February 13, 2017: Don't miss the Project's upcoming presentation at the Missouri History Museum.

Rainbow Road: The LGBT Community on Route 66

Wednesday, March 8, 2017, 7 pm

Missouri History Museum, Lee Auditorium, Forest Park

Free

By James Hawkins

December 23, 2016: I guess because of bad experiences that I had when I was a child, I got to where I did not like anyone having a birthday party for me.

My birthday was a few weeks from Christmas and I can't recall all the times I would hear an adult say “Jimmy's birthday is so close to Christmas we will just get him something for Christmas” knowing all the while they were not going get you anything. When your a little kid, that shit hurts.

After Jerry Edwards and I entered into the bar business (The Red Bull and The French Market) this stigma still bothered me. I decided to do something in a more positive way. There were at that time Toys For Tots programs which military organizations ran for underprivileged children.

I checked with a few hospitals to find out if any of them needed help in acquiring toys at Christmas time. The one hospital that attracted my attention was Cardinal Glennon's Children Hospital. No organization at that time donated toys to their hospital.

This is what I did on my birthday in the early 1970s, I had a Toys for Tots collection for them. Every time I did this, it went passed all my exceptions. We started the drive two weeks before my birthday at both bars - The Red Bull and The French Market - and we filled up with new toys and gifts of money.

I wanted to make sure the hospital got everything. I had someone who represented Cardinal Glennon's Hospital be present on the final night to collect the donated money and toys.

I will never be able to express in words how that made me feel. There is a reason for everything in this world and I really believe what happened to me as a child set me in the right direction to help others and in turn gave me back meaning of the day I was given birth.

Not knowing at the time when we had the toy collection how far reaching the effects would be. The first News Years Eve at The French Market several policeman and fireman came in in full dress uniform. All were smiling and their head spokesman happily let us know they were there to tend bar and to wait on our customers. There was no way we could say no especially when most of them were so damn good looking.

Of course Blanche stayed at the bar to make sure they served the drinks correctly and the girls made sure the waiters knew what to do. We still were supposed to close at 1:30 am. When that time arrived they informed me to forget it. There was not a cop in town that would close us and we could stay open all night if we wanted to. And we did. Why were they doing this? It seems that all policemen and firemen had children who were treated at Cardinal Glennon's Children Hospital and it was their way of returning the favor. How do you like those apples!

Picture: Every Christmas we also gave away free dinners to all our customers from all our locations that no longer had a family to go to, or were no longer welcome at home. Many of our friends volunteered their time on the holidays to make this a festive occasion. The French Market, early 1970s holiday buffet.

Image courtesy James Hawkins

By John Hilgeman

Posted December 1, 2016/Written October 7, 1997:

Ten years ago, on a crisp Sunday morning, the 11th of October, at the light of dawn, the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was unfolded on the Washington DC Mall. Two panels with St. Louis connections, were among the nearly two thousand three by six foot multi-colored cloth panels opened to the rising sun, the spirits of those they remembered, released to the air above the Quilt, to move among the pilgrims walking their pathways, until the time came for the Quilt to be folded up at day's end. A poem written by Pat and Mayer Levy, graced the cover of the program that day. Their panel for their son, Michael Jay Levy, displayed this evening in the room next door, and the panel for Richard Neil Eastman, were the first of hundreds of St. Louis panels too soon to follow. Both are pictured in the book: The Quilt, Stories from The NAMES Project.

That Sunday in October was also the day of the second Lesbian and Gay March on Washington. For many of us at the march, that display of the Quilt was our first exposure to the Quilt. Patrick Leonard, my buddy, and I stopped at the Quilt on our way to the March rally. In a radio interview Patrick did with Sandra Spiritas in December 1998, three months before he died, he described his reaction to his first viewing of the Quilt, and elaborated on the energy, the meaning that kept him going as he worked, over the next months, despite the complications of AIDS, on setting up a workshop, organizing a chapter, looking for a site for a display, arranging media interviews, and doing the hundreds of other things that got the workshop, chapter, and display off the ground.

Word had gotten around after the display in DC that the Quilt might be going on display in sites around the country, including St. Louis. A meeting was called for the evening of January 3, 1988, and Jack Caster came to town from the NAMES Project in San Francisco, to tell us about the plans, and encourage us to work on finding a display site, and preparing for the visit of the Quilt. Fifteen of us were there that evening at the Red Cross building, the site of St Louis Effort for AIDS, an organization that would prove to be a great friend of the chapter over the years, paying phone bills, providing volunteers, getting out information, etc. Jack took a photo of all of us there that evening. I don't know where a copy is, and don't have a complete list of all those at the meeting.

I recall some of the most active people in the early days of the chapter being: Mayer and Pat Levy (who co-chaired the display committee and lined up major funding from AT&T), Trish Phifer-Harwig, Vann Johnson, Tony D'Angelo, Patrick Gregory, Tony Hatch, Tim Cusick, Joel Hershey, Tish and Bill LaRock (and their daughter Rachel), Bill's lover Glenn Warnecke, David Long, and a woman named Norvella, and Ron Walker. Patrick Leonard's lover, Dan, worked logistics for the display, Ellen Lowenstein coordinated volunteers, and Roseanne Weiss handled public relations.