Laura's Story

Laura was born on Oct. 6, 1945 and was raised in orphan homes throughout St. Louis. She knew that she was gay in grade school and her first relationship was during her HS years. Though she had a number of fleeting relationships, her first stable committed relationship was not until later in life, mid thirties. During her younger years, she was more interested in having fun and extremely busy, working, going to school and participating in politics at several levels.
She was the administrative assistant to a Soulard state rep during 1970’s and was active in 7th ward-low income politics. She has memories of many stereotypical smoky backroom political meetings. She also remembers that gay gathering places during the 1960s were dependent on connections to the mob or to members of the local police department.
She was also the first woman to graduate from Rankin Technical School and a long time building inspector for the city of St. Louis.
She has memories of a number of lesbian meeting places and many feminist groups that formed during the sixties and seventies such as women’s collectives. She remembers the following places and groups:
A Woman’s Place- a lesbian Center during 70’s, it was fire bombed at some point and was located near Compton and Louisiana (where Sears use to be). There was a bar on the first floor and upstairs, there were poetry readings and talks on lesbians and the law.
St. Louis Rape Support and Women’s Safehouse, which was started by lesbians.
Woman’s Eye Bookstore-originally located on Demun, near Concordia Seminary. It then moved to Delmar and in the basement was a food collective, a roofing collective and an auto repair collective.
There was a building on Lafayette, near Grand that was rented out to a lesbian feminist group by nuns for $1 year. This was the base of the St. Louis abused women’s support group and the first staff members were Vista Volunteers. This was during the 70s.
Wired Women evolved out of a group called Tomato Productions.
Les Talk, which was a community newspaper.

Laura also remembers the St. Louis NOW organization was dominated by lesbians. This was also a time when a few churches began welcoming gays and lesbians including the Unitarian Churches. She described her experience as a butch lesbian feminist. She found that she was often attacked from all sides but she tried to remain true to herself throughout. She described lesbian feminism as primarily a woman-centered life. Though, she was involved in male dominated fields such as politics and attending Ranken Technical School, her emotional and sexual energy was centered only on women, primarily lesbian women. But she was also involved in promoting the domestic violence protection bill and was later the civil rights commissioner for the city of St. Louis. She found herself alienated from affluent gay men.
She always found her political work created a sort of extended family and she later graduated from UMSL with a degree in the Administration of Justice. She had wanted to be a lawyer but felt that would require a compromise that she just couldn’t make. She was arrested several times during various political protests and at times felt anger at the lack of justice she saw in society but always tried to vent it in a positive manner. She felt a connection with the working class, women, minorities and her own community which she described as the queer community.