- Welcome to "Living St.

Louis."

I'm Brooke Butler.

And it's that time of year again for hayrides, pumpkin patches, corn mazes.

That's right: it's peak season for agritourism.

Each year, nearly 1,500 farms across Missouri and Illinois open their gates to the public for field labor turned family fun.

It's a lucrative business but also a tradition that St.

Louis families have cherished for generations.

The Eckert family planted their first fruit trees back in the 1860s, and by 1890 they were running orchards that still produce apples, peaches, and berries today.

What started as a small roadside stand more than a century ago has grown into one of the oldest family-owned farm operations in the country, now led by sixth and seventh generations of Eckerts.

It's another reminder of how the seasons can connect us.

In this "Living St.

Louis," we have more stories about community and tradition.

From the 50th anniversary of Saint Louis Opera Theatre to a St.

Louis chef bringing people together over bread, to the launch of a new history project, and the story of a local teacher who helped spark LGBT History Month nationwide.

Stay with us for those stories and more of Eckert's Belleville farm.

It's all next on "Living St.

Louis."

(upbeat playful music) (upbeat playful music continues) (upbeat playful music continues) (upbeat playful music continues) (light playful music) - Illinois leads the nation in pumpkin production, harvesting about 690 million pounds per year.

And while most of those pumpkins end up in pies or purees, many others find their way into our fall traditions like carving and picking.

But traditions take many forms.

And for some St.

Louisans, it might not be pumpkins, it may be Puccini.

Ruth Ezell shows us how the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis celebrated a major milestone this year.

(light playful music) - [Ruth] She didn't speak many lines or sing many notes, but all eyes were on Sheri Greenawald in Opera Theatre of Saint Louis's 2025 production of "Don Pasquale."

You see, Greenawald was also in the first opera OTSL ever produced.

That was "Don Pasquale" too.

But back then, the soprano sang the leading female role of Norina.

Greenawald's return for Opera Theatre's 50th-anniversary season was a big deal.

And she wasn't the only person having a full-circle moment.

- What I really want you to do is, yeah, I think it's better, and then he brings it out.

- [Ruth] Christopher Alden directed "Don Pasquale" for Opera Theatre in both Season 1 and Season 50.

- When I was asked to do this 50th-anniversary production of a show that I had done 50 years, I just didn't wanna be the only old, you know, codger in the room that had been here 50 years ago.

So Sheri came into mind, popped into my mind, and I was like, "She's gotta come along for the ride."

And then I started, well, I think in conversation, started to develop, you know, ideas about how she could be involved in this production.

And there's this little role of the notary who comes in, a kind of interesting little character part.

♪ We need another witness ♪ But there always must be two - But then it didn't seem like, just didn't seem like enough.

So then I developed, you know, another role for her, which kind of tracks through the whole production, of a woman who runs a cafe down the street in Rome from where Don Pasquale lives.

And this old dude, and he comes there with all of his buddies every morning to have coffee.

And Sheri plays the lady who runs the cafe but who also has her sights set on Don Pasquale as a potential, you know, romantic possibilities.

- [Ruth] Opera Theatre of Saint Louis was founded as a summer festival, typically presenting four operas, all sung in English.

OTSL has attracted an impressive string of singers and directors over the decades and has staged more than a dozen American premieres and more than 30 world premieres.

- Opera Theatre of St.

Louis gave me such wonderful opportunities in the past.

The first time I sang Mimi, I sang in this house.

The first time I sang Violetta in "Traviata" was in this house.

I think, well, it wasn't my first Pamina, but I sang Pamina in this house.

First time I sang "Turn of the Screw" was in this house.

So some of my favorite and most important roles I got to sing in this house first.

So I have a real attachment to this house.

- [Ruth] Opera Theatre's first General Director was the late Richard Gaddis, who served from 1976 to '85.

He was succeeded by Charles MacKay, who led the organization until 2008.

Then Timothy O'Leary from 2008 to 2018.

Andrew Jorgensen is the current General Director.

- I think it sort of captures the entire ethos and mission of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, this idea that, 50 years ago, Sheri Greenawald and Christopher Alden were emerging artists at the very beginning of their careers.

This was one of Christopher's first directing assignments.

He was in his 20s.

He's now directed at every major theater in the world.

And to come back 50 years later and to direct the same opera and to train the next generation of young talent and pass on all that he has learned to those singers is extremely profound.

Just as meaningful: Sheri Greenawald, this wasn't her professional debut, this came just after her professional debut, but it was a jumping-off point for a career that was equally great.

♪ Maybe wiser staying single - The idea that, you know, 50 years from now Susanne Burgess, who is singing the role of Norina today, might be celebrated in the same way.

And that this full lifecycle of identifying and nurturing and then launching extraordinary young talent and then bringing those same talents back to help to mentor and propel the next generation.

To capture that full lifecycle in one evening at the opera, it encapsulates the very mission of this organization.

And I couldn't be more proud to see that production on our stage.

You know, it was unlikely that Opera Theatre would be a success.

On the opening night of the very first season, ticket sales were poor.

The story is that actually they were giving tickets away to anybody who would come.

And many efforts to produce an opera company in St.

Louis before had actually failed.

I have a subscriber, a 50-year subscriber who jokes with me: "I was a subscriber in the first season "because I was sure there wouldn't be a second one."

But something magical happened on that opening night of that first "Don Pasquale."

And 50 years later, we are deeply grateful to the St.

Louis community for sustaining one of the most vibrant arts organizations anywhere in the country right here at home in St.

Louis.

And I hope that whether or not St.

Louisans walk through the doors of this theater and participate in our performances, that they are proud to know that there's a cultural institution of truly international standing that St.

Louis has made possible over these last 50 years.

(bright orchestral music) (audience applauds) (light playful music) - Everyone knows you can't leave Eckert's without something good to eat, especially from their very own bakery.

Believe it not, it's not hard to make one of these tasty treats yourself.

We stopped by a breadmaking class in North County St.

Louis where a local chef is using her skills in the kitchen to educate and build up her community one recipe at a time.

(soft guitar music) There's just something about growing and making your own food from scratch, from harvesting it from your own garden, to cultivating your own creations in the kitchen.

It takes time, patience, and creativity.

That's what this chef is teaching everyone that comes to her classes at the North County Agricultural Center.

This is Chef Queenie.

She's a self-made chef and farmer who was discovered by a nonprofit that serves the North County area called A Red Circle.

It provides programs that helps build a stronger community.

And she invited us to her home in Ferguson to tell us more about it and her story.

But also I saw your bio on A Red Circle website, and so you do culinary classes with them?

- I do.

That was the first project of mine was to create a curriculum about bread and then make a breadmaking class.

So I started off with that.

I think I had 10 students the first time.

Another class that I do is Canning 101, where I'm just introducing people to canning, and it's just getting them over the fear.

It's not so much the recipe, that it is the process of farming it, cleaning it, prepping it, and then canning it and then learning how to store it.

And I also am in the process of working on teaching people how to dehydrate and how to store their food after they pick it or bring it home so they can make it last longer.

- [Leah] Queenie is one of the many instructors and specialists in their wellness program, and there are others who come in and teach and manage the farm that we went out to pick our ingredients in.

(soft piano music) Chef Queenie's story didn't just start in the classroom.

It was birthed from a turbulent childhood that led her to be a creative in culinary arts and agriculture.

She was born to a single mother in Moline, Illinois who eventually couldn't take care of her.

- People always say: "Queenie, you know, why did you chef?"

Or, you know, "Why do you cook or why do you do this?"

And really, at the end of the day, it was because I was hungry.

My mom was out on drugs, there was no father in the home, and we had to use staples like pantries and the Salvation Army.

And eventually I got taken away and end up getting adopted by a woman who married my uncle who stays here in St.

Louis.

And she ended up taking me in, and I end up being raised in Mexico, Missouri.

And that's where I graduated high school from.

And that's where I took horticulture class and kind of fell in love with like how to grow stuff.

And I end up meeting a lot of like farmers and ag people, and I'm like, "Man, this is a lifestyle?

"I didn't know you could get a job doing this."

And that's where my green thumb kind of sprouted from that.

- [Leah] It's sprouted into the lifestyle she lives today, from the safe haven she's created in her home, to feeding her community and teaching classes for everyone, including kids.

- When I had these children over to learn how to make a no-bake pizza, I realized: if they can touch the soil and cut and pick it, they now have a relationship with it.

When they take it in and they clean it, they now have a relationship with it.

And that relationship continues to grow as they're building their dish and as they get to eat it.

They take pride and ownership in that.

I wish that we would bring back home ec classes 'cause that is a place where I, you know, learned about food and just different things in general like kitchen safety.

- [Leah] And the craft that brought her power and healing is exactly what she wants to leave as a legacy.

- When I leave this earth, I don't care what they say about me.

I want them to say: "She brought it back, "she picked the ball up that was dropped, "and, boy, did she slam it."

And that's how I would like to go out.

I just want them to know like I love 'em and I'm gonna always care about my community in that way.

So how many of y'all gonna go home and make bread?

- [Student] I am.

- Okay.

(soft piano music) (light playful music) - St.

Louisans on both sides of the river are very nostalgic people.

Think the St.

Louis Cardinals, Ted Drewes, a hayride at Eckert's.

These are all very St.

Louis things that unite St.

Louisans everywhere.

We at "Living St.

Louis" have partnered with our friends at the Missouri Historical Society and their I Am St.

Louis campaign, which encourages everyone to see themselves as part of St.

Louis's story.

Veronica Mohesky and Jody Sowell kick things off.

- I'm Veronica Mohesky.

Today, I'm here with Jody Sowell, the President of the Missouri Historical Society, and we're kicking off our I Am St.

Louis series.

Jody, what story are we talking about today?

- Yeah, you know, we say at the Missouri Historical Society that, if St.

Louis could introduce itself, it would tell you it's so much more rich, diverse, and complex than people know.

It would say, "I'm the place "where a high school history teacher "launched a global movement."

That history teacher is Rodney Wilson.

In 1994, he was teaching at Mehlville High School.

- Hey, that's my school district.

- And he was teaching a class about Nazi Germany, and he decided to use this moment to teach a history lesson.

And so he used this moment to come out to his students and to tell them that, as a gay man, he also would've been persecuted in Nazi Germany.

He also, that very same year, launched what was then called the Lesbian and Gay History Month, what we now know as LGBT History Month, celebrated in October.

- Why is this story important to St.

Louis today?

- You know, I think it's just a reminder of that diversity and complexity of St.

Louis history.

It is also a reminder that LGBT history is part of every chapter of St.

Louis history.

And, finally, I love these inspirational people who can be found in St.

Louis history, and Rodney Wilson is certainly one.

- Absolutely, thanks, Jody.

Brooke Butler has the story.

- I bought this poster at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

in March of '94 and brought it back to my classroom.

We were talking about the Holocaust at that time.

I showed it to my students.

I pointed out to them each of the symbols, what they meant.

For example, a French Jew, a German Jew, a Jehovah's Witness.

This is the pink triangle that gay people had to wear.

And then I said, "As a gay person, "I would've been forced to wear a pink triangle "had I lived then because I am gay."

Well, it was very hard for anyone in 1994.

I'm sure there had been other teachers who were exposed as gay or lesbian in Missouri and didn't survive that.

In this case, I felt it was really necessary that I make it.

- [Brooke] Rodney Wilson not only made it as a teacher, but his efforts to raise awareness and inclusion of LGBTQ+ history has since spread across the world.

History Month, that's celebrated through the month of October, that was Rodney, a social studies teacher at Mehlville High School.

In fact, he was the first openly gay teacher in the state of Missouri, a significant feat considering how it could have easily ended his career.

- If there had been a backlash that had removed me from the classroom, I felt that would be very harmful to all LGBT kids, to all LGBT teachers, to the idea of civil rights and equality in general.

- [Brooke] But as word spread of Rodney's coming out, there were many people who strongly opposed the lack of disciplinary actions by the district, as seen in local and national news coverage.

- [Reporter] Coming up: could this history teacher be history because he came out of the closet in class?

- This is totally inappropriate!

- That was bad taste and bad judgment on the part of the teacher.

He should have been reprimanded or maybe fired, I don't know.

- The gay teacher speaks out tonight after he's verbally vilified at a school board meeting.

- It's not right, and my kids don't like it.

- We do not need this in our school.

- No wonder our children are ignorant if that's what's being discussed in the classroom.

- Public education has impressed one foolishness after another in recent decades.

But parents should scream bloody murder at the first sign of a school in their district prepared... - [Brooke] "Parents should scream bloody murder"?

- Scream bloody murder, yes.

- If this got into school's curriculum.

And that just, I mean, how did that feel to like hear someone so angry?

- To be denounced by a U.S.

congressman by name on the floor of the United States House of Representatives actually now I take as a badge of honor that that happened.

But at the time, if I had been aware of it, that might have been a little disconcerting.

- [Brooke] Because surely you have to had known this is going to get some negative response from faculty, from families, from the community.

I mean, were you prepared for that kind of response?

- I don't know if I had really thought much past the actual event, which I had been thinking about for quite some time.

I think a teacher needs to have some sense of control in the classroom.

And if there's some secret information about a teacher that begins to get out through the rumor mill, for example, that disempowers the teacher.

So I felt that it was really important that I control when and how, under what circumstances that I let that information be known.

- [Brooke] And just as there were many people who didn't think it was necessary for Rodney to come out to his high school students, there were just as many who praised his act of courage.

- The Mehlville teacher who told his students he's gay gets a tenured job in the South County district.

- It's being called a victory for gays and lesbians tonight.

- The fact that the guy refers to the fact that he's married is no problem for anybody.

There's no difference here.

He simply refer to his orientation.

- I think Rodney has the right to say he is gay.

It is part of our history, it's there.

It is so predominant, and most people are so blind and they have such tunnel vision.

- It's always a landmark when we take any kind of step towards basic human rights.

- [Brooke] But perhaps the most important reaction was from his students.

Some even were interviewed in the 1994 "Dateline" special about Rodney.

- Someone started clapping, and the whole class just started clapping, and saying, "Oh, Mr.

Wilson, you know, that was so brave.

"You know, I'm so proud of how you did that and everything."

And everyone was just so proud.

And then I was crying and Mary was crying, and, I mean, it was really great how he did it.

- The Missouri Historical Society Library and Research Center houses many of the items Rodney has donated, not only to commemorate him as the first openly gay teacher in the state of Missouri, but also mementos that went into planning LGBTQ+ History Month.

In fact, that's what sparked Rodney's decision to come out to his class in the first place, as he hoped History Month would gain publicity.

And it did, thanks to Rodney and some dedicated friends.

Johnda Boyce was one of those dedicated friends who has been collaborating with Rodney ever since they met at Southeast Missouri State in 1989.

- And do you remember how Women's History Month was sort of a model, of course, as Black History Month was the ultimate model?

And this catalog from the National Women's History Project, do you remember what they had on... You could buy a pencil from them that had a very nifty saying, what was that?

- I remember buying a box of them.

It said: "Write women back into history."

And you and I and our other folks were back to write LGBT people back into history.

I think it's important for anybody who is first realizing that they're a member of the LGBTQ community to find their history.

Not just find their people now, but find their history as well, to understand the past as a backdrop for what we're doing in the future.

- [Brooke] Johnda played a key role in editing the proposals in addition to being on the coordinating council for the first Gay and Lesbian History Month in 1994.

Was it specific to St.

Louis, the first History Month?

- It wasn't because he's the only one who was here.

He was smart enough and managed to make connections in a pre-internet age to gather people from all over the country for his first coordinating council.

So he was here in this area.

I was in Columbus, Ohio.

Kevin Jennings from Boston.

Kevin Boyer from Chicago.

He got Jessea Greenman from California.

- Cory Wilson, Saralyn Chestnut.

Just to get their names into this conversation.

With them, we were creating curriculum, we were creating ideas about how you might implement a Lesbian and Gay History month at October.

- We could make it whatever we wanted so people could kind of just do what they liked to do.

If they liked film, then they could plan film.

If they liked lectures, they could plan a lecture.

Have a gay, lesbian, bisexual-themed Halloween party.

So we just all tried to find institutions and people who could do some work to get those things to happen.

- [Brooke] And it didn't take long for the idea to catch on.

In 1995, St.

Louis Mayor Freeman Bosley signed a proclamation for History Month, and other cities soon followed suit.

After about a decade of continually spreading the celebrations of History Month across the country, it then caught wind overseas.

- We've since recruited 23 representatives from 16 History Months around the world.

- [Brooke] So how does that feel to have that global impact?

- It's great, actually.

I thought this part of my life was over, that it had been done 30 years ago.

And then now this international committee is creating new avenues of creativity and ways to express this idea.

And the idea that we're now sowing the seeds for future History Months.

Now, in my classroom, that first October of 1994, I wasn't able to do anything.

The school district made it clear that I wasn't to participate in that event.

- I hope he spoke to you about, or if not, you can certainly read about the NEA, National Education Association, treating it like a hot potato a little bit after first endorsing it.

It shouldn't be controversial, but it was, it was definitely controversial.

- [Brooke] Well, and it still is today.

- It hasn't changed.

You know, I was very pleased in Jefferson City last year to find he was honored as a trailblazer in Missouri's bicentennial exhibit in the Capitol.

But it was only a few months after I saw artifacts from his starting History Month in our Capitol that a display about Kansas City's LGBT history was removed.

- That's something history teaches.

It's not always a forward trajectory.

There are steps back, and sometimes those steps back are brutal.

Now, even though I wasn't specifically to be part of Lesbian and Gay History Month in October, 1994, still I was able to bring things into the classroom when it's appropriate.

For example, you can't talk about 1960s social movements, African American Civil Rights Movement, women's movement, Native American movement, Latino movement, you can't talk about those movements without also talking about Stonewall, lesbian and gay history, Pride marches, the beginning of an attempt to make oneself and one's community equal in the larger societies.

I had students at the time recreate protest posters.

- Oh!

- Pro and con.

All sides of issues.

- [Brooke] Oh, wow, okay.

- We could have a conversation about, at the time, what did people think pro and con?

Why did they have those thoughts?

And where have we moved the conversation to today?

This place we're at, this library and research center, is a place where we store our memories.

And it used to be that, in the LGBT community, that we would store our memories in our apartments.

So not having a history is a foundation from which one can build a life, build a career, build a community.

Means you're starting at a deficit.

Because the bottom line really is: we want all of our young people to learn to read well, write well, speak well, think well, be part of the conversation, be good citizens, be good community members.

And if you're a gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender child and you're in a school in which it's not safe to be those things, your ability to learn to read, write, speak, think well is hindered.

So if we believe in the value and integrity of all young people, then we have to practice that.

- And that's "Living St.

Louis."

Where are your favorite places to go this time of year?

Do you have any fun fall traditions?

Let us know at ninepbs.org/lsl.

We're always looking for a fun new place to go.

And don't forget: you can watch all these stories and more on Nine PBS's YouTube channel or on the PBS App.

I'm Brooke Butler.

Thanks for joining us.

(upbeat playful music) (upbeat playful music continues) (upbeat playful music continues) (upbeat playful music continues) (upbeat playful music continues) - [Announcer] "Living St.

Louis" is funded in part by the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation and the members of Nine PBS.