Belle Brezing and Lexington’s Schadenfreude

Her obituary on the front page of the Lexington Herald newspaper was perhaps like nothing seen before or since -- a garish, peek-a-boo story better suited to a gossip tabloid with just enough factual material for the barest of superficial legitimacy. A picture of her home covered the top quarter of the front page, taken at night to cast deep shadows so that the house resembled something from a cheap horror movie. Pictures of the interior followed, also taken with only flash illumination to emphasize its age and decrepitude. A 2-column article beneath provided details on the decaying condition of the house, and that its sole occupant, Belle Brezing, was from an era long passed by. The article never mentioned her profession -- a prostitute and madam -- that her house was also a brothel, or why she was famous. This was a feature story designed to grab readers' attention and sell newspapers, not to inform, explain, situate, or commemorate a dead woman's life. The strategy worked -- by 10:00a.m., the paper had sold 16,000 copies, a sell-out.

Lexington Herald, August 13, 1940, front page

The headline misspelled her name.

While the Lexington Herald's article went to great lengths to emphasize the lurid and describe the decrepit condition of the house, the reporter never once mentioned the names of the multitude of wealthy men -- the "blue bloods" of Central Kentucky -- or the corrupt police officers and politicians who happily accepted the bribes and favors that made it possible for Ms. Brezing to openly operate for over thirty years the largest and fanciest house of prostitution in Lexington. There was no mention of the Kentucky governor who granted her a pardon for "operating a bawdy house" or why he did so. No mention of the names of the rich and powerful men from across America who came to Lexington for horse racing and thoroughbred sales and, while in town, freely spent large sums of money to enjoy her company and the graces of the other women who worked at her house. Even the reporter for the Lexington Herald didn't sign his name to the article, using anonymity to write about Belle Brezing just as her paying customers remained anonymous when going to her house.

To begin to understand Belle Brezing, one must first understand the times in which she lived and the city that was her home from birth to death, Lexington, Kentucky.

Growing Up and Life in Lexington, 1860-1866

"No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues." Thomas Hobbes. (1651) Leviathan. pt 1, ch. 1

She was born on June 16, 1860, the illegitimate younger daughter of Sarah Ann Cox, who later married a violent alcoholic named George Brezing. George and Sarah Brezing began marital life by operating a beer saloon, but when that failed they opened a grocery store on West Main Street. Drunkenness and fighting were common in their household, with neighbors reporting frequent brawls, instigated by both husband and wife, that involved fists, thrown objects, a butcher knife, and at least once, a drawn pistol. It was said that George Brezing would be sober for weeks if not months, and then stay drunk for days with a wild, uncontrollable temper. Sarah was known to enjoy the company of other men, and she earned extra money as a prostitute. They were married for five years before divorcing in 1866, and not long after, she married again, becoming Sarah McMeekin, a surname that she used for the rest of her life.

The lived environment was filthy and riddled with pollution and disease. In 1833, over 6% of Lexington's population died in a cholera epidemic when a torrential rain storm caused raw sewage to overflow from cesspools and shallowly dug latrines along Main Street, thus polluting wells used for drinking water. In 1849 and 1873, cholera epidemics again swept Lexington, the causes much the same. Farm animals and wild dogs roamed the streets, pig pens were kept adjacent to downtown residences, blood and waste from slaughter houses and meat processing facilities flowed into Town Branch and Wolf Creek, which were the creeks and underground aquifers that supplied much of Lexington's drinking water. Along West Main Street, coal dealers, a hemp factory, feed mill, carriage maker, hide tanneries, and a distillery could be found. There were no zoning regulations of any type. Hookworm, syphilis, gonorrhea, smallpox, typhoid fever, and tuberculosis were common ailments in Lexington. The average life expectancy for a white male was about 40 years old.

There was no regulation of any form by any government agency -- local, state, or federal -- governing the production, distribution, and sale of food and narcotics. America was on a drug binge from 1840-1880, with cocaine, morphine, and opium legally sold in drugstores to anyone having money. In 1878, the State Board of Health issued a study that found 20% of all doctors in Kentucky had never attended medical school, and of those who did, many medical colleges were little more than diploma mills trading a sheet of vellum lettered with a bogus credential for cash. The report concluded that Kentucky was "the worst quack-ridden state in the Union" and that many physicians were “ignorant vampires.”

Directly adjacent to the Lexington's courthouse, human beings were sold at auction. It was the largest auction site for the sale and purchase of human beings in the state. The 1860 census showed Lexington's population having 12,585 whites, 8,537 enslaved Black persons, 453 free Black persons, 1,611 enslaved Mulatto persons, and 232 free Mulatto persons, which means that some 40% of people had no more rights, liberties, freedoms, and protections than did livestock. There were no enslaved white people. Life was strictly segregated both before and after the Civil War, and areas in which free Black people were allowed to live were created in the poorest, most polluted, least desirable sections of Lexington. To this day, many neighborhoods retain the names of the persons who sold the land to create segregated ghettos -- neighborhoods with names such as Goodloetown, Smithtown, Pralltown, Davis Bottom, Lee's Row, and Adamstown.

In 1805, Josiah Espy, a poet known only in Lexington and so obscure as to lack even a Wikipedia entry, dubbed Lexington the "Athens of the West," an assertion also known only in Lexington. Lexingtonians cherished that description, and even today it is still trumpeted by city officials and chambers of commerce, but as should be evident, it was anything but an intellectual and cultural center. As late as 1870, over one-quarter of adults in Kentucky were unable to sign their name or read the most basic text. Kentucky historians William Harrison and James Klotter wrote, "The world of many Kentuckians was one of limited learning, narrow geographic boundaries, and restricted mental horizons." There was intense provincialism -- "[t]he conversations of the people were of local subjects. Their intelligence never soared across many watersheds." On August 21, 1840, a woman accused of being a witch was burned alive; in 1869, a woman in Owen County was presented to a grand jury on charges of being a witch; in 1898, another woman was reportedly burned as a witch. In Lexington on July 13, 1858, crowds gathered on streets and rooftops to watch a lynch mob drag an accused person from jail, hang him from a beam stuck out of a second-floor window of the courthouse, and when the rope broke and he fell and split open his skull on the pavement below, the mob then lowered the rope to pull up his body again and left it hanging from the window “for a period of hours.” A local newspaper wrote, “Dying as he did, amid curses and imprecations of the crowd, with not a friend on earth, and not a ray of hope or sympathy, was the most appalling scene witnessed in our city. Murder added to murder, the laws trampled underfoot.” Such was “the Athens of the West.”

And what of public attitudes toward the enslavement of Black persons, toward secession and “states rights,” a euphemism then employed to allow slave states to decide their own practices toward enslavement free from federal intervention? What of the Civil War, the most violent, deadly, internecine war that saw more American casualties than any other conflict before or since, a war in which Southern states sought to destroy the United States of America in order to preserve the institution of slavery. While Kentucky remained politically "neutral," the alignment of its voting citizenry tells a very different story in regard to the enslavement of human beings.

Just prior to the beginning of armed conflict, Kentucky Governor Beriah Magoffin, a staunch supporter of states' rights and slavery, sent a letter to all Southern governors in which he proposed to preserve the United States of America by amending the Constitution in various ways to preserve and protect the institution of slavery, among the proposals was one to allow any Southern state to veto any federal legislation deemed detrimental to the institution of slavery. In an address to the Kentucky legislature, he said, “I do not believe slavery to be wrong. I do not believe it to me a moral, social, or political evil.” After armed conflict had begun in April 1861, President Lincoln issued an appeal to states to send troops to aid the Union, and Governor Magoffin wrote to the President, saying "I will send not a man or dollar for the wicked purpose of subduing sister Southern states." The Kentucky legislature voted 89-4 in support of his position and named a newly formed county after him in honor of his support for slavery. Finally, the election results of the 1860 presidential election speak volumes about public sentiment toward slavery. There were four candidates, three of whom sought to preserve the institution of slavery, one of whom (Lincoln) spoke against it. In Kentucky, Lincoln received less than 1% of the vote, the lowest popular vote total ever received by any president in the nation's history. While the manner in which slavery would be preserved differed or whether the United States of America should continue to exist was debatable, Kentuckians firmly and resolutely sought to continue the institution of slavery. (see footnote 1.)

It was into this racist, slave-owning, politically, economically, and socially decimated, segregated, violent, uneducated, superstitious, provincial, polluted, corrupt, misogynistic, caste-based society that Mary Belle Brezing grew up, navigated, and for some decades prospered. You would not have wanted to be there.

Belle Brezing, 1865-1879

Belle Brezing grew up in a city shattered by war. While the number of casualties has not be definitively calculated, demographic historian J. David Hacker, utilizing newly digitized census data and military records, puts the total number of casualties at approximately 750,000. In Kentucky, greater than 20% of those who left to fight, nearly 10,000 men, never returned. And of the tens of thousands who made it home alive, many had suffered horrific and disfiguring wounds. The economic devastation in Kentucky was enormous -- 89,000 horses, 37,000 mules, and 172,000 cattle were slaughtered without compensation to owners, and land values had decreased by 25%. In an economy in which enslaved persons were no more than property to be bought, sold, worked without remuneration, and used as collateral for loans, suddenly the value of 225,483 enslaved human beings disappeared .

Television and cinema often portray post-war years as if a light switch turned everything back to the way things were and life resumed as if the war and its aftermath were just inconveniences quickly to be forgotten. It was anything but that. The trauma of of four years of close-order combat, frequently hand-to-hand, on battlefields as close as Harrodsburg or with artillery shelling at a fort that stood near current-day All-Tech distillery on West High street, robbery and looting by Confederate soldiers who were little more than organized gangs of thieves and murderers, literal anarchy and lawlessness, all of it came together to create an unimaginable psychic damage and sense of hopelessness, confusion, and gloom.

After the war had ended, a three-year period often described as “the war after the war” or “the reign of terror” began, with violence witnessed in numerous forms. One Lexington newspaper wrote of "lawless bands of outcasts and outlaws prowling the region, robbing, plundering, burning, committing all manners of depredation, cruelties, and atrocities." The New York Times wrote that Kentuckians are “unreclaimed savages” and that the state was a nice place to live “especially if one enjoys anarchy and mobocracy.” Many former Confederate soldiers were unable to accept that the South had lost the war, and there was an almost visceral, feral reaction toward those who were enslaved and considered little more than property suddenly being free from bondage and having ostensibly the same rights and protections as white citizens. The blowback toward the defeat of the Confederate States of America and the freedom granted to enslaved persons was instant and powerful, with unceasing attempts to stop even nominal efforts toward reconstruction and protections for now free Black citizens. So powerful was the attachment to the values of the Confederacy that Kentuckian Alben Barkley, former United States representative, senator, and vice-president, said “...for years after the Civil War, a candidate for political office in our part of the state who had not had at least one limb shot off while fighting for the Confederacy might as well have whistled down a rain barrel.”

Too, it is important to note that slaves in Kentucky were not freed by the Emancipation Proclamation nor by the South's defeat and surrender; instead, enslaved people in Kentucky had to wait until the passage of the 13th Amendment, making Kentucky one of the last places in the United States where slavery was still practiced. In point of fact, the Kentucky legislature refused to ratify the Constitution's 13th amendment, thus freedom came to enslaved persons in Kentucky only after the amendment was passed by three-fourths of all states. Note that it wasn't until March 18, 1976 (yes, 1976, that is not a misprint) that the Kentucky legislature finally gave approval to the 13th amendment. Faced with even greater violence, many Black citizens in rural areas, with no support whatsoever and little protection offered, migrated to Lexington in hopes of finding a modicum of protection from federal troops and employment. And upon arriving, they faced a highly segregated, caste-based society and the terror of lynching. In February 1870, after being acquitted for stealing a pig, a Black man was taken to a location near Tates Creek Road and lynched -- just one of over one hundred Black citizens lynched in Kentucky between 1867-1871, and there were 166 lynchings in Kentucky between 1875-1900.

Belle's mother, Sarah, was single and had two daughters to support, and it appears that she turned to prostitution, as did many others in similar circumstances. Somewhat unusual for the time, Belle attended for a few years the Dudley School as an elementary student (the building still stands on the corner of Maxwell and Mill Streets. Later, it may be assumed that Belle was neither provided much guidance nor supervision -- in 1875, when she was 15 years old, she was pregnant by her third lover (at that time, the legal age for consent was 12 years old). She married James Kenny on September 15, 1875, and a week later, her previous boyfriend, Johnny Cook, was found dead just outside the gate to her house. Belle said that he committed suicide while others speculated that he was murdered. Shortly afterward, her husband of less than a month left her never to return. On March 14, 1876, she gave birth to a daughter, Daisy Mae Kenney. Two months later, her mother died on May 19, 1876, and was buried at Calvary Cemetery, West Main Street. Walking home from the burial, she arrived at the house where she lived with her mother to find their possessions tossed into the street by a landlord who felt certain that Belle would be unable to pay the rent. And within a day or so, a neighbor, knowing of Belle's precarious situation, agreed to take in her baby and provide it with a home. There is no evidence to suggest that Belle and her daughter ever lived together again.

Do you have all of that? The recitative is that at the age of 15 years old and in the span of less than a year, Belle was pregnant, married, found her previous boyfriend dead in front of her house, was abandoned by her husband, gave birth to a daughter, buried her mother, surrendered her daughter to the care of a neighbor, and was homeless.

Once again, there is little information about her life from 1876-1879. We know from a city registry that she lived for a time in a room near Jefferson and Second Streets, later in a room on South Mill Street somewhere between what are now West High and Maxwell streets, and it is probably safe to assume that she did what she felt was necessary to survive -- working as a prostitute, a vocation that one historian described as the single legacy left to her by her mother.

On July 24, 1879, she and another girl of similar age, Mollie Canton, both of whom were working as prostitutes, attempted suicide via morphine overdose, saying that she would “rather die a thousand deaths than live the life [I am] pursuing."

Her story picks up again on Christmas Eve, 1879, when Belle Brezing began work as a prostitute at a house run by Jennie Hill, 578 West Main Street. (The house was previously the home of Mary Todd Lincoln, and today visitors are welcome to tour the historic home and learn much about the life of Mrs. Lincoln and, not surprisingly, much less about the whore house it once was.) After working there for less than two years, and throughout her life being very frugal with money, she struck out on her own by renting a house at what is now 312 North Upper Street, borrowing some $600 from vendors to purchase furnishings, and opened her own brothel by renting rooms to five women.

Belle Brezing, 1879-- 1917

While her business provided the illusion and fantasy of affection, romance, and good times, still it was always a business for her, and she had a reputation as a meticulous bookkeeper, noting expenditures however small and expecting payment from both the men who were customers and the women who rented rooms from her. She catered to wealthy clients and used the reputation of her house as an upscale brothel to attract others who came to Lexington for its horse racing and related events. Clearly she did well, for within another two years, she moved again to a larger house near the corner of North Upper and 4th Street, and later she bought two more houses as investment properties, another on 4th Street and the second on Dewees Street.

Belle Brezing and boyfriend, William Mabon. circa 1885

The ensuing decades saw two divergent trends in Belle Brezing's life. First, the 1880s saw her establishing and solidifying her reputation for running a brothel that catered exclusively to wealthier clients. Her house charged $5 for sexual favors while other houses charged $2, she insisted that the women in her employ be properly dressed when they were on the main floor of her house, and they were not allowed to solicit clients while outside of her house. Too, when they went shopping or anywhere in public, they were to be properly dressed and conduct themselves with decorum -- should they cross paths with a client in a public setting, they were not to acknowledge familiarity.

Those who came to her house were among the economic and political elite of the area, and when their guests or colleagues came to Lexington for horse sales and racing, they too went to Belle Brezing's house. It was in this context that she made a very important business connection -- George and William Singerly, very wealthy businessmen from Philadelphia who were also deeply involved in horse racing. It remains uncertain which brother who provided Belle Brezing with financing, but one of the brothers fronted her the money to purchase a much larger house at 59 Megowan Street, outfit the house with furniture, rugs, and draperies, and relocate her business from North Upper Street. (Note that many claim that William Singerly provided $50,000 for this venture; I could find no documentation for that figure, an amount that seems wildly outlandish given that the house was purchased by Belle Brezing for $1,500)

Belle Brezing’s house, 59 Megowan Street, Lexington. Circa 1897

The reasons for the relocation center upon a nascent socio-political trend that was just finding traction in the 1880s -- Progressivism. In a nutshell, Progressivism sought to counter some of the social ills caused by unchecked and exponentially increasing corporate power, industrialization and the growing decay of rural towns and communities, the collapse of Reconstruction, rampant political corruption, widespread alcohol and drug abuse, child labor, overt prostitution and gambling, and unsanitary and unsafe food. Progressives sought to use state power as a tool correct social ills. New national publications hired brilliant investigative journals to critique the causes and outcomes of unchecked corporate power. McClure's magazine is a preeminent example, with pioneering investigative journalists such as Upton Sinclair, Ida B. Tarbell, and Lincoln Steffens doing meticulous investigative work and long-form essays on topics ranging from food safety to monopoly capital. The more aware the public was made aware of these social ills, the more momentum the Progressive movement gained, and this trend can be witnessed in Lexington with the increasing pressure placed upon Belle Brezing and other madams to move their houses further away from "polite" company and, eventually, to shut them down completely.

As mentioned previously, prior to the 1880s, there was a nominal public tolerance for prostitution. It was seen an an evil, yes, but something that was as old as civilization itself that could not be eliminated and only controlled. Red-light districts were in nearly every city, and as long as socially unacceptable behavior stayed in such areas, it was tolerated. Lexington had two red-light districts -- one on North Upper Street, the other on Water Street, the latter being such a wild and raucous section of town that is was commonly known as the "Babylon Block."

Belle Brezing and other brothel owners were frequently the object of early efforts to "clean up" the city, and pressure was brought upon them via police complaints and grand jury indictments. In 1882, Belle Brezing received her first indictment for "habitually inducing men and women of even name and fame to frequent said house...[and]...making indecent exposures of their persons, using profane language, and engaging in other acts of lewdness." In what today many would call a "flex," she was pardoned forthwith for the charge of "operating a bawdy house" by none other than Kentucky Governor Luke Blackburn. For the next decade, indictments would follow every year -- fifteen in total between December 14, 1882 through July 19, 1911 -- and although Belle Brezing never spent a single day in jail, still the pressure was mounting, such that in 1889, a complaint signed by the university officials, ministers, and business owners on North Upper Street eventually pushed her to close her house on North upper Street and move further "up the hill" to 59 Megowan Street, which was an address located in a traditionally Black neighborhood where Lexington's white citizens didn't care what happened as long as it was out of sight. Belle Brezing used the money provided by the Singerlys to purchase, renovate, and move her business.

Belle Brezing, Governor Luke Blackburn, pardon

In the summer of 1891, Belle Brezing's house reopened with huge party to commemorate the event. Formal attire was required, and judges, politicos, and many of Lexington's economic and political elite celebrated with an enormous buffet line with fine china, fine wine and liquors, floral centerpieces, hired musicians, and madams from Memphis, Nashville, Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis were all there to enjoy the occasion. The house renovations included floors made of mahogany and walnut, mirrors, gas jet and electric lights, and a turned wood staircase. Belle Brezing and her guests certainly were not worried about police disturbing their soiree -- Police Judge John Riley was undoubtedly sympathetic toward Belle and her staff, for he was in love with one of the prostitutes who worked at the house and later they were married; too, he owned a house that he leased for use as a brothel.

And so the decade continued, with Belle Brezing solidifying her business through contacts with the wealthy and powerful, while Progressives in Lexington also were redoubling their efforts to shut down prostitution, ban alcohol sales on Sundays, and outlaw slots and other forms of gambling, except of course for betting on horse racing. Between 1882-1911, Belle Brezing was indicted on fifteen occasions. The Progressive's cause was aided by Charles Berry, who was the manager and de facto spokesman of one of Lexington's most powerful horse farm owners, James Ben Ali Haggin, Elmendorf Farm. Charles Berry was intent to rid Lexington of the moral turptitude caused by prostitution, and he used his influence to push for grand jury indictments of Belle Brezing and other madams. There is no evidence, however, that James Ben Ali Haggin was concerned about about prostitution in Lexington. He had homes on both coasts and spent most of his time either in Sacramento, California or Newport, Rhode Island. He rarely came to Lexington, but perhaps it was because he was busy with other things -- at the age of 76 years old, he married a beautiful young lady, Pearl Voorhies, age 26. Of course it was true love -- what else could it be?

In 1915, a vice commission was formed and chaired by the minister of Christ Church Cathedral that received testimony and issued a report that found there were 158 brothels in Lexington. In response, the Lexington city government passed an ordinance to heighten the criminality of prostitution by strengthening its legal definition and to allow the police to criminally charge with vagrancy anyone found loitering in the city's red-light district. By late December 1915, Lexington's red-light district was quickly coming to an end. Many prostitutes went to the House of Mercy (now commonly known as the Florence Crittenton Home, 4th Street) for what today would be called "vocational rehabilitation." Also accelerating the efforts to end prostitution was public pressure brought by parents and relatives of soldiers and recruits stationed in Lexington for military training.

Although there is no definitive date, Belle Brezing appears to have closed the doors to her brothel sometime in November 1917, but she continued to live at the house until her death in 1940. But for her maid, Pearl Hughes, and after Ms. Hughes died in 1926, her maid Emma Parker, she apparently lived in relative isolation. There are few records, news articles, mentions, or other extant records of her life for the nearly quarter century-span. Did she venture out in anonymity to visit friends in other cities?; did she have friends other than her housekeeper? Her daughter, Daisy, remained in a Catholic institution in Michigan until her death on August 15, 1948, and we do not know if they corresponded or if Belle Brezing ever visited her. Her one romantic partner, William ("Billy") Mabon, with whom she had known since they were both children, died in February 1917. They had been together for over thirty years, albeit in a relationship that may be impossible for us to understand. The Singerly brothers lost their fortune in 1897 in a banking collapse, William died in 1898, George in 1902, and it is unknown if Belle Brezing corresponded with them after their financial downfall -- were they really friends or was it just a business relationship?

This is only my supposition gained after reading about her life, but I suspect that Belle Breezing lived a lonely, isolated life caused by the understanding that she was only an object to be used by others, and not seen as an equal subject with genuine feelings and emotions. I suspect that people did not become close to her because there would be the uncertainty if her kindness and friendship were genuine or whether she was just another “girl selling smiles” (yet another euphemism for a prostitute); and for Belle Brezing, was a person's kindness sincere or was it because something else was wanted. When emotions and closeness are reduced to a commodity exchange, the the frivolity and intimacies found at her house were just ephemeral fantasies to be bought, used, and forgotten. So when the party ended and the doors closed, so to speak, there was no reason for anyone to come to visit her because no one cared about the person she was and, indeed, were ashamed and embarrassed to be seen in her company.

What can be said about those with whom she was close is that they are persons who shared her situation -- prostitutes and her maid. Belle Brezing purchased a 12-lot grave site at Calvary Cemetery, West Main Street, and she allowed five others to be buried there -- her mother, Sarah McMeekin, for whom she erected the largest stone that bears the inscription “Blessed Are Those Pure of Heart”; Rebecca Hall (d. 1877), a prostitute who worked with Belle; Pearl Hughes (d. August 29, 1926), her maid for over a quarter century; Sarah Denny (d. 1929), a prostitute who worked with Belle; and Jimmie Culton (d. 1938), who was the son of a prostitute who worked with Belle. To allow someone to be buried in the same lot as one's mother and oneself suggests something more than even close friendship; indeed, something that is almost a familial closeness.

Vultures, Gawkers, and the Sneering, Elitist Intelligentsia

Not long before her death, Belle Brezing invited two noted Kentucky historians and bibliophiles, professors Thomas Clark and J. Winston Coleman, to come to her house and select any of her books that they felt suitable for donation to the Transylvania University or University of Kentucky libraries. When the honorable Dr. Thomas Clark received the invitation, he immediately jumped in his car, drove to the home of Dr. J. Winston Coleman, and when he pulled into the drive, he deliberately honked the horn and yelled out so the neighbors could hear, “Do you want to go to a whore house!?” What a funny, embarrassing prank it was to play on his good friend, something that they would retell years later in knee-slapping good humor. Such was how they received the invitation of Belle Brezing.

Dr. Thomas Clark later noted the dark, dilapidated condition of the house, and while he and the esteemed historian J. Winston Coleman did not find merit with any of her books, they did come across one of Belle Brezing's account books, which they promptly stole. Some years later, both eminent historians laughingly joked about their theft and gave themselves the nickname “the Book Thieves.” In all of the research that I have done on this topic, not once have I ever seen them called out for their disgusting, pompous, self-serving, criminal behavior, so let me be the first to say that their theft from an ill, elderly lady who invited them into her home is indicative of the type of person both truly were.

Belle Brezing died on August 11, 1940 of uterine cancer. In the days before her passing, it was clear that death was at hand, and her physician called Reverend Joseph Klein, Saint Peter's Church, and asked for a priest to come to administer the last rites. She died twelve hours later. Her banker and power-of-attorney, James McFarland, decided that she would be buried quickly and without notice so that her funeral would not become a carnival-like event filled with gawkers rather than mourners; as such, and with just three persons in attendance, she was buried adjacent to her mother at Calvary Cemetery, West Main Street.

Calvary Cemetery, West Main Street, Lexington

Her name on the headstone is misspelled; the year of her birth is incorrect.

But her story does not end; in fact, it continues on to this very day.

Belle Brezing, 1940-- .

We die two deaths: the first is a physical death, the second is when our name is said aloud for the last time.

The first to capitalize upon and profit by using her name and memory was the local newspaper, the Lexington Herald, which published a garish, exploitative front-page feature story within 48 hours of her death. It was designed to sell copies rather than to report and respectfully commemorative a dead woman's life. Issued on Wednesday morning, August 13, all copies were sold by 10a.m., which was the first time that had happened for a weekday issue. The messenger was the bearer of bad news, but also the first to profit.

Auction of Belle Brezing’s possessions, August 1940

Classlessness is boundless. Less than two weeks after her death, the administrator of her estate, Nolan Carter, placed a public notice in the Lexington Herald advertising that the contents of Belle Brezing's house were to be auctioned on August 22, 1940. The advertisement misspelled her name. So many thousands of Lexingtonians and others came to bid on everything from furniture to clothes, jewelry to bric-a-brac to geegaws, that police had to be called to rope off streets in the area. What normally would have taken a few hours turned into a 3-day event, with people desperate to own even a small piece of Belle Brezing's life that could be used as a gossip totem excitedly bidding on everything imaginable. Everyone wanted a piece of Belle Brezing to use as a joke and to try to make themselves seem somehow better, somehow more moral, by comparison. Of course the auctioneers who enriched themselves with every increase in price on every object sold were happy to keep the crowd riled up. Soft drinks and other refreshments were sold by vendors working the crowd. After three days, the auction ended and the house was closed again. Vandalism began that night, with plumbing fixtures, iron gates, and anything of conceivable value ripped out and stolen. Windows were shattered by thrown rocks.

One of Lexington's elite, Joseph C. Graves Sr., vice-president and treasurer of Graves-Cox & Co., thought it would be the height of hilarity to send formal, engraved notes, ostensibly on behalf of the family of Belle Brezing, to the homes of other Lexington elites thanking them for their expressions of sympathy on her death. Mr. Graves loved to tell the tale of the mischief he caused and the explanations the confused recipients had to give their wives. Evidently it was a joke enjoyed by many, so laughable that anyone at all, certainly not the elite of Lexington, would care one whit that a woman used by so many of their friends and colleagues was dead. All that was needed was not to give a tinker's damn about Belle Brezing's family and memory, which clearly they didn't.

In the decades after her death, many university fraternities had “pledges,” as part of their initiation and hazing rituals, break into the house and sketch a floor plan as proof that they had been there. I have yet to find an explanation of how either the disrespect shown or the crime committed fit with their mission to “... maintain programs of member education that are designed to enhance individual development, encourage participation in University and community activities, and provide opportunities for leadership.”

In 1974, what remained of Belle Brezing's house was destroyed by a fire set by a teenage arsonist. Nothing of value could be saved -- all had been auctioned, looted, vandalized and destroyed years before, but still even the very bricks and rubble were sold as individual mementos connected in someway to her. Shortly thereafter, what little remained was bulldozed and trucked away to a landfill such that not a trace of her house remained. To this day the lot stands empty.

On September 20, 1987, Belle Brezing's bed came up again at auction. It was purchased for $13,320 by a Lexington attorney, and no one should be surprised to learn that it was a personal injury attorney, who gleefully said, “I'm like a kid with a new toy!”

In 2009, the Lexington History Museum, whose board of directors constituted yet another sampling of the city's wealthy and powerful, put together a fund-raising event called “Belle's Birthday Ball.” Quoting from their brochure, the evening was a “lighthearted nod to Lexington's famous madam... the fun begins when “Belle's girls” arrive by horse drawn carriage... Belle herself will also be on hand to tell her story: from that fateful Christmas Eve when, as a destitute and homeless young mother, she made the decision to “join the trade...” The then-director of the museum was unable to provide me with a coherent explanation about what was “lighthearted and fun” about a story concerning a homeless 15-years-old mother turning to prostitution and, indeed, questions about the “lighthearted nod” seemed to make him very uncomfortable.

Team Squeals on Wheels and the joy of ridiculing the poor. (“Art Beat Lexington,” Lexington Art League)

In 2010, the Lexington Art League, an organization seen by many as the very definition of pseudo-intellectuals, hipsters, and the liberal intelligentsia, sponsored in part by Lexington Fayette County Urban County Government and the Kentucky Arts Council, staged their annual “Belle Brezing Bed Race” -- an event equally as funny among certain types as Joseph Graves' great prank -- in which (and here I shall quote) “....Team Windstream, Team Hyatt, and Team Squeals on Wheels gave the audience a pretty good chuckle by racing beds and crashing into hay bales in honor of Lexington's most famous madam. Squeals on Wheels, which has raced every year, was by far the crowd favorite, but what got us most excited was the genius role reversal of this team. Their “Belle” was played by a man sporting fabulous skivvies and their “clients” were all gals...” All in good fun, of course, this charitable event to mock a homeless 15-years-old mother who became a prostitute and her life as a sexual object for the rich and powerful.

Final Thoughts

“The ridicule that had followed her all her life was not buried with her.” Buddy Thompson

Buddy Thompson, author of a 1983 biography of Belle Brezing, wrote those words to describe the immediate aftermath of her death. I think that he would not be surprised to learn how she continues to be used to this day. Lexingtonians relished engaging in schadenfreude vis-a-vis Belle Brezing to cover their own substantial failings -- from the original sin of practicing, tolerating, promoting, and protecting slavery; to obstructing even nominal efforts at post Civil War reconstruction; to clinging to a patently false myth that Lexington is somehow the “Athens of the West”; to accepting and adopting Jim Crow laws and practices; to turning a slave labor camp owned by a third-rate politico whose contribution to American history was to create a compromise to continue the legal institution of slavery into something akin to a local shrine; to rampant political corruption; to an almost celebration of willful ignorance, practiced stupidity, and blind superstition; to a blind failure to recognize and begin to address a caste-based society -- these and many others are ignored and pushed aside in a variety of ways, and one of which involved the constant disparagement of a homeless, destitute, single mother who turned to prostitution. That she was even tangentially connected to Lexington's economic and political elites, albeit temporarily, could not be tolerated, for to do so would be to suggest moral and ethical equivalence, and of course that could never be acknowledged.

Other than nicer roads and more ostentatious churches, the heart of Lexington today is little different than it was 150 years ago.

John 8: 3-7

(3)And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
(4) They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
(5) Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
(6) This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
(7) So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

Footnote 1. In Lexington, there are four public statues that honor Confederate soldiers. While all four statues are now located in the Lexington Cemetery, until 2017, two were located adjacent to Lexington's old courthouse and literally on the site where human beings were bought and sold into slavery.

One statue on the site of Lexington's slave auction and courthouse lawn was of Lexington native and Secretary of Defense for the Confederacy, John Breckinridge. It was dedicated in 1887 and stood in a place of honor for 130 years. The second statue on the site of Lexington's slave auction and courthouse lawn honored Confederate General John Morgan, who was infamous for terrorizing civilians, robbing banks, looting stores (he was particularly fond of stealing fancy hats and saddles), and being so incompetent as a officer that he was eventually relieved of his command. The Morgan statue was commissioned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Running short of funds to pay for it, the state of Kentucky paid for half its cost. It was dedicated in 1911 and stood for 106 years. Together, both statues gave Lexington the distinction of being the nation's only city with two Confederate monuments installed on the site where human beings were bought and sold.

Confederate General John Morgan, slave auction site and courthouse, Lexington

In November 2015, after increasing public protests about the two Confederate statues on the courthouse lawn, Lexington's Mayor Jim Gray, who lacked the political courage to have them removed, delegated the responsibility to the Urban County Arts Review Board, saying that he would follow their recommendation. When the commission recommended removing both statues, Mayor Gray reversed his previous commitment and overrode the board's recommendation, announcing that the statues would remain in place. However, public protests about the mayor's decision escalated further, and he once again reversed his decision and announced that they would be removed. On October 17, 2017, both were taken down and placed in storage until an agreement could be negotiated with the Lexington Cemetery for their relocation.

Note that in Lexington there has never been a public statue or memorial of any type honoring Union soldiers.

Belle Brezing and Lexington’s Schadenfreude

Joyland Park wasn’t joyful for many

Loved by all.