Sallie Maranda (Guthrie, Knox) Fiske (Mc Conelly). Pioneering woman journalist, Activist, Writer

Sallie Maranda Fiske.  

Sallie in 1984

After I had sort of settled into my life in California, in early 1984, I decided to get involved with the Democratic Party, so I went to a meeting of Stonewall Democratic Club.   That meeting was at the Frog Pond restaurant, which was owned by a community activist, Bob White.  The Frog pond was on Hyperion Avenue in the Silverlake section of Los Angeles, at Lyric Ave.  There is a theater there now.

Sallie was working the table at the door, signing up members and welcoming guests.  Our eyes met and it was love at first sight.  Not romantic love, but a deep sense of "knowing" a kindred spirit, a fellow sojourner on the road of life.  Her melodious voice, quick wit and humor reeled me in, and we remained friends until she died.

It was an exciting time to be in the Gay community in Los Angeles.  Things were happening, we actually had some political clout, California was the only place in the country where "Gay Rights" was not a losing issue in the numerous ballot initiatives that were taking away our liberties in every other part of the country.  

But the most important thing that was happening was the creation of the City of West Hollywood.  "WeHo" as it's now called, was a 1.9 sq. mile enclave between Hollywood and Beverly Hills that had escaped annexation by the City of Los Angeles in the 1920s.  At the time, most of it was owned by a few families who were involved in agriculture.  It's hard to imagine bean fields on the site of Cedars-Sinai hospital, the Beverly Center, and even the Sunset Strip, but that was the case.   In the 50s and 60s, the area got built up with apartment buildings, so over 85% of the city's residents were (and still are) renters.  A very loose county rent control ordinance was set to expire at the end of 1984, so locals had organized to incorporate the area into a city which would then be able to enact it's own rent control ordinances.  

Because the Los Angeles Police Department did not patrol West Hollywood,  many Gay bars and businesses had sprung up, and a large presence of gay men lived in the area.  So the prospect of "city hood" also meant the prospect of Gay self determination for the first time in the history of the world.  Those of you familiar with the town of Eatonville in central Florida might understand this.  For us, it was a BIG deal, and Stonewall was front and center in the effort, including running it's own candidate, the lovely and vivacious Valerie Terrigno (pronounced "Torino") for city council.

I had taken an apartment in West Hollywood at 946 N. Curson.  With a comfortable living room, and my bountiful Southern hospitality, my apartment soon became abuzz with Stonewall steering committee meetings, other political planning, etc.   At the dawn of the AIDS epidemic, then state senator David Roberti would introduce ground breaking legislation regarding anonymity at HIV test sites, and other laws to protect the privacy of persons regarding HIV.  Most of that legislation was drafted in my living room with the Stonewall steering committee and Sen. Roberti's deputy to the GLBTQ community, Richard Lavoie (deceased).

Richard & Valerie 1984

Cityhood came, Valerie was elected and then elected mayor by her peers.  Within four months, her enemies in our (GLBTQ) community tipped off a scandal regarding misappropriated funds.  Valerie went down in flames, taking her then partner, Sallie, down with her.

1985

Sallie had opened a weekly paper in the city, The West Hollywood Paper, which was a critical and artistic success, but a business catastrophe.  Her business partner, who was supposed to handle the advertising and revenues, turned out to be incapable of doing either.  In order to get rid of him, she spent the rest of her capital to buy him out, then the Valerie thing happened, people abandoned the paper and Sallie in droves.  

Early on, I had caught Valerie in a significant lie, and distanced myself from her, and the Stonewall efforts to get her elected.  If someone asked, I told them why, otherwise, I kept my mouth shut, it was Valerie's candidacy, and there was enough cannibalism and misogyny to go around without me adding to it.  When the scandal broke, I quietly reminded the very people who had been singing her praises and now wanted to string her up, that she might be a very damaged person, but she was not malevolent, and that if she went down, we would go down with her.  

I discovered the reception that "the messenger" gets when folks pulled away from me because of my loyalty to Sallie. We "queer" people are very damaged by the rampant homophobia in society, and we use that damage to feed on each other.  When someone messes up, we jump on them very harshly and with little to no forgiveness.   When I was hired at "Aid for AIDS", one of the board members told me that when asked about me, long time activist Morris Kight said, "He seems okay, but he has questionable friends."   Later in my attempts to get a job in the GLBTQ community, I would find that my friendship with Sallie would be thrown up as a reason for caution.   At the end of 1985, while recovering from an auto accident, I became homeless.  An acquaintance at my church offered the loft in his photography studio downtown, but I had to be gone between 9 AM and 7 PM.  It was a warm bed, and I was glad to take it.

Sallie had been living in the Hollywood Tower on Franklin, but was one of the last tenants to be evicted before the renovation that restored it to it's former glory, and the current grand residence it is.  She had moved into Valerie's old apartment on Waring.  She called me up and said, "There's a bedroom in the back you can move into if you don't mind cleaning it out."  So I moved in with Sallie and we were housemates for almost two years.

Sallie lived in the world like that of most folks who grew up with wealth and servants, and who now had neither.  While she had exquisite taste, and a genuinely gifted "eye" for lovely things, she was completely unequipped to do basic house keeping.  So we lived in exquisite squalor.  Any cleaning that got done was done by me.  I once found her in kitchen, washing a dish under a tap running warm water, no detergent, no soap.  Her back problems made dusting or using a vacuum cleaner on the shag carpet impossible.  Again, I would do it when I couldn't' stand it anymore, but with my allergies, anything that stirred dust sent me into sneezing fits.  It was our own version of "Gray Gardens" and all we could do was laugh at our plight and make the best of it.  

Sallie's grandmother Knox, had come to California in the 1850s from Kentucky as a 12 year old, in an ox drawn wagon.  The family had sold out of Kentucky, knowing the civil war was coming.  They came to California, first northern CA, eventually settling in what is now Orange California.  The had an "orange ranch" and grew oranges and other produce and farm products.  Sallie grew up in rural Orange county, going to Catholic schools (she was not, but her parents believed they were better academically).

Grandparents on the ranch near Tustin & Chapman in Orange CA

early 1920s

Two views of the ranch house, long gone in the name of "progress."

Her father, Frank Fiske, was a journalist who wrote for the Hearst paper, The Los Angeles Herald Tribune.  Her mother was an actress who moved to Hollywood to seek her fortune.   In their youth, both living with roommates, they found a lovely park in which to rendezvous and "spark."  It was always late at night, very dimly lit, perfect for finding a bench and making out.  Imagine their laughter when one day, they drove by in the daylight and discovered it was "Hollywood Forever", before the wall around it had been built.  Their early courtship started in a cemetery.  

Early childhood photos

Sallie grew up fairly normally in Orange County.  She had a passion for journalism, selling her first story to the (then Santa Ana, now) Orange County Register at the age of 12.  Like most teenage girls, she had a fascination for boys, particularly the "Mexican" boys whose families worked on the ranch, and in the the community.  In her very formal white world, the Mexican servants represented warmth and genuine loving affection.  In much the same way that Black servants presented that love to upper class Southern Whites.  Sallie always felt at home, in fact more so at home, with Mexicans, than she ever felt with Whites.  

We made about two trips a year to Tijuana to buy her blood pressure medicine, as well as other pharmaceuticals and items.    I genuinely learned the depth of the "warmth of Mexico" from Sallie.  She had been going to "T.J." since she was a child, it was a remnant of her childhood, less changed than the paved over suburban landscape that had once been her parents beloved ranch.  She always hated coming back to the U.S.

On the pier at the Rosarito Beach Inn, mid 90s

my nephew Michael offering her a flower.

Sallie graduated Fullerton College and moved to Los Angeles in the late 40s to pursue her own career in journalism, and it was a stellar one.  She was one of the first women to work in television news, both on and off camera.  She was the producer for Baxter Ward, a famed news anchor in Los Angeles, who went on to become a successful politician.  She wrote, she produced and in the 1970s, had an afternoon talk show on KCOP, an independent TV station in LA.  Her show, sort of an "Oprah" without an audience, offered intelligent interviews for the daytime audience, a thought filled alternative to soap operas, that was quite successful.  http://articles.latimes.com/2004/mar/02/local/me-fiske2

Early 1950s, Sallie loved glamour

But her other life was that of a Lesbian, and she paid dearly for it.  She had married, and had a daughter, Deborah.  Her husband was also in news, and both of them were strong willed people.  At some point, she ended up in bed with another woman, and like most of us, experienced a flood of passions that she had never felt.  She moved herself and her young daughter out, and filed for a divorce.  When her husband realized what was going on, and ran into her one night at a restaurant, with a woman better looking than the one he was with, his emotions turned dark.  He told her that her lifestyle made her an unfit mother, and if she did not give Deborah up for adoption, he would "out" her to her job, and everyone else.  This was the very early 1950s, the beginning of the Mc Carthy era.  His threat might as well have been murder, so in great agony, she agreed.

After she died, a mutual friend Norman Stanley, told me that for years after the adoption, she would drive to the school where Deborah was enrolled, and sit in her car on the street next to the play ground, just so she could see her and watch her play, hoping and praying that she was okay, and longing for her.  Deborah moved to Paris, had a daughter, named her Sallie.  They saw each other in the 70s on a visit, but it was too painful to maintain the relationship.

High School 

At Fullerton College with Norman Stanley

Years later, in 1977, when Anita Bryant launched her "Save Our Children (from homosexuality)" campaign, Sallie could no longer remain silent.  She took an afternoon of her show to talk about the issue of attacking another group of people, passing exclusionary laws, like "Jim Crow" in the South, the interment of Japanese Americans in WWII, the passage of the anti gay and anti jewish laws in Nazi Germany, and how fundamentally wrong the initiative in Miami was.  She included a discussion about her own situation, being a Lesbian, having to surrender her child in the face of blackmail, all because of fear and hatred.   The response of her very "liberal" television station was to cancel her show of seven years, and fire her for unprofessional conduct (basically telling her own story on the air).  Sallie was never able to get a job anywhere in journalism for the rest of her life, and it "broke" her beyond description.  Like many of us who are "different", she battled with depression for he rest of her life.

At the collapse of her paper, having spent all of her inheritance trying to launch it, she retreated into a subsistence life, taking free lance work when she could get it, spending most of her days at home, close to her beloved typewriter.  But we occasionally got out to participate in demonstrations for causes that were important to her.

Sallie's sign read, "Honk if you've had one"

I would occasionally mention her name in activist circles and the response was universal, a long sigh, a compliment, and the conversation would move on.  Only Ivy Bottini would ask about her, and it was clear that Ivy had a deep affection for Sallie, as did many women.  Sallie however longed for what we call a "glamour dyke" or a "Lipstick Lesbian," a woman who was wired similarly to herself.  But in her depressed, isolated squalor, with poorly fitting teeth, she had given up on that dream too.

She lived with horrific phobias, driving without a license for twenty seven years because every time she went into the DMV to renew, she stopped breathing.  It is a type of fear that many "minority" people suffer with.  The world gradually, or not so gradually, becomes a mine field, and one lives with the panic of wondering when we will land on a social land mine and get another foot or leg blown off.  Many GLBTQ folks live with this, and it is why many people of color very rarely ever completely trust or reveal themselves to white people.

Sallie finally got her license, after being arrested for driving without one, and having her car confiscated.  The only way she could get it back was getting her license, which she had to do from scratch, including a birth certificate.  When she got the license, and her tiny Dodge Colt back, she showed me the license.  "Look at this photo, I look like Satan" she offered.  Her complexion was gray, even beyond the usual gray from years of smoking.  I realized later that the digital media had picked up something that our eyes had not, the seeds of her end.

But the safety she found in her isolation also became very suffocating.  I moved out after a couple of years.  As with anyone who got too close to her, she retreated into her fears of unworthiness and began isolating in her room when I was home.  But I continued to see her, at least once a week.  I had an RV and would drag her to the beach in it, I even took her to New Mexico to meet Margaret and "McKay"(Day Four of this series).

Sallie would often say, "You never give up do you?  You just keep going back for more, no matter what."  I would reply, "Yes, because the day I stop is the day I begin dying."  Her response would be to tell me that she was cursed, "All the women in my family live to be in their 90s."

I pushed technology onto her.  A self correcting IBM Selectric was as far as she wanted to go.  Finally, when my mother's dementia rendered her incapable of using her "WebTV", I gave it to Sallie.  As was her custom, she complained, protested and nay sayed.  As was my custom, I ignored her.  To her own surprise, she loved it, becoming proficient at both eMail and web surfing.  The internet was a journalists dream, the world at her fingertips on her television.  Even Sallie enjoyed this change, though she was loath to admit it.

We were talking about creating an online "paper" using her masthead and graphics from the West Hollywood Paper.  She was actually beginning to see that the end of "paper" was approaching.  She didn't like it, but she grudgingly realized it was happening.  We had decided that getting her a real computer, and creating a web presence, what we would now call a BLOG, would be a good project to undertake. 

I was working on getting her a real computer and I was able to arrange for her to buy a Chrysler convertible from a friend who was getting a smaller car with lighter doors.  Sallie loved convertibles, having only had two hard topped cars in her life.  She was driving the Dodge Colt, which she had grown to respect, but the magic of a convertible was always her passion.  When she picked up that Chrysler, the little girl grin came back

About six months later, she mentioned to me that she was seeing a doctor for treatment of "These cysts I've got on my body."  I asked her more about them and she diminished their importance.

Very soon, the "cysts" became larger and larger.  She became increasingly gray and thin, all the while insisting she was fine.  

Our last dinner together, she got down two bites, maybe three of a Monte Cristo sandwich.  She brushed back the corner of her blouse, and I saw a golf ball size tumor on her shoulder blade.  I realized she was writing the story of her passing, and that like the rest of her life, she didn't want any intrusions into how she wanted to leave this world.  The first part of the story was the avoidance of any conversation that might actually allude to it.  "The doctor can't seem to figure out what to do about the cysts" she reported.  It was clear that she was riddled with them internally and they were finally growing out of her skin.  I made a conscious decision to honor her story by not sharing what I knew, to maintain silence about her impending demise.  She abhorred sympathy, or any of the maudlin sort of behaviors we associate with death.  I respected that, and let her be.

My last visit with Sallie, shortly before she passed.

The week before she died, she asked me to bring her some "Slim Fast"  "The Ensure is too thick, I can't get it down."  So I brought a couple of cases, remembering her love of chocolate and strawberry, and disdain for vanilla anything.  She told me, "When I get better, I want you to help me rearrange some furniture."  I said sure.    A few days later her housemate Jack called me, he had gone into her room to check her and she was cold.  She had died at home in bed, and I was grateful that such a loving gentle soul had passed in the privacy of the world that she had surrounded herself with, her grandmother's beloved Spode china, the crystal glasses, silver flatware, her art pieces, all of which reflected a better time in her life.

She had died years earlier when she was shoved out of the life she so loved, being at the forefront of "breaking news," "watching the body turn cold" (as she would say).

Her body had finally caught up with the earlier quiet passage out of the mainstream of life, too soon, too painfully, all because her sense of integrity got the best of her, and she didn't have the fight in her to re-invent herself and stay in the game.

Sallie was not at all fearless.  She was in fact, a beautiful little girl, with child like wonderment for life, and that child got raped and pillaged by the hatred and prejudices of this world.  In my profession, one of the things we do is help people become their own loving and protective parent.  For many reasons I won't go into, Sallie was never able to do that, and suffered deeply for it.

But that vulnerability also enabled her to see into the future in ways that most people avoid because we are too invested in the status quo.  The first meeting Stonewall had after West Hollywood became a city was a forum to discuss the creation of "Domestic Partnerships" for GLBTQ people UNTIL we could get marriage equality.

In 1984, she understood that we would not be completely "free" until we could have our love blessed and ensconced by the same laws that straight people take for granted.  Destroying that barrier was for her, the core of our "rights" and she was the first person I know to publicly engage the question in an open forum.  It was from that forum that the impetus to enact current Domestic Partnership laws in the new city of West Hollywood, Los Angeles county, and other jurisdictions arose. 

One day we were having dinner at the French Quarter restaurant on the patio and one of the first Toyota Prius's went by.  She looked at me and said, "Do you realize that we are witnessing the end of the internal combustion engine?" 

Her intellect and achievements were celebrated by those who came to memorialize her.  Malcolm Boyd said it best of her writing and perspectives, "She was just so damn good."  

Her remains are in a mausoleum space, loving donated by Hollywood Forever, where her parents first started out, she is resting from her burdens.

Sallie was another of my friends who encouraged me to write.  That wish for me echoes in the chambers of my heart, and I hope that I am honoring her legacy and her wish.

Merry Christmas,  Ed