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I had a bunch of fun ideas about things I definitely wanted to send her off to campus with, both in her physical and emotional arsenals, but again I decided to put out the question to the thousands of folks in my social media circles: what one thing do you wish you’d known before you left home after high school? What was something your parents taught you - or didn’t - that was so helpful? I don’t know if I just know a bunch of super helpful and thoughtful folks or if I just posted at the right bored time on a Saturday morning (or both!) but the comments went on for days and were just so lovely and amazing. Some things they suggested we already had on our list, some things Lucy already knew, some things aren’t pertinent to us. And some things I didn’t even know yet so I learned alongside our daughter. Which is actually the truest testament to parenting, I’ve found. After 22 years now in this parenting gig I’m still realizing we’re all just learning this together as we go.

So many people have told me how amazing the comments and list was and how they were going to save it to use with their children and teens as well, so I compiled the comments together, deleting the duplicates, into a more palatable and usable format than weeding through several hundred Facebook comments in an old post. I was overwhelmed with the response and kindness of so many people and with the number of things we needed to teach Lucy before she left our nest, so I sorted them into a document and that really helped make it feel more manageable. I divided them out loosely into these sections: general life advice, safety, college, body/health, renting an apartment/house, to buy/get, car maintenance, kitchen, money, and household. You can read all 168 of them below and also download to save and/or print them as a free PDF. We’ve actually added to this over the years and used this list again with my middle daughter, Alice, who I just moved out of our home and into the dorm at college yesterday. (I’m a bit of an emotional mess at the moment and she called me at 2am crying and homesick so we’re all struggling but I know from experience now it will be fine!)

After reading them let me know if there’s something we missed or forgot because I’ve found so much help online from all of you as we navigate this world as parents and learning and growing and sharing our wisdom has made me a better mother and a better person. I hope this helps you, too.

THINGS TO TEACH OUR CHILDREN OR DO FOR THEM BEFORE THEY LEAVE THE NEST

(Thanks to so many of Amy’s Facebook friends and Instagram followers for the best advice ever suggested in February of 2021!)

1. You always have a place here and are always welcome home.

2. How to read a map.

3. How to make an appointment or get information over the phone.

4. How to think & communicate about sexuality, bodies, and consent.

5. Hold onto that people that are awesome and will show up for you.

6. How to address and stamp an envelope.

7. Memorize your social security number.

8. How to leave a clear phone message.

9. When you choose someone to carry your heart, make sure they are worthy. Teach them to watch how this person treats waiters, cashiers and fast food workers. Their behavior tells you everything you need to know.

10. Set a schedule and write it down on a calendar or day planner – you don’t always have to abide by it but having it there for reference or if things get hard to complete will help.

11. Travel as much as possible, experience other cultures and how others live, even if it’s within your own state or city or neighborhood – adventure doesn’t always have to cost a lot of money or be far away.

12. To try new things, even if they are intimidating – including new restaurants from cultures different than your own.

13. To treat others with respect even when they haven’t treated you with respect.

14. Think about a worse case scenario and be prepared for it but don’t dwell on it.

15. Don’t be in a hurry to know and do everything - part of the process of growing yourself is the journey.

16. By the way you never stop learning and growing.

17. Speaking your mind won’t kill you, but not speaking your mind just might.

18. Honesty is the key to good relationships.

19. Listen to your intuition, it’s always right.

20. Follow your dreams, because it’s just as easy to fail at something you don’t want to do.

21. Always be respectful and have good manners.

22. If they are lonely— honor the feeling, reach out, practice patience.

23. You don’t own anyone anything, but yourself.

24. Know that some people are in your life to teach you something, and not because you need to have them in your life forever.

25. If you have anything ‘big’ to tell us (e.g. you’ve realized you’re gay, you’re pregnant, you’ve been arrested, you’ve decided to change your religion), please tell us ASAP. We promise to try and stay calm. (Although, we will have questions, especially if you’ve been arrested).

26. Be on time for work and for your friends. If you feel like they won’t notice or care, or if it doesn’t matter or that you don’t matter, you might be depressed or in a negative situation. You might need a different job, new friends, new friends, a good counselor, or medication to treat an illness.

27. Think about the affect your words and actions have on others and decide to do or say accordingly.

28. Keep reading books.

29. Lean into what you resist- resistance is a telegram from your future self urging you to take a look at something that always turns out to be a good idea.

30. No matter how hard the moment, things will always be okay... you life is testimony that you have a 100% success rate.

Safety:

31. Simple self-defense.

32. Never leave a drunk girlfriend at a party - get her home.

33. Have a safe word with a good friend.

34. Tell someone you trust where you are going and with who.

35. If you get in a car with someone, take a picture of them and the car and the license plate or send Uber info to someone.

36. Not all adults are as trustworthy as they appear.

37. And it is okay to say no to anyone, especially an employer.

38. ALWAYS trust you inner voice even if it is opposite those you trust.

39. Teach wilderness/camping safety.

40. Put emergency numbers in your phone (police, roadside assistance, family).

41. Memorize your own phone number and two family members.

42. It’s ok to value your own safety over the other person’s feelings - politeness is good, but trust your instincts always.

43. Don’t be afraid to take trips by yourself but always let someone know where you’re going.

44. Have a trusted friend or tutor or someone you can call any time you don’t feel safe or comfortable or you’re in a situation you can’t handle on your own. If all else fails, call us and we will come get you. No questions asked. Promise not to spend the journey home lecturing or yelling at you. Everyone makes mistakes, especially when you’re young. We won’t hold that against you.

45. Never be afraid to get professional advice or help on anything involving money, health, the law, or household utilities. None of us can know everything.

College:

46. How to keep life organized on their phone and on a calendar at home.

47. If they are going off to college, time management. (And phone alarms and timers can be so helpful!)

48. Classes, Homework, job and then down time for friends.

49. Also create a group of friends from your classes. It’s great for help with homework and takes the sting out of making new friends.

50. Don’t tell new friends everything about you right away, some people are not worthy of your entire life. Keep it light and build slowly.

51. When you are getting to know new people and wonder if they will be good to you, listen to how they talk about previous friends/lovers. Listen to how they express anger. As you are learning how to listen to your needs, practice asking for the small things in relationships so you can see that people who care about you will want to find ways for everyone to get their needs met.

52. It’s okay if they change their mind on what they want.

53. It’s okay to ask for help – teach them who the experts are.

54. Take the strange classes that sound interesting and fun even if they don’t help your major.

55. With every news story, every history lesson, every book ask who is centered, who has the most power in the situation and the narrative, and what other truths are there if you look harder.

56. How to manage conflict with friends and roommates.

57. Call your mom. And your dad.

58. Find friends who aren’t your roommates! I mean, be friends with your roommate, but don’t let them be the only person you hang out with. Also, good friends don’t always make good roommates, and vice versa.

59. It’s ok to change goals, majors, directions at any time.

60. Volunteer and do unpaid internships if you have time. This will boost your resume in amazing ways.

61. Do not miss class unless you are sick.

62. Seek services you need from school ie: counseling, study groups, student associations, health center, tutoring, mentoring, clothing and food banks.

63. Know where emergency phones are on campus and which building are open at night.

64. Travel in pairs and leave no one behind, leave alone w NO one, have pepper spray and practice using it.

65. If you realize you want to leave college or change courses, again, let us know ASAP. You’re young, and people change their minds, and sometimes what you initially decide isn’t what you thought it was, and that’s OK. We will try and help you. Also, talk to your tutors, counsellors etc. - they will have dealt with this before.

66. Do your homework, but learn to determine the importance of each assignment and apply the appropriate amount of energy accordingly.

67. Choose a profession or trade and train to be the best you can be.

Body/health:

68. Set up auto refill and auto text for your medications at your nearest pharmacy and always take them at the same time every day (set an alarm if you need help remembering).

69. Liquor/drugs – how to manage both safely and in a fun way.

70. Sex ed, safety, prevention, basics, birth control – how and why and when for all of it.

71. Eat a balanced diet, which for us means a wide variety of foods, and drink lots of water.

72. Get outside every day.

73. Always carry hand sanitizer, bandaids, a maxi pad and a granola bar in your purse or backpack

74. Fill one large Nalgene water bottle every morning and commit to drinking it all by the end of the day and take it with you everywhere (if you drink more than one even better!).

75. Know how much sleep you need to feel your best and if you don’t get it a few nights in a row you’re going to need to catch up.

76. Gratitude, this is the single most thing I wish I would have remembered each day when I was going through the most difficult times, we always have something to be grateful for, let it outweigh the challenges.

77. How to make a medical or dental appointment.

78. Have fun. Don’t take your self too seriously.

79. How to make a decision about whether you’re having a medical emergency or not.

80. Feeling lost and overwhelmed? Go spend a few hours in a library...you are always welcome, don’t need to spend money, and have access to amazing inspiration and mentoring through the pages.

81. Know about your medical insurance and coverage.

82. What medicines should never be mixed.

83. If you are overwhelmed call me. Have a bad day plan like this – call someone you know, do yoga, cry into your pillow, stay in bed and watch your favorite show, eat ice cream. We all have bad days and having a plan in place to help you get through them is important.

84. Learn to breathe and do the 5-4-3-2-1 exercise and download the meditation app or Relax Melodies.

85. Pay attention to your body and emotions. Learn to recognize and identify what feelings and activities feel good, bad, or indifferent to yourself, without putting any importance in the analysis to what anyone else might think. BUT, in most cases, before you decide whether you like or dislike something, try it at least 3-5 times. Sometimes a person can’t discern discomfort in something new from dislike. However, notice the difference between feeling something is wrong or harmful to yourself or others and honest dislike.

86. Never focus on parts of your body as being more important than other parts of your body. This includes the idea that the brain and intelligence is somehow separate and different from your body, or that feelings don’t matter. They all need each other to work to full potential. Imbalances between our bodies, minds, and feelings cause big problems.

87. Take many walks; drive as little as possible. Look, listen, and feel while you walk. Let you brain do what it does, but in some situations you will need to keep a bit of your brain focused on personal safety.

88. Always dress for the circumstances and the occasion. Find a balance among comfort, safety, purpose, and fashion.

Renting an apartment/house:

89. Make sure you set up utilities in advance before moving into a new place and know which utilities you are responsible for.

90. Don’t ever become financially dependent on someone else in regards to living arrangements. Make sure you can pay your rent on your own.

91. Where the main water shutoff is.

92. Buy renters insurance.

93. Even if your lease is expiring you still have to give notice.

94. Document the rental you’re moving in to in writing and with photos - for any and all possible damage - BEFORE you move in.

95. Have an extra set of house keys with a friend.

96. Where the breaker box is.

97. How to clean an oven.

98. How to do a change of address with post office.

99. Who to call to turn on/off utilities.

100. Have an emergency evacuation plan.

101. Buy a fire extinguisher

To buy/get:

102. A variety box of cards, envelopes and stamps to have on hand to send or write to friends and family.

103. Kitchen basics.

104. Sewing kit.

105. First Aid Kit + a basic at home med-kit in a tool box for the dorm, including fever reducer, Benadryl, anti-nausea, anti-itch cream, thermometer, band aids etc.

106. A tool set and teach them to use it.

107. Flip flops for dorm shower.

108. In case of emergency file with social security card, medical card, important paperwork, contracts divided into manila folders and kept somewhere safe.

109. A passport.

Car maintenance:

110. How to identify all car parts including dipsticks and check fluids.

111. Buy AAA student car insurance/coverage if they have a car and how to call for AAA for roadside repairs (put the number in your phone and your jockey box).

112. How to call for car repairs, tire change.

113. What to do if in a car accident.

114. Buy jumper cables and show them how to jump a car.

115. How to check air in tires and add air.

116. Have an extra set of car keys with a friend or hidden at home.

117. Driving in mountains/snow.

118. How to clean snow off car.

119. How to fill with gas and never go below a quarter tank.

120. Car registration.

121. Drivers license renewal.

122. Window washer fluid.

123. Timing belts.

124. Odometer, how to read it and use it.

125. Car kit: first aid, blanket, water, jumper cables, chains if winter and how to put them on, insurance card, quarters.

Kitchen:

126. How to cut and use various knives.

127. Print or put together favorite family recipes in book or binder to take.

128. Budget for groceries.

129. Make a pantry staples/spices box to send to new apartment or small version for dorm along with a favorite special mug, cup, bowl, spoon, etc.

130. Cook easy meals – and master at least one breakfast, lunch and dinner recipe.

131. Master one good dish or dessert to take to parties, events, birthdays, dinner parties.

132. How to find a recipe, read it, find and buy all the ingredients, and make the meal.

133. How to open a bottle of wine and champagne.

134. How to saute vegetables.

135. Meat temperatures and cooking.

Money:

136. How to write a check.

137. How to file taxes online.

138. Savings account.

139. Always make sure you have the fund to cover bills in advance.

140. Always keep some cash on hand or hidden.

141. Talk about credit cards and establishing and maintaining good credit.

142. Roth IRAs and 401Ks.

143. If you want to build credit, you usually need at least 3 lines.

144. Good debt vs. bad debt.

145. How to budget.

146. Never spend your last $20 ( or $100) unless it is a dire emergency.

147. Give us a list of credit card numbers and expiration dates in case wallet is lost.

148. Bills before thrills!!!

149. Teach them price comparison shopping (looking at a tag at grocery store how much it is per unit so you know the better deal).

150. Have a change jar for coins (and cash them in at the bank when it’s full!).

151. How to open a bank account & check the balances and fees and charges.

152. Overdraft protection.

153. Loans.

154. Only get a $500 credit card for emergencies only...and pay it off every month. Debt is a killer.

155. Understand compound interest.

156. Don’t lend large amounts of money to friends.

157. Don’t spend money on stuff that doesn’t move you toward your goals. Stuff is is just more work and responsibility anyway.

158. The importance of a good credit score and actions that impact your score.

Household:

159. How to iron.

160. How to sew a button on and mend a small hole by hand.

161. How to use a First Aid Kit and do CPR.

162. How to turn the water off at the wall behind the toilet tank.

163. Fire prevention/response.

164. How to use caulk, WD-40, spackle, etc.

165. How to fix a drain clog or toilet clog.

166. How to clean a toilet.

167. Laundry.

168. What cleaning supplies should never be mixed!

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I’ve written and spoken for decades now about the body positive practice of taking selfies as a radical tool in body acceptance. Seeing your body, and parts of it that you struggle with, from all angles helps so much in accepting it.

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I first heard of Stella from my friend Justin, who is the tourism director in Pendleton, and shortly after stumbled across The Old Pros podcast (highly recommend this listen!) about her legacy and the women who keep her important work alive, Pam Severe and her daughter Brooke McKay (who I get to work with as part of Interwoven Oregon!). Born Stella Louella Richardson in 1902, in her early 20s she operated a six woman brothel called The Cosy Rooms downtown Pendleton which operated from 1928-1967. There were other brothels nearby in the red light district of Pendleton, as well as Chinese businesses and rentals.

Underneath it all were a series of tunnels that led from basement business to basement business, often used for old storage, coal storage, sleeping quarters for many Chinese and, of course, gambling and secret saloons, especially during the years that vices like that were illegal. Luckily for us many of the tunnels remain, and the Pendleton Underground Tour is such a fun way to see some of them. The sex workers and Stella were not welcomed into the rest of the Pendleton society, and Stella worked hard to both protect and advocate for her girls.

She created a chapel inside the brothel where a traveling preacher came by to tend to the workers’ and boarders’ spiritual needs and she helped them all get educations and healthcare both inside and outside The Cosy Rooms. By all historic accounts, Stella was also very generous within the community, putting financial support towards downtown improvements, schools and children (this is the case for all the Western madams I have researched this summer thus far - they were mostly all philanthropists!). Stella died in 1977 in Walla Walla, Washington.

Pam Severe grew up in Pendleton and was a preservationist who didn’t want to gloss over the shady history of racism towards the Chinese people, disgust and mistreatment of sex workers, and the story of gambling and drinking - all things wildly popular in the history of this western town. In 1989 she started the Pendleton Underground Tours sharing this sordid history, which is honestly the most interesting and important, in my opinion. In the early 1990s she bought the building with the old bordello and restored it and opened part of the tour and another brothel (which operated until the 1950s) and made it into The Working Girls Hotel.

Many folks in Pendleton disliked Pam’s bringing this history to light but she fought the good fight, bringing so many people to Pendleton, spiking tourism, saving other historic venues in the city and volunteering on many committees and boards to continue to do so. She died suddenly at at 59 in 2012 and was a woman after my own heart. I wish I could have met her and thanked her for her work.

Pam’s daughter, Brooke, continues to own and operate all of these places in her mother’s memory and had a big bronze statue of Stella Darby created in her honor. It sits on Main Street right outside of The Cosy Rooms. Stella is smiling in a pants suit (scandalous for her time!), with a powerful wide-legged stance, taking up space with joy and resistance. There is a Bronze Trail of public art sculptures in Pendleton depicting important people in their past, and Stella is the only one that is privately owned. I loved to see it, and was struck by the bronze sculpture statue of a woman on the other side of Main Street downtown Pendleton, dressed demurely and looking away from Stella, to the side and downward. I was intrigued to see who this woman was.

Turns out it is a depiction of Aura Morse Goodwin Raley, known as the “mother of Pendleton,” who came with her husband across the Oregon Trail in 1853 to the West. opened a stage station and hotel at their house on Main Street and built a toll bridge across the Umatilla River. Due to the large number of cats they kept, the station was often referred to as Goodwin's Cat Station. When the town of Pendleton was formed, they donated 2 1/2 acres for the original town plat. They also donated land for use as a cemetery (Pioneer Park), a County Courthouse block (located on Main Street at the time) and a city block for a future college (the current Courthouse block as the college never happened). She had two husbands in her lifetime, who both died ahead of her. Aura Raley owned a large portion of early Pendleton and with her daughter Cosbie, developed and sold off lots for residential and commercial purposes. She lived in Pendleton the rest of her life and was an integral part of its growth and development for it first 50 years. NW Aura Avenue is named for her. She died in 1913.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about the way these two women are placed and featured in these public artworks. I believe their dress and stance are indicative of their personalities, or at least the public perception of who they were. I’m always fascinated by who gets chosen to be depicted in US public sculptures, the whitewashing of their story and place in it, what that says about us as people. In this case, they are both founding mothers of this city in different ways and I wonder if they would have admired one another’s work? Been friends? It’s doubtful, the way sex workers were seen and treated by other women especially, but you never know. Continually fascinated by women’s work in all forms and continually learning from them all. So pleased that a madam is depicted in bronze in all her glory. This is so rare - in fact, I’m not aware of any other sex worker in a US city that has received this type of recognition. Glad to be part of this legacy.

If you haven’t read my other Deep Throat Dives, please check out parts 1, 2 and 3!

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We’ve stayed in a variety of suites and rooms in this and other themed hotels over the years and since we don’t have much money to spend on luxuries like this, I love to create whimsical little adventures on the cheap. This is how we ended up in the Fisherman’s Wharf room - it was the July special so only $179 a night.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a clam shower in the tub for two as well as a fishtank. We brought our own bath bombs (locally made by my favorite Rock + Oil and always a few battery operated candles. I’ve been obsessed with making my own Aperol spritz at home so brought the makings for that and even when we didn’t drink all the Prosecco and I forgot a wine topper, I used an empty coffee creamer to bring the rest home with me.

I brought our little travel cutting board and some charcuterie makings and dessert to share and stashed them in our mini fridge for late night snacking, even though we had dinner at a gluten free food truck that I’d be dying to try while wine tasting with a gift card a friend gave us for Christmas and I’d forgotten we received.

I never forget the lube and some toys (shout out to my girls at The Comedy Lounge for the free sample that was perfect to toss in my overnight bag!) as well as reading through and writing in the guest book because it’s always filled with such cute little love stories. They provide you complimentary breakfast in the mornings (with new gluten free options!) at the time you select and cookies (not gluten free) in the lobby and lots of options to purchase all of the above if you don’t remember to bring it like I did.

I shared some spicy behind the scenes photos and a video with my paid subscribers while at the hotel last week, so you if you want to see more (and learn more) it’s just $7 a month and totally worth it.

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xo and stay hot (and cool) out there!

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I’m indebted to both men listed above because their research comes up often in my internet searches and their sources, when they list them, lead me to some great stuff (as well as some others I’ll credit when their research comes into my own), but it’s really the female historians that interest me the most. The way they think and write about such subject matter is just different and more nuanced in many ways. I’m also super interested in the way other women view(ed) and wrote and thought about sex workers throughout Boise history. Men were very much, it seems, more than okay with the existence of “vices” like red light districts (probably because they were the ones keeping them rolling in the money), but it was the women who adamantly opposed them and ultimately started successful movements to destroy them. More on that later.

Tonight, let’s talk about Diamond Tooth Lil and how I got to share her brothel site with a bunch of scientists just last week.

Diamond Tooth Lil was an entertainer and entrepreneur who bounced around the West from Silver City to San Francisco, spending significant time in Boise as a manager of rooming houses or boarding houses (brothels were called this). Her birth name was Evelyn Fialla (some sources say Prado was her last name), and she was born in Austria-Hungary in about 1877. She married at least eight times, but the name she preferred to use was her first husband’s surname of Hildegard. Everyone else preferred Diamond Tooth Lil.

Lil loved to tell the story of her life to any reporter who would listen. She often told about her gold right front tooth with the diamond, about 1/3 carat, mounted in the center of it. She won that piece of art from a Reno dentist in a bet on a horse race in 1907. More than once she promised to leave the tooth and its diamond to the Idaho Children’s Home orphanage. (Didn’t happen – it got buried with her in California where she died in 1967.)

She ran an auto court called the Depot Inn on the bench near the Boise Depot, and a hotel at 219 S. Ninth, among other Boise properties. She moved to Los Angeles to retire in 1943 but visited Boise regularly. In 1953 she sent photos and other items to the Boise Chamber of Commerce with a note, “just sending a little momento, so you’ll not forget me.”

I got called out of retirement as an architectural historian tour guide for Preservation Idaho to give two downtown walking tours to the attendees of the American Chemical Society conference here in Boise (if you’re new here you might not know I’ve been working for them for 17 years now and actually have a masters degree in art and architectural history even though I did just complete a big research and writing project for a historic downtown Boise kids walking tour). I was excited to be able to share some new research I’ve done on both our Chinatown (we once had one of the largest Chinatown’s in the NW rivaling San Francisco and Seattle! I have so much to say on this marginalized group also but that’s another post) and also more on our brothels and red light district. Both places we walk by on our tour and neither of them are really given the weight they deserve in the tour script, but I’m lucky that as an expert historian I can add in bits of my research and expertise and change it up.

The conference took place at the Boise Centre, which is in the heart of downtown and is our giant convention center. It also happens to be sitting on the location of Diamond Tooth Lil’s Star Rooms brothel (for locals it was facing 9th Street where Boise Centre West is on the corner of 9th and Front). While it was demolished in the 1960s or 70s, we do have this photo and I love passing around pics of what used to be in places in the city. It was a great place to start the discussion of sex work as important women’s work (it was one of the only jobs women could hold and make their own money. These women were powerful and important members of our society (as Diamond Lil’s story attests) and often shared their great wealth with other civic causes like schools and hospitals. I’m absolutely fascinated by their stories and their grit.

The other night there was a gorgeous sunset and I was driving right by the location of Diamond Lil’s auto court the Depot Inn on old Highway 30 (now called Federal Way) right where it meets Capital Boulevard at the 1925 train depot. Popular in the 1920s and 1930s (the early Route 66 era), these auto court properties were typically made up of individual, detached or semi-detached more rustic type cabins or cottages arranged in a U-shape or row around a central courtyard. They often featured a private garage or carport directly next to or attached to the cabin. It’s now the Catholic diocese. It’s also just blocks from my home.

I often talk about how I see ghosts in this town. As a historian living in a place that has historically loved destroying building after building, I can’t help but look at a site and remember what used to be there and what happened there. I didn’t know anything about Diamond Lil or her brothel downtown or her auto court near my house until my summer research project started and now I can’t drive by it without wondering about her, the folks who stayed there, what Boise was like when sex work was legal and a normal part of their lives.

I have so much more to share, but next deep throat dive. Also, you can see more shots from this sunset spinning series on my Instagram post today (please follow me there if you don’t already for more fun “behind” the scenes). And! A big thank you to the follower here who sent me a link to watch Debbie Does Dallas online after I wrote about trying to find it everywhere because what a hoot and also I’m so here for the natural boobs and bush of the 1970s. I realllllllly enjoyed it. xo

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I honestly don’t even know where to start sharing these stories because head and my heart are just so full with so many amazing things about sex worker history in Idaho and I’m trying to gather and organize it and figure out how to share it. Not only to I want to tell you the stories of some of the most intriguing women in Boise’s sex worker history, I want to also share with you some of the amazing women who have researched and written about them already and whose work has become invaluable to me. And, speaking of that, I’m going to share with you a bit about HOW you do historic research along the way.

Starting with Cora Gaskell, whose story you heard me tell in the video above. I was fascinated to read about her being appointed as a special policewoman on the Boise Police Department force in 1917 specifically to help keep girls from being anywhere near “immoral women,” which was another name for prostitutes (as they were called then).

It seems Cora was only on the police force one year, and I have to wonder why they removed her. I don’t know if it was because she was caught running a significant bootlegging operation out of her kitchen or if she hated the work of ratting out fellow badass babes or both? Or maybe they determined that a special officer just for this reason wasn’t working or wasn’t necessary? It was a time in Boise history when the local and national government were trying hard to eradicate sex work, and it wasn’t working. (It kept happening and keeps happening. It just gets pushed deeper underground the more we legislate and fight it.)

I hadn’t heard Cora’s story anywhere in my research yet until I read it in writer Janelle Scheffelmaier’s book Wicked Boise, which came out in 2022 and I found in the Boise Public Library about a month ago when I was doing preliminary research on Boise brothel history. It’s an absolutely fast and entertaining read with so many great interwoven stories of murders, moonshine, morality and some of Boise’s darkest moments. I’ve been devouring it while tanning topless in my backyard and, of course, I had to look Janelle up. She grew up in Northern Idaho and lived in Boise for many years (when she wrote this book) with her young daughter. I see she has a masters degree in history and also wrote a book about Butte, Montana, and the 1918 Influenza pandemic. I found her on Facebook, as I wanted to take her out for coffee and talk about all these things, but I see she recently married and moved to California. I did send her a private message, though, thanking her for her important work.

To learn more about Cora, I paid attention to Janelle’s little numbers at the end of her sentences about Cora, which indicates there are end notes at the back of the book. Sure enough, she cited her sources as the Idaho Statesman, our daily newspaper still today, and exact dates and articles about Cora’s scandal.

I use the Idaho Statesman online digital archives allllll the time, as it’s a great primary source (an original artifact or resource or data created during the time period under study) and newspapers back in the day were soooo descriptive. I mean, they’d give you all sorts of personal details about people, including their addresses and the names of their kids and the gruesome details of their death or arrest, and what the reporter actually thought about them as a person. (They don’t even include the cause of death in obituaries these days and I hate it. Big fan of the gossip rags of years past!) You can easily access the newspaper records via your library card and while the search tools can be a bit tricky to navigate as a newby once you’re inside, if you go into the library, a librarian will really help you navigate the online portal and give you good tips. Using my skills, I immediately found the newspaper articles Janelle cited in her notes.

But I’m jumping way ahead on the stories here. In a few weeks I’ll go back a bit with a story from the beginning days of Boise - 1863.

p.s. follow me on Instagram for more sneak peeks and behind the scenes of all the fun I’m having as a nerdy academic

And apparently it’s also the season of showing off not only my nipples but every single bump, gland, pore and crevices of my gigantic areolas. Especially the things I just learned today are called Montgomery glands, of which mine are kinda large. Or at least visible across the room. Honestly they always have been, but I think it’s perhaps due to my large hormone fluctuations in menopause. They are also swollen in pregnancy, which, as I understand it, their purpose is to secrete small amounts of lubricating fluid to keep my areolas healthy and also it has a scent that attracts your baby when breastfeeding. For me, they get more erect when I’m cold or my estrogen rises or I’m turned on. Who knew?!

Anyhow, something to chew on this hot summer night.

I’ve been doing so much research lately on the history of women on the edge, particularly sex workers, in Idaho and it’s been filling up my academic cup and I’m so excited to share more with you next week here on Whorella. (With a lot of teasers on my Instagram, so please follow me there, too!) In case you missed last week:

t week:

I think I may have told you this before, but I have two undergraduate degrees in public relations and American history, a minor in Women’s Studies, and my masters degree in art and architectural history. (Fun related fact: I did a site visit and interviews and research on the oldest strip club in Spokane, Washington, for my final paper in a sociology course as an undergrad and so much of my graduate research was on subversive feminist art, especially those using their bodies as canvases.) I’ve been doing historic research for most of my life and it really is so much fun. Also, for the past 17 years I’ve been a volunteer and paid staff with Preservation Idaho, a statewide nonprofit dedicated to advocating for and educating about our historic built environment. I have researched a lot of neighborhoods and topics and give a really fun historic Boise downtown walking tour to kids and adults alike for the past 11 years. On it, we talk briefly about our red light district of brothels in the late 1800s-early 1900s but not much academic research has been done by a feminist activist, as far as I can tell, on the history of sex workers in Boise. I’m changing that and having so much fun. It’s taken me to cemeteries and the library and old buildings and the archives. I’ve decided to share my findings in a new series called Deep Throat Dive as a fun way to share what I’m finding, what I’m thinking, and what I’m going to do with it. So buckle up. It’s gonna be so fun.

I’m also going to share the sexy tangents and side quests this research is taking me on with you along the way. Starting with a few fun things tonight:

First, a fellow sex positive bad ass babe and friend of mine named Sugar May has done some really rad art and collaborations with us recently at Treefort Market . She’s a high-femme British American artist and comic maker and her new book Sweet Pussy is so sexy and subversive and sweet. It’s stunning, really, and I shared a few snippets on my Instagram post today. Queer art queens are just divine.

(my laptop is old and having serious probs right now so I can’t add a bunch of photos so this video will have to suffice but do also check out my Instagram for more)

For at least two months now I’ve been devouring this new to me podcast called The Oldest Profession. I listen while I’m doing the dinner dishes, on long walks, tanning topless in my backyard. Created and hosted by former sex worker Kaytlin Bailey, the podcast reminds listeners that sex workers have always been part of the story. Each episode focuses on an “old pro” from history, contextualizing that figure in their own time and connecting their story to the ongoing struggle for sex worker rights. It’s so entertaining, so thoughtful and so full of historic research that has really inspired and complimented my own. (I recommend skipping the first season of the podcast and starting at the second.)

Kaytlin’s podcast is how I learned about Robin Byrd, a 1970s porn star and host of the longest running adult cable television show, The Robin Byrd Show. I read up on everything I could find about Robin after I listened to the podcast and have been fascinated ever since. She got her start in film in Debbie Does Dallas. I’ve never seen it, and really want to, so went on the hunt looking for it. You can’t get it at the library and you can’t stream it. I asked some sex positive folks I know if they had a copy I could borrow and they didn’t. (Do you own it?! If so, please let me know!) I ended up finally visiting one of the oldest sex shops in Boise, Video Vixen, to see if they had it because - duh - IT’S RIGHT IN THEIR NAME. I was the only woman in the place, there were sections for films that were right up my alley like MILF, HAIRY and CLASSICS, which is the section I was certain it would be in, but it wasn’t there. In fact, the porn films in this very small section were none that I’d ever heard of. I went up to the guy working and asked him and he said it’s nearly impossible to get now as he believes it is out of print. I also checked out the toys and lingerie and the private video porn arcade rooms with peep holes/ glory holes. As luck would have it, just this week a new documentary on Robin Byrd called Bang My Box was announced and it is produced by Sarah Jessica Parker and it did so well at the Tribeca Film Festival and will be on HBO at the end of the month and I guess I’ll just have to wait for that, but I’m honestly so excited to see it. Both films.

Last week my old friend Caryn who ran one of the oldest sex toy shops in Boise called Ozone Condoms for nearly thirty years stopped by my office to visit and bring me a vintage robin egg blue telephone she thought I’d love. When she retired and spontaneously closed up shop in 2020, I inherited most of the contents of it, and so I think of her often when I see so many quirky things of hers around my house. Like the framed posters about wearing rubbers and safe sex in my garage, the Easter eggs that were filled with condoms, the mini beer fridge in our garage.

There’s so much more to share. Glad to have you here and get ready because it’s gonna get real hot in here.

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I’ve become obsessed with this podcast called The Oldest Profession by Kaytlin Bailey, a former sex worker, about the history of old pros. It’s seriously so good and perfect for a sex positive historian like myself and I can’t recommend it enough. One of the very first episodes I chose was the one on Marilyn Monroe, of course. While I didn’t learn much new (I told you I’ve been a huge fan all my life and devoured all the Marilyn history and books and lore there is), I always love to be reminded of her power and beauty and work and influence. And it’s always a treat when my mailman tells me my hair is “so Marilyn.”

I ordered this online when you could very first order used books online a bunch of years ago from some used book seller because it was out of print. It has those thick cream-colored pages that are kind of textured with lines and smells like the Nancy Drew books of my childhood.

In 1951, when she was just 25-years-old, Marilyn Monroe attended a party at the Beverly Hills Hotel wearing a red dress. As the story goes, the “provocative”, low cut dress irritated a female journalist who called her ‘cheap and vulgar’ and wrote that Monroe would have looked better wearing a potato sack.

A few days later, Twentieth Century Fox jumped on the opportunity to clap back in a brilliant PR move and organized a photo shoot with Monroe posing in a potato sack dress that was designed especially for her. The pictures were featured in newspapers across the country and I’m sure you’ve seen them, as they are some of the most infamous.

I’m about twice her age in this photo, twice her size and twice as happy as this poor girl was, but I’ve always felt a huge kinship with her spirit, her sexuality and her bravery. She was so beautiful, sad, stunning and talented.

For fun, and because it’s the season of costuming and dressing up, about 7 years ago I decided to take this potato sack we’ve used for backyard races over the years and try my hand at making a dress out of it and dare I say, Marilyn’s was probably lined and professional, because burlap be itchy as hell. And while she probably slipped easily inside, my sack didn’t quite fit around my ample goods.

About a year later I found these photos of Marilyn wearing nothing but this read sheer scarf and I had one, too, so had to try my hand. It’s been so much fun recreating feminine art but making it fat (and middle aged) over the years. In case you missed my Getty Museum pandemic project I wrote about it here and here and of course, am most know for my revivals of the plus-sized pin up girl Hilda.

I’ve been enjoying so much art lately in the form of podcasts and films and TV shows and poetry and making so many things with my hands. What a joy it is to be an artist and in the world with so many artists making our lives better every day. And what a joy it is to live with the legacy of Marilyn Monroe.

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Anyhow, I love poetry, I love writing it, I love having it read to me, so hope you do, also. And if you need a little more love for your legs, especially as summer season is upon us, check out this past post

and this one, too.

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This past week was rough, if I’m being honest. There was a lot of sadness in the world that was weighing heavy on my heart. My feelings got hurt and I was hanging on to some negative stuff a bit too long and with too tight of a grip. One kid came home from school with pinkeye and another with a terrible cold and within 24 hours it had spread through the entire house. We all ended up crabby and achy, and stuck inside our small home filled to the brim with Christmas crap for three solid days. The cabin fever and short fuses were visible, mainly from this mom who was so goddamn tired of entertaining bored daughters and breaking up arguments about who got the biggest candy cane and constantly keeping the baby from pulling the kitten up by her tail.

Since I was officially diagnosed with perimenopause last spring, my body has been doing some funky shit and putting me through the wringer. From morning sickness nausea to gingivitis, horrible heartburn to my hair falling out in clumps, it isn’t pretty. A routine yearly well-woman checkup at my doctor last week ended with a sudden surgical procedure to repair a significant tear that was somehow missed during/after Arlo’s birth. Yes, a birth that happened nearly two years ago and a tear that had healed in a large growth of scar tissue that had to be CUT OFF MY VULVA, in which afterward my vagina had to be stuffed with gauze for several hours. To add insult to injury, I COULDN’T HAVE SEX FOR A WEEK.

While I realized at a young age that my body was a political vessel I could use for my social activism and art, it was becoming a mother that really changed my relationship to myself and helped launch me on my body positive journey. The physical changes that come with pregnancy and motherhood are extreme - from stretch marks, swollen-turned-sagging breasts, dry skin, hormonal breakouts, lush hair and losing hair, extreme weight gain and loss, backaches, heartburn, pelvis bones shifting, and your heart growing too big to be contained. Not to mention the emotional and mental roller coaster of joy, fear, exhaustion, worry, excitement, concern, ignorance, and love. Creating and growing three babies was miraculous and significant in my life journey, as was miscarrying two more. Becoming a mother really solidified for me that I wanted to choose life - and live the best and happiest version of one starting right now. All my perceived imperfections are like a roadmap to this journey of mine and I love this body and the stories it tells. Even if those stories include dried snot stains on my ragged pjs and messy bathrooms with tampon boxes and bottles of bubbles and clothes tossed on the floor and a naked toddler hiding behind my thick legs that carried him into this world.

It might be disgusting that I want to bring poetry into the bathroom

All the motherhood and not motherhood

Even though she was named after the penis, after its need for her

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I did, and spent some time picking up dead bodies at night for a small Oregon funeral home. I assisted with the dead at their homes, hospitals, accident scenes, nursing homes and back at the funeral home with autopsies and organ donations and embalming. It was hard and heartbreaking work. I didn’t end up becoming a mortician after all and still sometimes wonder if that was, in fact, my life’s calling. It’s become a very important part of my work in body positivity and was, in many ways, my introduction to the concepts of the movement. I also ended up becoming a death historian and studying it even more in grad school, writing my masters thesis on the architecture of the American funeral home. Since then, I’ve given a lot of historic art and architectural walking tours of cemeteries and taught workshops on how to write your own obituary and am the organizer and a facilitator for my local Death Cafe.

In my early 20s when I wanted to revamp the way we grieved, bust open the conversation about dead bodies and talk a lot more about death, I learned that an important part of that was talking about what we might want done with our own bodies in the case of death with those closest to us. It’s often called “end of life planning” or “advanced care planning” and there are many parts of it, including signing a medical power of attorney and filling out an advance directive. Like all healthy young people, I didn’t think much about dying or death, and didn’t feel like I had a need to work on a will or anything related to my own death, really. It was getting pregnant with my first daughter, Lucy, at the age of 28 that really set into motion the importance of this ideas as I was now beholden to another human. So Dr. Brown and I filled out a template for a will online, mostly to make sure we had selected someone to raise her in case we both died at the same time. We didn’t have any assets and didn’t own a home and made sure our one car was in both of our names but our student loans weren’t so they could both be properly disposed of in case one of us died.

Fast forward two kids and two decades later and life and living got so busy that we never did update that will to include Alice or Arlo. I witnessed friends get cancer and die and put their elderly parents in hospice and controversies over physician assisted deaths or ending one’s own life. I made this little list of 40 things to do before I turned 40 and most of them were really fun (and one was a small thing that indeed accidentally became a really big and life-changing thing) but creating The Death File, as we call it, was also on that list. Well, mostly due to having a baby and becoming internationally famous, The Death File didn’t happen for me at 40. And, to be honest, it wasn’t really fun or something I necessarily wanted to do, but knew it was so so important. But still, I put it off. For years.

Until the summer before I turned 44, when too many young parents I knew were dying, leaving a spouse and little kids with no direction, no details, no important documents organized, that I knew it was time. Thus, The Death File was born.

It’s a cheap plastic envelope that I’m sure came home from Eric’s office at one point filled with yellow file folders. It now has lists of digital account passwords, everyone’s social security cards and birth certificates, statements from every bank account, mortgage and student loan we have. It contains titles of all our vehicles and our home and copies of our drivers licenses and our marriage certificate. Eric and I signed medical power of attorney forms to name each other as well as advance directives in case of pain management, long illnesses, life extending procedures and organ donations. I made a daily list of my children’s activities and medications and appointments and doctors, teachers, therapists, friends and coaches. And it contains an updated will which includes all three of our kids.

The Death File also contains details on what kind of funeral we’d like, what we’d like done with our bodies, and important things we own and what we’d like done with them. Eric would like to be cremated in the suit he wore to our wedding and for his interview to become a professor at Boise State University; I want to be cremated naked. My directives also include the fact that I want donuts (I’m changing this to include all the amazing gluten filled goodies that I wasn’t able to eat in my earthly body but loved so much) served at my funeral and Kacey Musgraves playing (and also definitely Taylor Swift, The Chicks and Dolly Parton because let’s be real country pop powerhouses are my love language). And to make sure that my kids print and have my book manuscript from the computer, as it may never be published but it is still a story worth having - it’s their story as much as it is mine. That if no one wants my entire Paint-by-Number collection please find a museum or an owner who will cherish it and keep in intact. That all my historic preservation and architecture books and files and research should get to my friend Dan of Preservation Idaho.

It was an emotional six weeks we spent working on The Death File, for both Eric and I. It ignited hard conversations about what we wanted to other to make sure the kids knew about us if we died tomorrow, our dreams for how they would continue to be raised, our concerns about how devastating it would be for them to lose a parent at a young age. We talked about hypothetical future lovers and our extended families and each of our children’s unique needs and personalities. I wrote love notes to my kids and, to be honest, it got a little overwhelming and seemed like a project that could go on forever.

It’s a topic I talk to strangers about a lot at our Death Cafes. It’s a topic that is getting more and more recognition in mainstream media and that folks are writing books and blogs and creating workshops and events on, which is so important. It is something that is especially hard when you’re a young parent, though, with little kids. Deciding so much about their future and thinking about the possibility of leaving their upbringing to fate and someone else is depressing and difficult. I cried so much during the six weeks I worked on The Death File - from fear and sadness, yes, but also from beauty and love. What I realized most is that I wanted to leave a lot of the actually celebrating of my life and my funeral after I’m gone to them. I want them to be able to spend as much time with my dead body as they need if possible. I want them to assist with my cremation and decide what they want to do with my remains, even if it’s weird and impractical - my directive to Eric was to do whatever it takes to make it happen. And the same for him. That’s the beauty of the death positive movement becoming more mainstream and the death industry morphing into a creative beautiful thing that I hoped it could be when I was a 24-year-old girl. There are so many options now and the societal rules have loosened. The reality is, funerals are more about the living than the dead. Sure, my desires will be helpful to guiding them towards an ease of decision making and towards greater peace, but I trust them to know what they need to move forward while honoring me.

I’ve talked to them a lot about death and, like all kids, they have lots of questions about what happens after you die. I’ve always told them in life that our hearts are connected, with an invisible string, no matter where we are in the world. To look up at the moon at night because no matter how far apart we are, we are both looking up at the very same moon. And when I die, I will just move right into their heart and live there instead, that it will grow a little bigger to fit all of me inside. Because in death, as in my life, the people in my little family are the most important things.

Death is such an abstract and personal thing and it’s so personal and different and until you’re in it it’s so difficult to understand or know how or what you might need. But like all things in life, a little education and planning ahead may make the life transition a little easier.

Some of my favorite easy resources on death and starting your own death file:

• Honoring Choices Idaho

• Join us at Death Cafe Boise to talk in a fun and casual environment about all these things! Our next one is in December (you can also listen to this NPR podcast I was featured in talking about both the Cafe and my death file)

• Mortician Caitlin Doughty’s books, YouTube series and Order of the Good Death

• The checklists on Get Your Shit Together are extraordinarily helpful, as is her new book

• This recent article in Time magazine has a checklist and a link to a new book and says that by “gathering a whole death file together will make you a highly advanced American and a family hero.”

• Writer Elizabeth Gilbert’s story on helping her wife die is beautiful and brilliant

• This great list of books on grief

(this is an updated reprint of a 2019 blog post I wrote on my website of the same name)