Queer Places:
714 St Peter, New Orleans, LA 70130
Metairie Cemetery New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, USA

Samuel Louis Gilmore, Jr (September 24, 1891 - September 28, 1972) was a New Orleans poet, former associate magazine editor, and World War I veteran. In 1927 New Orleans Life magazine had a two-part feature on "Popular Bachelors of New Orleans." Seven were famous creoles, and three or four of those - William Spratling, Weeks Hall, Sam Gilmore, and probably one other - were homosexual, or at least not exclusively heterosexual. The same could be said of Lyle Saxon, Cicero Odiorne, and Pops Whitesell - at least a half-dozen famous creoles altogether. Some - Spratling and Saxon - were very discreet. Weeks Hall and Sam Gilmore were another matter.

Samuel Louis Gilmore, Jr, was the son of Samuel Louis Gilmore (1858-1910), a US Congressman, and Martha Frazer Nolan (1864-1946). He graduated from Columbus University's Class of 1916. He was the author of "Vine, Leaves and Flowers of Evil" and was on the staff of the "Double Dealer", a famous literary monthly published in New Orleans in the 1920's. The volume was a double work, the first part being a collection of Gilmore's poems and the second section a translation of the poetry of Baudelaire.

The New Orleans Illustrated News, December 1920, announced that The Double Dealer's first issue would be forthcoming in January and that its motto would be "a plague on both your houses." This motto would change. The covert were drawn by artist Olive Leonhardt until June 1922, when she left for an extended European trip. Beginning in August 1922, an enlarged double-faced Roman coin appeared on each cover. According to the Illustrated Nears in December 1920, The Double Dealer editors would be Julius Friend, Basil Thompson, Paul Godchaux, Jr., and Albert Goldstein; its advisory council would include John McClure, Sam Gilmore, Olive Lyons, Gideon Stanton, W. Weeks Hall, and Marguerite Samuels, However, Weeks Hall name never appeared in any capacity. Lyle Saxon was initially listed as a staff member but his name quickly disappeared from the monthly publications. Natalie Scott published reviews of each Double Dealer issue, from its 1921 beginning until its 1926 demise.

In May 1921 Natalie Scott and Sam Gilmore wrote a farcical play, What, Again?, that became the featured production at Le Petit Théatre. Helen Schertz played the lead role. Lyle Saxon gave the comedy a glowing review in the Times-Picayune, as did the enthusiastic New Orleans Illustrated News, spicing their critiques with photographs from the production.

Natalie Scott made her second French Quarter restoration during February 1922, after purchasing a century-old, double-level, Creole-style cottage at 714 St. Peter. She cleaned, repaired, and repainted the place, again inexpensively leasing space to artists and writers and leaving it to her tenants to decorate their abodes as they pleased. Sam Gilmore became one of her lodgers here; years later he purchased the place from her. Oliver La Farge became another tenant, living here from 1925 until he left New Orleans in 1929 after finishing his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Laughing Boy.

In 1926 Pelican Bookshop Press, New Orleans, published "William Spratling and William Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles: A Gallery of Contemporary New Orleans", issued in 250 copies. The “Famous Creoles” (with ages in 1926) were


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