; years later he purchased the place from her. Oliver La Farge
became another tenant, living here from 1925 until he left New Orleans in 1929
after finishing his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Laughing Boy.
In 1926 Pelican Bookshop Press, New Orleans, published "William Spratling and William Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles: A Gallery of Contemporary New Orleans",
issued in 250 copies. The “Famous Creoles” (with ages in 1926) were
- Conrad Albrizio, 27, New York-born, serious artist, Spratling’s neighbor, Arts and Crafts Club stalwart
- Sherwood Anderson, 50, “Lion of the Latin Quarter,” eminence gris, generous to respectful younger writers
(LGBTQ friendly)
- Marc Antony and Lucille Godchaux Antony, both 28, Love-match between heiress and lower-middle-class boy, local artists
- Hamilton “Ham” Basso, 22, Star-struck recent Tulane grad, aspiring writer, good dancer
(LGBTQ friendly)
- Charles “Uncle Charlie” Bein, 35, Director of Arts and Crafts Club’s art school; lived with mother, sister, and aunt
(GAY)
- Frans Blom, 33, Danish archeologist of Maya, Tulane professor, colorful resident of Quarter
- Roark Bradford, 30, Newspaperman, jokester, hit pay dirt with Negro dialect stories
- Nathaniel Cortlandt Curtis, 45, Tulane architecture professor, preservationist, recorded old buildings
- Albert Bledsoe Dinwiddie, 55, President of Tulane, Presbyterian
- Marian Draper, 20, Ziegfeld Follies alum, Tulane cheerleader, prize-winning architecture student
- Caroline “Carrie” Wogan Durieux, 30, Genuine Creole, talented artist living in Cuba and Mexico, painted by
Rivera
- William “Bill” Faulkner, 29, Needs no introduction, but wrote the one to
Famous Creoles (LGBTQ friendly)
- Flo Field, 50, French Quarter guide, ex-journalist, sometime playwright, single mother
- Louis Andrews Fischer, 25, Gender-bending Mardi Gras designer, named for her father
(LGBTQ friendly)
- Meigs O. Frost, 44, Reporter’s reporter; lived in Quarter; covered crime, revolutions, and arts
- Samuel Louis “Sam” Gilmore, 27, Greenery-yallery poet and playwright, from prominent family
(GAY)
- Moise Goldstein, 44, Versatile and successful architect, preservationist, active in Arts and Crafts Club
- Weeks Hall, 32, Master of and slave to Shadows-on-the-Teche plantation, painter, deeply strange
(GAY)
- Ronald Hargrave, 44, Painter from Illinois formerly active in Quarter art scene, relocated to Majorca
- R. Emmet Kennedy, 49, Working-class Irish boy, collected and performed Negro songs and stories
- Grace King, 74, Grande dame of local color literature and no-fault history,
salonnière
- Alberta Kinsey, 51, Quaker spinster, Quarter pioneer, indefatigable painter of courtyards
- Richard R. Kirk, 49, Tulane English professor and poet, loyal Michigan Wolverine alumnus
- Oliver La Farge, 25, New England Brahmin, Tulane anthropologist and fiction-writer, liked a party
- Harold Levy, 32, Musician who ran family’s box factory, knew everybody, turned up everywhere
- Lillian Friend Marcus, 35, Young widow from wealthy family, angel and manager of
Double Dealer (LGBTQ friendly)
- John “Jack” McClure, 33, Poet, newspaper columnist and reviewer,
Double Dealer editor,
bookshop owner
- Virginia Parker Nagle, 29, Promising artist, governor’s niece, Arts and Crafts Club teacher
- Louise Jonas “Mother” Nixon, 70, A founder of Le Petit Theatre and its president-for-life, well-connected widow
- William C. “Cicero” Odiorne, 45, Louche photographer, Famous Creoles’ Paris contact
(GAY)
- Frederick “Freddie” Oechsner, 24, Recent Tulane graduate, ambitious cub reporter, amateur actor
- Genevieve “Jenny” Pitot, 25, Old-family Creole, classical pianist living in New York, party girl
-
Lyle Saxon, 35, Journalist, raconteur, bon vivant, host, preservationist, bachelor
(GAY)
- Helen Pitkin Schertz, 56, Clubwoman, civic activist, French Quarter guide, writer, harpist
- Natalie Scott, 36, Journalist, equestrian, real-estate investor, Junior Leaguer, social organizer
(LGBTQ friendly)
- William “Bill” Spratling, 25, Famous Creoles
illustrator, Tulane teacher, lynchpin of Quarter social life (GAY)
- Keith Temple, 27, Australian editorial cartoonist, artist, sometimes pretended to be a bishop
- Fanny Craig Ventadour, 29, Painter, Arts and Crafts Club regular, lately married and living in France
- Elizebeth Werlein, 39, Suffragette with colorful past, crusading preservationist, businessman’s widow
- Joseph Woodson “Pops” Whitesell, 50, Photographic jack-of-all-trades, French Quarter eccentric, inventor
(GAY)
- Daniel “Dan” Whitney, 32, Arts and Crafts Club teacher, married (two) students, beauty pageant judge
- Ellsworth Woodward, 65, Artistic elder statesman, old-fashioned founder of Newcomb art department
My published books:
BACK TO HOME PAGE
- Reed, John Shelton. Dixie Bohemia: A French Quarter Circle in the
1920s (Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures in Southern History) (p.108). LSU
Press. Edizione del Kindle.
- Natalie Scott: A Magnificent Life
Scott, John W.
Pelican Publishing, 2008
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https://southernlitreview.com/news/auction-announcement-william-spratling-and-william-faulkner-sherwood-anderson-and-other-famous-creoles-a-gallery-of-contemporary-new-orleans.htm