From bowling and dancing trophies to a sign that says “Don’t Mistake Me For That Nice Little Old Lady,” almost 80 years of living cover every inch of the tiny living room in Audrey Ghiglione Bender’s South St. Louis house. (Read more about Audrey here).

I share the couch with 17 stuffed animals, a 2009 Gold Glove Award Winners St. Louis Cardinals pennant, and, appropriately, two Budweiser beer pillows. In Dan Tham’s video Audrey describes what she remembers most about her four-month-early 80th birthday bash.

Loren Ghiglione

Video by Dan

The search for the Ghiglione family's story begins in Audrey Ghiglione Bender's living room

The search for the Ghigliones, what I like to think of as a representative immigrant family from Mark Twain’s era, began for me in St. Louis. There I discovered two branches of the local Ghigliones, the secular saints and the saloonkeeper sinners.

The saloonkeepers were represented in the 1880s and 1890s by G. B. Ghiglione, 700 S. Main St., and Joseph Ghiglione, 5201 Shaw Ave., labeled “the King of Dago Hill” by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (today, in a more politically correct era, the media have removed “Dago” from the name of the Italian-American neighborhood).

Dance halls adjoined the saloons. Joe DeGregorio, Hill historian and tour guide, said the dance hall women—“prostitutes or women looking for husbands or both”—served the predominantly male Italian community. The 1900 census, he recalled, listed 300 Italian men and only three Italian women.

Joseph Ghiglione’s was the first of the Dago Hill saloon-dance halls raided by the police on Sunday, Aug. 22, 1897. Ghiglione and six of his drink-and-dance girls, who were “imported from the city” and paid $1 a night, were arrested and taken to a police station.

But Ghiglione had connections. The Post-Dispatch ended its account of the Dago Hill raid by reporting that the police released Ghiglione. Of the raided saloon-dance halls, only his remained open: “There dancing went on as if nothing had happened. A dozen girls had escaped the clutches of the police.”

The Post-Dispatch reporter concluded his article by describing the “giddy” Italian stag dancers the way later generations of white reporters wrote stereotypically about black dancers: “One of the men stands on his hands. Another grasps his legs and lifts him from the floor. The man who is on his feet waltzes while his partner hangs suspended head down from his shoulders.”

The secular-saint St. Louis Ghigliones were represented by Antonio F. Ghiglione, one half of Ghiglione & Rossi, a manufacturer in 1880 of macaroni and vermicelli—the first pasta manufacturer west of the Mississippi, says family historian Deacon Jim Ghiglione. By 1882, Antonio Ghiglione had moved west to Colorado and had declared his intention to become a U.S. citizen, renouncing “all allegiance and fidelity” to his homeland, the Republic of Switzerland. But Ghiglione & Rossi continued, with another generation of Ghigliones helping run the company.

John C., in that next generation of Ghigliones, had two sons, John L. and Lawrence P. Lawrence made the Post-Dispatch in 1903 when, as a 12-year-old, he saved his suicidal mother’s life. Separated from John C. Ghiglione, Mary had tried to kill herself twice before. This time she wrapped her head in a towel saturated with chloroform. Lawrence discovered her upon returning from school and called a doctor who revived her after an hour.

But Lawrence and his wife are remembered by Audrey Ghiglione Bender, their 79-year-old daughter-in-law, for a set of values similar to the values of my Ghiglione family, which moved from the Genoa area in northern Italy to New York in the 1870s and to Seattle in the 1900s.

Audrey Ghiglione Bender

Seated in the living room of her South St. Louis home, a brick bungalow on a predominately black block of Alaska Avenue, Audrey begins talking about her life after the death of her husbands. Her first husband, Kenneth J. Ghiglione, died on Aug. 24, 1981. Her second husband, Robert S. Bender, died on January 18, 2011.

Audrey calls me “sweetie” and directs me to sit on the living room couch, with its two Budweiser beer pillows, 17 stuffed animals and St. Louis Cardinals’ banner for the 2009 Gold Glove Award Winners. That weekend she had celebrated her 80th birthday bash, four months ahead of schedule, by inviting 40 family members to join her at a Cardinals-Cubs game. The Cardinals won on their way to a wild-card spot in the National League playoffs, and Audrey downed three beers.

Seated in front of a sign that reads “Don’t Mistake Me For That Nice Little Old Lady,” Audrey talks candidly (“Holy crap, uh, crumb”) about life with her Ghiglione parents-in-law. They stressed cleanliness. The entire house—interior walls, doors and windows—had to be kept spotless. “You had to clean from the top to the bottom,” she said, demonstrating the technique. The exterior concrete steps and base of house’s façade also had to be scrubbed every Saturday.

The family dinners—every Sunday at 4:30 p.m.—were treated like weddings and funerals, sacred family events. Lawrence Ghiglione served ravioli and other family favorites beginning exactly at 4:30. “If you weren’t there by 4:30 to eat there was war in the camp,” Audrey recalls, “We had to be there.”

Maria Strada Ghiglione

Audrey’s description of Lawrence’s rule reminded me of stories about my great-grandmother, Maria Strada Ghiglione, a 4’10,” 95-pound tyrant. She hung on to the Old World, in her Ligurian dialect (incomprehensible to a granddaughter who had been taught classical Italian) and in her superstitions. “We couldn’t have thirteen at the dinner table,” granddaughter Maybelle Lucas recalled, “and we always had thirteen in the family. She didn’t want a handkerchief as a gift—a handkerchief meant crying—or sharp things because they would cut a friendship.”

Cleanliness came before godliness. To avoid fingerprints, the children were not permitted to touch the dining room table, and oil clothes were placed under their chairs. Each day, one room was cleaned top-to-bottom: The furniture hauled outside, the paintings and mirrors taken off the walls, the curtains removed and washed.

“Trifles make perfection,” says an Italian proverb, “but perfection is no trifle.” Maria concerned herself with each trifle. Later in life “she rinsed her hair in kerosene, which whitened it,” granddaughter Hazel Rispoli recalled. “Even her hair had to be pure, perfect.” Marie Wilham, another granddaughter, said, “A dime would bounce on her sheets when she made a bed, and heaven help the person who did not do it correctly. She would see to it that it was remade over and over to her standards.”

Sometimes perfection became rudeness. When she visited her children’s families, “upon sitting down to eat, she would pick up the plate and rub her finger across it to make sure there was no grease on it,” Wilham said. “Everything had to be sparkly clean.”

When cooking dinner at home, Maria began at 3 p.m. She insisted on the freshest of vegetables and fruits from her garden (everything planted by the moon) or from Seattle’s Pike Street Market where she ordered the intimidated vendors to give her their best or else. She required each ravioli—of finely chopped brains (for moisture), veal, pork, chicken, eggs, parmesan cheese, and spinach—to be made thin and tiny, no larger than a postage stamp.

The buffet, the tureen, the table, the entire dining room groaned with food: antipasto, minestrone, ravioli, risotto, stuffed cabbage, artichokes, roast chicken, cheeses, nuts, and fruits.

Dinner ended with a theatrical flourish from Maria. She placed two sugar cubes in a teaspoon, poured Five Star Hennessey over the cubes, lit the brandy, allowed it to burn until the sugar melted and the flame died, and then poured the remainder of the teaspoon’s contents into her demitasse.

Sunday dinner, which began at 2 p.m., meant not only fine food but family rite. Everyone had to attend. Even when dinners were served at her sons’ homes, she dictated what was to be served and who was to host. Of the holidays, she chose Easter. Frank, my grandfather, was assigned Thanksgiving, his brother Charles, New Year’s Day, and the third brother August, Christmas.

Traditional values—honor, thrift, cleanliness—comprised a Holy Trinity of the home. “You were never supposed to do anything that disgraced the name, the family,” said Rispoli, recalling her grandmother’s pride. “You were supposed to behave so that people looked up to you.” For the child in the family who did not behave, there was a cuff and a shout, “Porco dio, bastardo!”

Maria Ghiglione’s thrift bordered on miserliness. Her husband, who was expected to bring her every cent of his pay each week, once returned home with only $5. “I bought a few rounds for the boys at work,” he said. Maria exploded. “Okay, you can burn up the money, so can I,” she screamed, lighting a match to the $5 bill.

Grandchildren were never to be given more than twenty-five cents. “Grandpa would shush us and say, ‘Don’t tell Grandma,’ and he’d pull from his pocket a bill,” Lucas recalled. And in New York, when the family decided to move to Seattle, Maria insisted on serving all one hundred of the family’s chickens, dinner after dinner, until none was left. One son, Charles, vowed never to eat chicken again.

Loren Ghiglione

The Hill, a 50-square-block area in South St. Louis, is the city’s Italian neighborhood. On Sunday, September 25, 2011, the St. Ambrose school cafeteria hosted a ravioli dinner from noon to 6 p.m. to benefit the Sick and Elderly Program, a non-profit volunteer organization providing hospital equipment and medical supplies free of charge to residents of the Hill. Some 1,200 people attended the ravioli/roast beef/Italian bread/salad/dessert dinner. See Dan Tham’s video to view Joe DeGregorio, a Hill historian and tour guide, introduce several Hill residents.

Loren

Video by Dan

Gerald Early, 59, shares his experience with racial profiling in the wealthy St. Louis suburb, Frontenac. We sat down with him to discuss race in St. Louis and the next step for racial harmony. Early is the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters and director of the Center for the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis.

Video by Dan

For obvious reasons it’s hard to find a homeless city. No address. Hopeville, one of the three largest homeless camps in St. Louis, comes with nothing more than “north of The Arch, next to the river.”

But sure enough, it’s there at the end of Mullanphy Street, between the railroad tracks and the Mississippi River flood wall.  Tarps, tents, old rusty vans, fires in trash cans, dozens of cats, and a sign that says “Welcome to Hopeville” are all evidence of the civilization on the fringes of society. That, and the smell, which is a combination of unwashed people and campfire smoke.

The three of us approached the camp, and a man poked his head out of a van and waved. He was friendly, and we all shook hands. Loren explained our project and asked if there was someone the three of us could speak to, as if we were searching for a customer service representative rather than a spokesperson for a homeless camp.

He didn’t hesitate. “Big Mama,” he said.

Sorry, who?

“Big Mama.” He pointed.

Big Mama lumbered over to us. Within seconds it was clear that she was not only Big Mama, as in size 24 big, but big in position. Tedra “Big Mama” Franks was the mayor of Hopeville.

She had just woken up. She said she needed to sit down but, yes, of course she was the one we could talk to. She plopped down on a wooden swing, and pulled me down next to her. I almost didn’t fit, not because of her size, but because of her personality. Loren lugged over a green wing-backed armchair in great condition, fitting for a professor, and Dan settled down on a tree stump.

We had just rearranged Hopeville’s living room, making a conference room underneath a tree. Besides the faint smell when the wind changed, it was one of the more pleasant conference rooms I have ever been in, with its blue sky and warm sun. Freeing, somehow.

Big Mama began to talk, a skill at which she’s particularly adept. She didn’t hem and haw about anything either, despite the unsavory pieces of her past. Yes, she has anger management issues. Yes, she used to carry guns. Yes, she stabbed a man. Yes, she saw a friend shot and killed.

“That just gave me the mentality to trust no fuckin’ body,” she said. “Nobody.”

She’s also flown first class next to a woman in fur and diamonds, she told us, and held a steady job, and has a 6’ 10” basketball-playing son in college.

“I been Big Mama for 28 years. One of my passions other than cooking is doing hair.” She did kids’ hair. She was, quite literally, bigger than their mamas, so she lorded that over the fidgety children.

“I’m the Big Mama, you the Little Mama, so you better sit down and get your hair done,” she would tell them. They listened.

Big Mama, mayor of Hopeville

It’s her stunning ability to talk, her frankness in mediating disputes and her communication skills that have turned Big Mama in to the mayor of Hopeville. She’s the mouthpiece, the cook, the liaison, the mediator, the choir leader, the coordinator. The people of Hopeville came to her and said: “Look, we need somebody to speak up for us. You do it,” she remembered. “Because you’re not afraid.”

She talks to the TV cameras. She calls the vet. She lines up counselors. She feeds everyone.

“I’m the glue that sticks it all together,” she said.

Hopeville is at once the beginning and the end of a civilization. Many, though not all, of the people here are drunks or addicts or mentally ill. But a new establishment is rising up, somehow. At the very least there’s a mayor, and Big Mama’s role seems more than honorary.

According to the census, there are 34 permanent residents, meaning they own their tents, Big Mama said. Yes, Hopeville has a census. Seven black people, and the rest are white, she tells us when we ask.

Big Mama arrived in Hopeville a little more than a year ago. She remembers the events with an unnerving precision. On May 12, 2010, she was laid off. Her last paycheck arrived. On May 15, she came to Hopeville.

She’s been mayor for about two months. In her leadership role, she’s a no-nonsense woman. “You ain’t gonna win in a conversation,” Big Mama said. She doles out advice, and it’s not always pleasant. And don’t come to her if you’re not sober. You’ll have to deal with her anger management problem.

“I could be aggressive, especially when it comes to things I can’t tolerate, like sloppy drunks.”

Cooking is one way that Big Mama unwinds. Even the people she doesn’t get along with wonder when she’s going to make her next big meal.

“You ever had fried pizza on the grill?” she asked Dan, who was sitting across from her on his stump. He smiled and shook his head. She shot him a look and paused. Dan was wearing a sweater, diligently taking notes, and looking particularly clean-cut that morning. He looked like he’s never had fried pizza. “You ain’t ready,” she told him, and he nodded eagerly, agreeing.

Members of the outside community used to bring cheeseburgers, chili and pots of spaghetti. Big Mama needed to spice it up, so she started asking for the raw materials instead.

“I’ll find a way to glaze it, caramelize it, and put it on your plate so good, you don’t care what it tastes like.”

The last community meal she made was a bacon cheeseburger meatloaf on the grill, with cabbage, carrots, broccoli and potatoes smothered in a cheese sauce, accompanied by a huge pan of Jiffy cornbread.

Between her and the person she calls “her man,” she gets 400 food stamps a month. Hopeville coolers are filled with baloney, hot dogs and cheese. Big Mama’s cooler is full of rib tips and roasts.

But make no mistake, Hopeville is not a sentimental, fuzzy, welcoming place—one resident was stabbed to death in May. Its residents primarily operate autonomously.

“You look at us as a community. Each individual household has its own issue. You pull together when it’s true or right,” she said.

But Big Mama truly appears to care for the community. “As long as you a Christian, ain’t you supposed to share?”

It’s all about “a plan.” In her case the plan is played out according to a prophetic dream she had while in Baltimore about a homeless civilization, but the plan needs to be just as concrete as it is cosmic. Under Big Mama’s rule, if you don’t have a plan, you need to get one.

“You know what’s right to do: Let’s do it.”

She said she’s been approved for a shelter and care program, and she’ll move into a place around Nov. 15, after she’s able to provide proof of income through unemployment checks. Then she’ll work with a temp agency that will place her in light industry work.

“Now is the time to make up your mind. What are the areas I need to change?” Big Mama said.

Unsurprisingly Hopeville is headed for change as well. Not only does St. Louis want to clear out the homeless camp, but winter is coming. In a homeless city, Mother Nature’s caprice is more than just annoying. When the Mississippi rose over the levee, the camp flooded. “I started rolling like a river raft,” she said. Big Mama’s tent (she calls it her “estates”) started to rise up and float away.

“I don’t believe everybody will be able to be placed in a home, but I believe those that are able [will be]. Go out and handle your business,” she said.

The train rolled by, so close to the camp it looked like it would barrel a couple of tents over. It runs through Hopeville eight times a day.

“We so used to it, it’s nothing,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the metallic clamor. “It don’t even exist no more.”

Hopeville’s name began as a mockery of what the tent city stood for—people at the end of their ropes, without jobs, without stability, without any kind of permanence in society. But like the noise of the train, Big Mama has grown accustomed, maybe even numb, to the harsh conditions of Hopeville to find a different kind of peace.

“It might have started out as a joke,” Big Mama said, “but I really found hope when I got back down here.”

Alyssa

Doug Moore, president of the Missouri Chapter of National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association

“In a city like New York, they have happy hour every week,” joked Doug Moore, the Missouri Chapter President of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association. With only ten members in the Missouri branch of NLGJA, which includes journalists from as far away as Nebraska and Iowa, Moore explained that weekly gatherings of gay and lesbian journalists in St. Louis for cocktails would be virtually impossible.

Moore, 48, was born in Neosho, Mo., a town of 10,000 in southwest Missouri, and raised Southern Baptist. “Every Sunday we were told these people are sinners and are going to hell,” Moore recalled. “You always romanticize your childhood. But my life was threatened and I was called ‘fag.’” Moore didn’t come out until his mid-30s.

Moore currently serves as diversity and demographics reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He came out in a big way in 2004, by helping found the Missouri chapter of NLGJA to prevent newsrooms from “bungling gay coverage.” Having served as president for the past four years, Moore believes that every newsroom needs an advocate for LGBT issues.

He gave us the example of a reporter covering a woman horse trainer at Rainbow Ranch. The reporter didn’t know and didn’t ask about the woman’s partner, even with the “rainbow flag flying above the sign for Rainbow Ranch,” Moore recalled with a chuckle. For instances like these, Moore feels a responsibility to educate fellow journalists.

“There is a hesitancy. They don’t want to make that person [being interviewed] uncomfortable,” and they don’t want to be uncomfortable themselves.

Moore is thankful that his paper is supportive of him. He strongly encourages other gay journalists to come out. “If you just have straight white guys running the newsrooms, you would have very narrow coverage. I think I’ve added a lot more stories that wouldn’t have been in the paper.”

Dan

Holbrook performed a part of Huckleberry Finn and recounted Twain’s version of his life: “I didn’t want to work. All I wanted was employment. So I became a newspaper reporter.” Twain learned from his first editor: “First get the facts. Then you can distort them as much as you please.”

Otherwise Holbrook spent most of the night targeting human depravity and hypocrisy— Christianity, Congress and the press. He especially attacked the silent lie (“the unspoken one, you simply keep still”). Holbrook not merely performed but also polished Twain’s lines, increasing their power with his exquisite timing.

We wangled our way into a post-performance reception with Holbrook who, upon hearing about our Twain trip, recommended that we visit Twain’s cabin at Jackass Hill in the Sierras. See what he said in this video.

Loren Ghiglione

Video by Dan