Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade (54 page)

“There were two or three”
: Ibid.

“I was not really ‘afraid’”
: Steward,
Straight to Hell
interview. The story of being tied up is substantiated both by entries in the Stud File and in an undated letter from Wendell Wilcox to Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

“feasting with panthers”
: Neil McKenna,
The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde
, pp. 203–204.

“From an alley on”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” pp. 185–86.

“there is a quality”
: Steward, “On Chicago,”
Illinois Dental Journal
15 (August 1946), pp. 338–39, Steward Papers.

“Alice is delighted with”
: Stein to Steward, postmark illegible, Nov. ?, 1937, 27 Rue de Fleurus, Paris VI;
Dear Sammy
, p. 134.

“We were all at”
: Stein to Steward, postmarked January 12, 1938, 5 Rue Christine, Paris VI;
Dear Sammy
, p. 135.

“You are right”
: Steward to Stein, March 13, 1938.

“Every time Thornton”
: Steward,
Chapters
, p. 76.

Wilder sent a follow-up
: Wilder to Steward, March 9, 1938 (from Tucson). Thornton Wilder Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

“Now do compose yourself”
: Wilder to Steward, May 13, 1938. Thornton Wilder Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature.

During early 1938, Steward
: Steward,
Dear Sammy
, footnote, p. 136.

He then asked her
: Steward to Stein, June 30, 1938.

“I got whapped by”
: Steward to Stein, Aug. 6, 1938.

“All my sympathy on”
: Wilder to Steward, August 22, 1938. Thornton Wilder Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature.

“I think I am”
: Steward to Stein, undated (probably Aug. 1938).

He wrote to Stein
: Steward to Stein, Oct. 31, 1938.

“What do you mean”
: Wilder to Steward, Feb. 17, 1939. Thornton Wilder Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature.

“all the dirty words”
: Steward,
Dear Sammy
, p. 56. Steward attributes this comment to Gertrude Stein, to whom he showed the manuscript in July 1939.

“The novel…is all”
: Steward to Stein, Jan. 23, 1939.

“The Ides of March”
: Steward to Stein, March 18, 1939.

“I have a strange”
: Steward to Stein, April 10, 1939.

“Forgive a hasty [post]card”
: Wilder to Stewart [
sic
], April 8, 1939, postmarked New Haven, Connecticut. Thornton Wilder Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature.

“I met [William] Saroyan”
: Steward to Stein, June [July?] 8, 1939.

“because Paris brings it”
: Steward to Stein, postcard, June 23, 1939.

“Dearest ones”
: Steward to Stein, postcard, June 30, 1939.

“Yes, you know me”
: Wilder to Stein, Aug. 20, 1939;
Stein-Wilder
, p. 242.

His plan was to
: Steward to Stein, June [July?] 8, 1939.

“You’re a motherable person”
: Steward,
Dear Sammy
, p. 54.

“I suppose I might”
: Leyland,
Gay Sunshine
interview, p. 34 in manuscript, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“In 1937–38 I wrote”
: Steward,
Chapters
, p. 309.

“a thoroughly hedonistic”
: Steward,
Dear Sammy
, p. 75.

“[One of the Arab soldiers was]”
: Steward, “Toilet Correspondence,” Kinsey Institute.

“I was [always] fascinated”
: Rose,
Saying Life: The Memoirs of Sir Francis Rose
(London: Cassell, 1961) (hereafter,
Saying Life
), p. 12.

As a result, Rose
: Michael De Cossart, “Sir Francis Rose (1909–1979): A Biographical Sketch,” in Sir Francis Rose,
1909–1979: A Retrospective
(London: England & Co., [1988]).

By his early twenties
: Rose,
Saying Life
, p. 63.

Rose subsequently began
: Ibid., p. 209.

“like Icarus plunging into”
: Ibid., p. 55.

Though Toklas thought him
: The Rose-Stein correspondence at Yale dates from 1931.

Stein had collected Rose’s
: James Mellow,
Charmed Circle
(New York: Avon, 1975), p. 433.

“Sam Steward, a friend”
: Rose,
Saying Life
, p. 363.

“I liked Francis.”
: Steward,
Dear Sammy
, p. 76.

“Did [Thornton] tell you”
: Steward,
Dear Sammy
, pp. 55–57. The conversation must have taken place during this last visit with Stein, since she had only had her first opportunity to look at the “Chicago” manuscript while Steward was traveling in North Africa.

“Gertrude…said…the thing”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 309.

“ate together, then had”
: Steward to Stein, Aug. 29, 1939 [?], Rouen.

“[I have] been on”
: Steward to Stein, Sept. 15, 1939.

4: “THE NAVY HAS ALWAYS HAD AN ATTRACTION FOR ME”

“Six weeks ago I”
: Steward to Stein, Dec. 14, 1939.

“I remembered the village”
: Steward,
Chapters
, pp. 81–82.

“My Dearest Sammy”
: Stein to Steward, postmarked March 25, 1940, Bilignin par Belley, Ain;
Dear Sammy
, pp. 147–48.

“I’m writing”
: Steward to Stein, Jan. 26, 1940.

“There is a lot”
: Steward to Stein, March 28, 1940.

“I have been in”
: Steward to Stein, April 19, 1940.

“when prowling the dark”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 83.

“I’m leaving tomorrow”
: Steward to Stein, July 31, 1940.

“Vinalhaven, that island off”
: Steward to Preston, Jan. 14, 1981. Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“Mouth of emptiness, excellent”
: Steward, Stud File, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“Forgive the hurried card”
: Wilder to Steward, Aug. 22, 1940 (postmarked Amherst, Mass.). Thornton Wilder Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature.

“letters [from Stein and Toklas became]”
: Steward,
Dear Sammy
, pp. 82–83.

“[The military] would probably”
: Steward to Stein, Oct. 26 [1940].

“Dear Sam”
: Wilder to Steward, Oct. 13, 1940. Thornton Wilder Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature.

“Sam…is very unhappy”
: Wilcox to Stein [nd], Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature.

“So you do write”
: Wilder to Steward, March 31, 1941, Hotel Europa, Medellín, Colombia. Thornton Wilder Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature.

“It is Quebec now”
: Steward to Stein, Aug. 14, 1941. The letter, though posted from Quebec, lists a Chicago return address—Steward’s office on the downtown campus of Loyola University.

By September 1942
: In 1947, the naval training center in Bainbridge, Maryland, was closed, and its recruit training program was relocated to Great Lakes. The Reserve Training Corps would grow from 2,500 recruits to 16,000. At the time, recruits were arriving at a rate of 100 per week; that number would soon rise to 400, requiring 2,935 permanent staff personnel to fill instructor and administrative billets. The Cooks and Bakers School was also moved there (195 trainee cooks, 72 stewards), and a Hospital Corpsman School was reestablished. The Naval Supply Depot was transferred there in 1947, along with the Electronic Supply Office. For these and other figures, see the naval website for Great Lakes: www.nsgreatlakes.navy.mil.

“Most uniforms make”
: “(From an Unpublished Novel) by John McAndrews,”
Der Kreis
, no. 1, 1963, pp. 33–34.

“Everything was beginning to”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 132.

“Just a graceful little”
: Steward to Stein and Toklas, April 6, 1945.

“gay ambiance”
: Alan Berube,
Coming Out Under Fire
, pp. 106–107.

“alternating periods of crackdown”
: Ibid., pp. 106–107.

“not proclaiming or parading”
: Ibid., pp. 270–71.

“[These] typewritten stories [were]”
: Eric Rophes, “Steward on Sex: Author ‘Phil Andros’ Looks Back”
Advocate
, Dec. 11, 1984, pp. 88–90.

“sailors—a coupla hundred”
: Steward,
Straight to Hell
interview [manuscript version, np, Samuel M. Steward papers].

“I have been doing”
: Steward to Stein and Toklas, “13-xi-44.”

“At the time it”
: Roger Austen,
Playing the Game
, p. 88. The attribution Austen gives for the quote reads, “From background notes especially written for this study by ‘Phil Andros,’ Berkeley, California, 1975.” Although Steward seems to be discussing only the 1930s, the situation remained in stasis throughout the war years; only immediately following World War II would men interested in publishing literary accounts of homosexual experience be given the opportunity to do so by commercial publishers.

“My dentist in Chicago”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 310.

“It seems that all”
: Steward to Stein and Toklas, April 6, 1945.

“It was certainly cancer”
: Steward, revised “Early Chapters” (this is a later, final version of Steward’s autobiography, in manuscript form, located in the Steward Papers), pp. 216–18.

“Getting readjusted to my”
: Steward to Collins, 6/19/45, from Columbus, Ohio. Steward Papers, Kinsey Institute.

which Craine, to Steward’s chagrin
: Steward kept no copies of his letters to Craine; all of Craine’s letters, meanwhile, are missing from Steward’s papers. (One empty, postmarked envelope from Craine to Steward survives, however.) Craine is mentioned with some regularity in Steward’s journals. (Complete copies of these typewritten journals can be found in the Samuel M. Steward Papers at the Kinsey Institute; partial copies—some handwritten, some in typescript—also exist in the Samuel M. Steward Papers.)

“I talked to Sam”
: Wilcox to Stein, undated, probably 1946. Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature.

“there will be no”
: Steward to Stein and Toklas, April 6, 1945.

“to effect my escape”
: Steward to Collins, 6-25-45, Steward Papers, Kinsey Institute.

“I suppose technically you”
: Steward to Stein and Toklas, Sept. 13, 1945.

“You’ve no idea what”
: Steward to Collins, 6-25-[19]45, Kinsey Institute.

“I heard her wonderful”
: Steward, “On a Call to Paris,”
Illinois Dental Journal
15 (March 1946), pp. 124–25.

“Your wire did me”
: Toklas to Steward, Aug. 22, 1946, 5, Rue Christine, Paris VI;
Dear Sammy
, pp. 155–56.

“Are you being a good boy”
: Toklas to Steward, Oct. [?] 1946;
Dear Sammy
, p. 156.

“incredible that I voluntarily”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 233.

The articles on religion
: The signed essay, entitled “With Liberty and Justice for All,” was printed and distributed by World Book as part of an advertising effort. A copy of the printed document remains in the Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“It seems as if”
: Wilcox to Toklas [nd], Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature.

“the homosexual as a”
: Donald Webster Cory,
The Homosexual in America
(New York: Greenberg, 1951), pp. 94–95.

And yet as he
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” pp. 89–90.

“Death Averted”
: Steward, “Death Averted, or Happy Days Are Here Again” (subscriber’s letter to the editor, unsigned),
Der Kreis
, April 1960, p. 46.