Evening Crowd at Kirmser's: A Gay Life in the 1940s

by Ricardo J. Brown, William Reichard, Allan H. Spear

It is often difficult to imagine gay gathering places in the decades before the Stonewall riots of the 1960s, and nearly impossible to think of such communities outside the nation's largest cities. Yet such places did exist, and their histories tell amazing stories of survival and the struggle for acceptance and self-respect. Kirmser's was such a place. In the 1940s, this bar in downtown St. Paul was popular with blue-collar customers during the day, then became an unofficial home to working-class gay men and lesbians at night. After Ricardo J. Brown was discharged from the navy for revealing his sexual orientation in 1945, he returned home to Minnesota and discovered in Kirmser's a space where he could develop his new self-awareness and fulfill his desire to find people like himself. The Evening Crowd at Kirmser's is Brown's compelling memoir of his experiences as a young gay man in St. Paul. In an engaging and open writing style, and through stories both humorous and tragic, Brown introduces us to his family, companions, and friends, such as Flaming Youth, a homely, sardonic man who carried the nickname from his youth ironically into middle age; Dale, who suddenly loses his job of six years after an anonymous note informed his employer that he was gay; and Bud York, an attractive and confident man with a fondness for young boys. A lifelong journalist, Ricardo J. Brown (1927-1999) was born in Stillwater, Minnesota. During his long career, he worked for the Alabama Journal, the Fairbanks Daily News Mirror of Alaska, and as the Minneapolis bureau chief for Fairchild Publications. William Reichard is a poet and fiction writer, and author of An Alchemy in the Bones (1999).

Genres: History, LGBT, Nonfiction, Memoir, Queer, Gay, Biography Memoir

176 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2001

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cross-posted at Shelf Inflicted and at Outlaw Reviews

After reading Jeb and Dash: A Diary of Gay Life, 1918-1945, I decided to look for other books about gay life before Stonewall and found this little treasure at the library. As much as I enjoyed Jeb’s observations of the world, the historical details, and glimpses of famous personalities, I found his story somewhat dry, plodding, and lacking in personality.

I breezed right through Ricardo Brown’s story of his early sexual experiences, his brief military career and dishonorable discharge for disclosing his homosexuality to his superiors, his family, the friends he made, and the bar they hung out at. Owned by a German couple, Kirmser’s was the only sanctuary for the gay and lesbian working-class inhabitants of St. Paul, Minnesota in the 1940’s. Even with the daytime crowd safely at home, one had to be careful entering the bar in order to avoid being seen. In those days, it was essential to live a double life, or risk abandonment, harassment, termination of employment, or arrest. Among friends, it was still necessary to be cautious. No one wanted to disclose too much personal information, or to be seen together outside of Kirmser’s. Engaging in subterfuge and lying was the only way to survive.

“We didn’t always trust one another at Kirmser’s, but we did have a feeling of kinship. We had been brought up in stable, family-oriented, religious homes, and we tried to apply the values we learned there to the small brotherhood and sisterhood at Kirmser’s. We might be jealous of one another, suspicious, even hateful at times, but there was no denying our blood bond. We were family.”

In a time where men and women were expected to adhere to rigid gender expectations, deviating from the norm resulted in humiliation and punishment by well-intentioned family members.

“After Ruth introduced us, we stood there for a few minutes talking. It was hard for me to concentrate on what the mother was saying, because I was trying not to stare at Ruth. Her cheerful, unassuming confidence was gone. She stood there, stricken, our stocky little packer from Kirmser’s, in a pink dress with a lot of buttons on it, in ladies’ shoes and nylon stockings, her face pink with embarrassment, her lips painted. She was almost cowering, as if she were trying to draw in upon herself, to somehow conceal this awful exposure.“

When things were bad and people needed an escape, there was always the movies.

“Movies gave us an enchanted, shared sensation, like sex without the body parts. It was something you could almost feel embrace you, a ghostly encounter, and we responded, tense, expectant, enthralled. We were manipulated toward the cinematic climax with emotions so strong, of such rarely touched depths, that we alternately laughed or cried until finally, at the end, an involuntary shudder and a profound relief spread through the audience like an immense ejaculation. It was escape. It made anything seem possible. It was a feeling so breathtaking we never wanted it to end.”

Though this is a short book, it is well written, engaging, and comprehensive. The intimate style exudes humor and warmth. While there is a glimmer of happiness for some of the characters, all of them suffer hardships and carry on with strength and dignity despite the prejudice that was a fact of their lives.

[George Ilsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A spare novella of a memoir, leaving one with the sense that Brown intended to write more, but these scenes from a bar in St. Paul are as much as he managed. It is a sad echo of a book — Brown must have been editing himself, still suffering from the feeling that there were things which must not be said.

This short memoir leaves much unsaid, and even if we had been able to follow the writer further in his life, much more would have been left unsaid. This approach, given the times, feels authentic — and thus the quality of sadness evoked by this glimpse of a fearfully closeted life.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading Brown's remembrance - however short - of Gay life in St. Paul. I was especially drawn to his look at Gay life outside of the coasts and the "epicenters" of the "big" cities - San Fran and New York. After having lived in the Twin Cities, it was interesting to see his perspective of how life "was." A good read, short, certainly a very small slice of a certain time and from a certain perspective. Definitely worth a look.

[Erastes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whist a little rustic, I would consider this to be essential reading for anyone thinking about writing about small-town gay America in the 1940′s.

A personal memoire, without being overly personal, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s is a snapshot of something that definitely shouldn’t have existed at the time, a gay bar in Wabasha Street, St Paul, Minnesota. At the time it was a run-down area, not one one would like to be alone at night, today (looking at Google Maps) it’s a airy, clean shopping district smug in its pristine-look.

Ricardo learns his sexuality young, very young in fact. There’s no description of this, but it’s clear he’s in Junior school when he gets his first experiences. By the time he’s 18, he’s well aware of himself, and in fact gets himself “undesirably” discharged from the army by outing himself to his superiors, being unable to hide himself any longer.

What I liked was the “postcard” way of presenting the events. There is no stream of narrative, as it were–just segments dealing with this character or that. One chapter talks of his relationship with Lucky, for example–how they met, how they continued to maintain that relationship; another deals with “Flaming Youth” – an overweight queen who, whilst in a long-term relationship – “steps out” with others. (a delightful term.”

What is charming is the way that, although the “queers” as they call themselves, flock together in this peculiar place–straight by day, queer by night–they hardly mix. They know each other by sight, and by name–although they keep a coded life of discretion and nicknames–but they are hardly linking arms and can-can-ing around the bar. They slink in, hiding outside until the coast is clear, and they aren’t spotted by neighbours and friends, and they retreat to the dark black booths, made sticky and ebonised by decades of varnish. Hiding, almost from each other.

Ricardo–before discovering Kirmser’s–escaped to Greenwich Village but he didn’t stay long. He had a dream that it was going to be full of aethetes and queers, walking in the sunshine, but he soon found that the scene that he was introduced to, a dingy underground drag bar full of what seemed to him to be unpleasant stereotypes, was not his cup of tea at all, and he fled back to Minnesota, and found Kirmer’s shortly afterwards.

It’s hugely interesting to see how baffled everyone is with everyone else. The lesbians use the gay men for accompanying them in dodgy areas–although both are uneasy with each other’s “perversions”–the menage a trois threesome, nicknamed “Three Kind Mice” for their quiet appearances in the bar, baffle everyone and indeed creep the gays and lesbians out, as Ricardo says, they can’t understand the relationship, the warping of the marriage act, and what they don’t understand, they distrust.

A menage aw twah Lulu Pulanski pronounced it, then grandly explained to us what the expression meant. It boggled our minds. Most of us were in one-to-one relationships of whatever kind for whatever period of time, but here was the husband and wife and the husband’s boyfriend carrying on God-know-what-kind of perversions. We were naivey offended at this flouting of conventions, this mockery of marriage, this awful ambiguity. Most of us were defined, even confined by our sexuality, and these three seemed to move fluidly from one partner the another. It confounded us. Marriage, we’d always been led to believe, was for two people only. What these three were doing was more scandalous than divorce. At least people had heard of divorce.

It is actually sad to see that bigotry runs in all directions–and of course, such bigotry still exists on all sides today.

Most of the anecdotes are veined with pathos, and one is positively sad–although the death involved isn’t homophobic–but although overall, you are left with the image of a group of people clinging to a place–(if not each other because even in the relative safety of the bar, which isn’t very safe, they absolutely do not show affection, or give themselves away)–itis heartwarming, that each and every one of them has the grit to continue on with their lives and make the best of the restricted way they are forced to live. There’s the two men who have been together for 14 years, both over 40 who live with one of the men’s parents, even sleeping in the same bed. There’s “the man with crabs” (again another nickname) who is the pariah in the bar because of rumor, who finally brings a new boyfriend into the bar with him, and there’s Ricardo himself who has an inner strength that really shines through.

This is a short book, but I highly recommend it. It’s not a perfect book–I found it a little too jumpy and disjointed, and the memoire style won’t be for everyone–but if you do try it, and you enjoyed books such as “It Takes Two” by Elliott Mackle – you’ll enjoy this.

It is a great shame that this book didn’t get published until after Brown died–although he was working towards publication–and a greater shame that he never got to write about what happened next, because I’m sure his entire life would have been as full as great characters as this book.

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although a fascinating glimpse into a hidden part of American history, this slim volume spends an equal amount of time on the author's other pursuits and history. Well written and a quick read; for what it is, it's worth reading.

[JOSEPH OLIVER · Rating 5 out of 5]

What's not to like about this book? It is a wonderfully warm, evocative book about a pocket of gay life in southern America all confined to one bar and a small crowd of gay men and a few lesbians in the 1940's. It tells the story - without fear or favour - of the trials and tribulations of this rather motley group. Their lives lived in shadows and fear of exposure, which could have resulted in them losing their jobs, prison or expulsion from their families because of the shame. Despite all this there are many anecdotes of some men who managed to get through it all quite happily but not all of them. Kimsers is the bar where they could meet one another and feel at home, even though they had a rigid protocol of what could and could not be asked - surnames or jobs for example. It seems odd I suppose to those who never lived through any of that prejudice but it does highlight the tenacity of the human spirit to overcome even the most rigid and prejudiced social and legal systems.
Apart from all this the book is a very gentle read and the 140 or so pages will fly past before you know it. Well worth buying.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brown provides a frank, slightly gritty view of gay life in a place far from the east and west coasts that gay histories typically reflect. It's an important little book because it documents the experiences and thoughts of "regular guys" who dealt with stigma of gay life in the midwest of the 1940s. While the book is unapologetic in its descriptions of the people, places, and events, there is an undercurrent of self-loathing that says as much about the social mores of that place and time as it does about the author's own feelings.

[Michael Kerr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Less than honourably discharged from the navy in 1945 for disclosing his homosexuality, Ricardo Brown returns to St Paul Minnesota to try to make a life for himself. He finds a nondescript bar that caters to a gay clientele and it becomes his social centre. This very readable memoir shines a light on what it was like to be gay in a time when Stonewall was not even conceivable.

[Caleb Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to preface this review by stating I am from the Twin Cities - raised just south of Minneapolis and have since moved back to live my own life as a gay man in the city so my opinions are more than a little biased.

One of my biggest goals in life is to educate myself more and more about the queer history of this country. it is a history that has been brushed off, covered up, and oftentimes, forgotten out of shame both in and out of our community. Too many queer folks do not know our own history so to find a recount of that history in my hometown was thrilling. Although filled with no surprises about the otherness within the nightlife of the 1940s, I found this to be strangely comforting knowing the places I walk every day were once walked by men with similar lifestyles as my own. Because of this little book, I feel I no longer take where I come from for granted or my ability to freely meet people at a bar - gay or not - and talk openly about queerness instead of hiding it.

I hope to find more books like this in the coming years, about Minneapolis and elsewhere because queer history is American history.

On another note, I believe this text would make for a fabulous play and hope that someday someone else with many more skills than I also sees that so these men and women get a bigger day in the sun!

[Vladimir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very readable even if slightly repetitive. An interesting look into a small town gay life in the '40s, a world not all too frequently explored, which makes this short memoir a valuable resource. Recommended for a relaxing afternoon read, but if you are looking at a comprehensive look at the epoch this is not the place.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading Jeb and Dash, one of its reviewers mentions this gem of a book. It describes a working class gayman's closeted life in a midwestern city in the 1940's. Books such as these are helping me gain a sense of tribal identity---my cultural inheritance.

[Sue · Rating 2 out of 5]

A quirky little book that sheds some interesting insight into a little known topic, but also meanders and plods.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

From University of Minnesota Press, a breezy, dishy, affecting read about the camaraderie among the attentive goers at a downtown St. Paul bar that became a haven for blue-collar folks, namely the underground gay men's scene in the '40s. (By the by, in a couple decades, we'll no longer be able to simply call them "the '40s." Let that set in.) The writing here is detailed yet spare, interesting and journalistic. It lets a creative reader play witness to exchanges at the bar counter, then fill in the blanks and create subtexts and subplots as to what took place outside these pages.

This group is shrewd yet wide-eyed, forlorn yet yearning. The troupe of regulars slinks in and out of the bar, secretive and survivalist in their nightly kinship and dalliances, but open-hearted and hopeful when among their own. How times change, and in some ways, how not much changes at all.

[haven ⋄ f (hiatus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

feels like someone just sharing gossip with you tbh. tends to ramble on about personal life and family life unrelating to being lgbtq+ but paints a picture of the man and his life. endearing but also sobering.

[Scott Bilodeau · Rating 4 out of 5]

With the giant leaps forward in gay rights in the past two decades or so, it’s hard to imagine a time when simply being honest about who you are could get one fired, unable to be rehired, shunned from one’s family, even arrested, jailed, and ordered separated from other gay folks, who were deemed to be deviants and perverts. In a world that was so hostile to gay, lesbian, and bisexual people, sometimes the only solace that could be found would be in a bar in which one could be accepted or at least tolerated provided one bought drinks. The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s is an interesting book detailing what gay life was like in St Paul, Minnesota in the 1940s. Unlike Jeb and Dash, which is a similar book set in DC that consists of diary entries, these essays were told in reflection much later in life by the author. The book centers mostly around his life, particularly after receiving a dishonorable discharge from the military for being gay, the bar Kirmser’s, which was located at 382 Wabasha Street in downtown St Paul, the cast of characters that were found within, and life as a gay person during that time. It was fascinating to me how many people lived with their parents, who were either honestly or willingly ignorant in some cases that their son’s “roommate”, who slept in the same room on a double bed was more than a roommate. Frustrating societal situations arose such as one patron being beaten by a heterosexual client who unwittingly came in and was offended that he was gay. Despite being attacked, the patron did not want to respond for fear of drawing attention to the place or having charges pressed because, as was demonstrated in the book, it was gay people who were considered the real criminals, regardless of what had taken place. The author describes how dangerous it was just setting foot in the place, lest one be recognized by someone they knew and that people tended to case the joint first, dart in, and sit away from the window. The characters were just as varied as one would find in the world outside and it was interesting to me that even inside the bar, sincere displays of affection were discouraged but occasional pinches or tush grabs or holding onto another’s arms were ok. I really liked how the depth of the cast of characters grows along with the growing depth of the author himself. He sees things about the other people – good and bad – that he had been shut off to before or did not see until he ran into the people outside of the bar and they were different in the way they acted or the way they dressed oftentimes because they had to be. The book is relatively short – only 155 pages – and flows pretty well. I was kind of indifferent to it at first but the author’s writing gets better and better as the book goes along and his stories get more and more profound and touching. If not for the chronological order of things, I almost would have wondered if he hadn’t placed the essays in order of how well they were written, saving the best for last. I searched the address on google maps and unfortunately the old building he describes is no longer around as I imagine many of the patrons are no longer around, either. The author himself died in the late 1990s, which is unfortunate because what I really would like to do having finished this book is sit down and hear the tales of someone who lived it and to walk the surrounding streets and have that person physically point out where things happened and describe what it was like. Barring that, the book is a good substitute.

[K.Z. Snow · Rating 3 out of 5]

I lived and worked in St. Paul for six years, and walked down Wabasha Street innumerable times, so I was eager to read about a cramped, drab bar that in many ways encapsulated the lives of more provincial gays and lesbians in the 1940s. (St. Paul was decidedly not wedded to Minneapolis at the time. In fact, it was still a rather plain and prim half-sister when I lived there decades later.)

This is a quirky, surprisingly plainspoken, and sometimes poignant little memoir, probably made as readable as it is through some adroit editing (thank you, Editor!) Nothing about it is particularly shocking, save for the overall picture it paints of internalized homophobia. How sad that the members of Kirmser's small "community" felt it necessary to shun each other in public, pass judgment on each other in private, and continually play a host of bizarre games in order to keep their orientation a secret from the wider world.

The book is definitely worth a read if you're interested in gay history outside of big cities.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really glad that I read this. I just finished "Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II," and this was a fantastic accompaniment to that. I can't quite put my finger on what made this book so magical for me, other than it being a rare first hand account of gay history. Sadly I'm just in sort of a daze or else I could probably explain what I mean in a more eloquent fashion. It is just that, as a queer person, so much of your history is erased and invisible that sometimes you almost feel like you don't exist at all. And just seeing yourself reflected in the story of someone else who came before you - it makes you feel more whole. Complete. Anyway, I would highly recommend this book to anyone, gay, straight, or otherwise inclined. I just wish I had better words to explain how marvelous and fantastic it is. Guess you'll just have to find out yourself, if you decide (hopefully) to take a chance on it.

[K.N. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt a little torn as I rated this. I think it's well-written and an important memoir that talks about a time in queer history that's not particularly well-documented or even acknowledged, yet I had the same issue with it that I had with Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; I felt like what comes immediately after the end sounds more interesting than what I've just read. Unlike Angelou's book, what I read in Brown's was actually fascinating...but I want to read about what happens after he heads to NYC again...planning to make his way the way that he's chosen. Where's that story? Midnight Cowboy?

[Skip · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was really in the mood for something with a historical context. There's tons of writing out there which is set in the 1940s, (both fiction and nonfiction,) but to see the era through gay eyes is pretty interesting. It's a whole new vantage point.
And it's nice to hear (it all feels like a conversation,) someone reminisce about their history. It all has a real "back in the day," sort of sound.
It kind of reminds you of the days when a gay bar was a kind of clubhouse. The place where you met up with friends, got the talk on the town, picked up tricks and just sort of people watched. The days before chat rooms on gay.com and manhunt.

And those photos of Ricardo Brown... Especially the shots of him in his Navy uniform....Lordy, he must have been a popular boy back then....

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've probably added an extra star for content not found on the pages of this book. It's a slim volume well worth the read (I've read it several times), but it will leave you wishing for more details concerning just about everything. It has provoked more thought on my part than most books I've read in recent times. In pondering the lives of the people whose story is just barely told here I find myself drifting off into a series of what ifs, wondering what would I have done. Then I go back to the text looking for hints to answers that really aren't to be found.

[Milo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an OK memoir of gay life around Kirmser's in St. Paul around 1945/46. Overall I enjoyed the stories, but found the prose to be a bit disjointed. Brown had a tendency to swap nicknames for real names without a lot of forethought.

It was also somewhat surprising to see how dehumanized these men felt toward themselves and each other in a time when the future was looking a little bright. WWII was over and they hadn't dream of McCarthy yet.

Certainly not my favorite book of LGBTQ history, but also very much worth a look-see.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great little memoir of 1940s St. Paul. Kirmser's was a pub owned by a German couple. During the day, blue-collar working men patronized it. At night, it was a secretive meeting spot for gays and lesbians. Though short, it's quite evocative of the era and of the difficulties of love that was illegal.

[Michelle Duncan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Kirmser's as a required text for a history course at university. This book is fantastic and provides unique insight to homosexuality during the 1940s-50s. Brown's narrative serves as an educational and fascinating primary source. Readers should prepare themselves for graphic details of the challenges gays faced in America during the Cold War.

[Austin · Rating 4 out of 5]

These stories are a fascinating view into 1940s gay life in St. Paul, Minnesota. The similarities, like life centered around a bar, and differences, like the threat of incarceration, make it worth the time to explore. History that we rarely learn about.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very entertaining, read of a far off time, a gay bar in St. Pauls right after World War II. Realistic, with no rose colored memories, Ricardo told it like it was. A good writer , the story is sprinkled with marelous turns of phrase.

[Joseph Longo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent piece of gay history. It is a compelling memoir about the life that gay men built for themselves after WWI. As is stated on the back cover: "A fascinating portrait of working-class gay male life in the post-war period." I agree. It is pretty interesting.

[Edgar W · Rating 4 out of 5]

A small book but big in content. I felt so connected with the people in this memoir. As it ended, I felt a need to eventually know more about what happened to the "Crowd" after the author left for NYC. A good book and hopefully will read again.

[Flungoutofspace (Chris) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very well written and a moving story from a time when it was much more difficult to live as a gay man. However, times are reflected also in the writer's bias against women, non-white folks and effeminate gay men, unfortunately.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating first-hand account of St. Paul's gay subculture during the 1940s. Extremely touching.

[Beth G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

(from my old Book Log)

A lovely little memoir of gay life in St. Paul, MN, just after World War II.