- [Jim] He planted a flag, and most unexpectedly, discovered an old friend.

It is a park that now welcomes people, but it was created to keep one family out of the neighborhood.

How and why Creve Coeur now wants that name and that story front and center.

- [Allen] I'm just glad that it's being brought to light.

- [Jim] Tennessee Williams may have tried to put his St. Louis years behind him, but a new book explores why he could never quite escape.

- Without St. Louis, he would not have been the same writer by any stretch.

[Jim] And the story of another St. Louisan who left town, T.S.

Eliot, who went to England, but took his hometown with him.

- Growing up in this city at that particular time in this particular place was extremely and particularly influential on him.

- It's all next on "Living St.

Louis."

(upbeat music) I'm Jim Kirchherr.

And on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, thousands of American flags were placed here on Art Hill.

Maybe you came to see them, you almost certainly saw the incredible images.

But each one of those flags had a story.

Kara Vaninger brings us one of them.

- For some people they are maybe just flags.

But behind every flag, there is a story.

The story of someone loved.

- [Kara] When Bacha wali Bacha agreed to help place the Flags of Valor on Art Hill in 2021, he had no idea that one of those would include part of his own story.

- This is my friend, Rob Miller.

- [Kara] In 2008, Bacha was serving in the Afghan army, and worked closely with US Special Forces in the fight against the Taliban.

And that's how he met Army Staff Sergeant Robert Miller.

- He was the youngest man in the team, he was 24.

- [Kara] A Green Beret, Miller had been awarded for his bravery several times.

But on January 25th, 2008, he offered the greatest sacrifice for his fellow soldiers, both American and Afghan, when they were ambushed during a patrol.

Miller told his comrades to fall back as he ran forward to draw enemy fire, and continued to fight, killing 16 insurgents and wounding many more.

Ultimately saving the lives of seven members of his own team, and 15 Afghan soldiers before he lost his own.

Bacha and his men had arrived as backup, and once the firefight was over, he helped to recover Miller's body.

- That was very, very heartbreaking thing for me to see him, see the guy with who you just, 2,3,4 hours ago, you were talking, you drink chai, laughing with them.

- [Kara] Over 7,000 flags were placed to honor service members who lost their lives in the War on Terror since 9/11.

It just so happened that Bacha was assigned the row that would include Robert Miller, and he was able to place his friend's flag himself.

- First moment was very hard to see his picture and everything.

But when I plant the flag, I thought, "He is next to me."

And I hugged the flag.

I thought, "I am hugging him."

- [Kara] Though Bacha made many friends during his time with US Special Forces, it was only after he immigrated to America in 2018 that he understood how much they were leaving behind.

- Now I realize how good life they have here and how hard life they live there when they were deployed.

They are all our heroes.

They fight for us.

- [Kara] In 2010, President Obama presented the Medal of Honor to Miller's parents.

11 years later, in the midst of a sea of snapping flags, he was remembered not just as a soldier, but as a friend.

(somber music) - Our next story brings us to this park in Creve Coeur.

It has a playground and tennis courts and a playing field.

It also has a story, a story that is worth telling, and it has a name, a name that is definitely worth remembering.

On Saturday, September 19th, people came for the rededication of the park now named for Dr. H. Phillip Venable.

A park that was originally created to keep him from living here.

This event, and the renaming of this park is not really righting a wrong, it's too late for that.

But it is one community's acknowledgement of just how wrong it was.

- Today we take one step toward correcting the past injustice as we come together to celebrate the legacy of Dr. Venable and his incredible contribution to the St. Louis community.

- [Jim] It was important that members of the late Dr. Venable's family were today welcomed to the place where he was not.

Gabrielle Hays takes a look back.

- [Gabrielle] Dr. Howard P. Venable was a trailblazer from the very start.

- [Rossalind] And at one time he was one of only five black ophthalmologists in the world.

- [Gabrielle] His surviving nephew and nieces say giving up was not in his vocabulary.

- He was so much more than the story about his house and his land.

I mean, if you think about it he was a real pioneer and a trailblazer.

- [Gabrielle] And they loved that about him.

- My Uncle Howard was way ahead of his time.

- [Gabrielle] Dr. Venable was born in Ontario, Canada.

His family relocated to Detroit when he was just a kid.

And medical school would bring him to St. Louis.

- Well Homer Phillips, there were very few places, it was only Howard and Homer Phillips really where blacks could go to internships and especially in the specialties.

- [Gabrielle] But he wanted to be an ophthalmologist.

And once he achieved that, he wanted to settle down and buy a home in Creve Coeur.

- [Victoria] And instead of buying one lot, he bought two.

- [Gabrielle] This was April of 1956.

But there was an issue.

- They decided that they didn't want people of color in their neighborhoods.

- [Gabrielle] They meaning the mayor and some of the neighbors.

And they pulled out all the stops.

- So he was down to the final permit, which was the plumbing permit, and that got denied.

And then as my brother said, they went to the courts and said they needed a park and had declared eminent domain and took it from him.

- [Gabrielle] He tried to sue several times, but ultimately he lost.

- [Allen] And then they ended up finishing the house, which was almost completed and used it as a clubhouse.

It's just terrible how a person could love a place and the place don't love you.

(somber music) - [Gabrielle] Decades later, the Venable family would receive a phone call.

The Creve Coeur City Council was set to vote on whether or not to rename the park in Venable's memory.

That resolution passed.

- [Rossalind] And it was absolutely packed.

We were able to have a video of it, and we were able to present a statement that day.

- It's sad and you're happy.

You're happy that it's finally getting the recognition and you know, somebody pulled the cover off of it, they let the light shine.

- [Gabrielle] But the family says that can not be the end.

- It kind of gave us a little bit of closure because we knew the story and we'd been living the story all our lives.

- [Rosalind] We are happy about it, but we also don't want it to just be a one-off.

- [Gabrielle] Not only did their statement call for renaming of the park, but they also asked for a memorial in their uncle's honor.

An annual day of recognition, philanthropic contributions in his name, reparations, and more.

- That there'd be either some kind of land grants or some kind of assistance to BIPOC people to purchase land or property in Creve Coeur.

(light music) - [Gabrielle] To better understand Creve Coeur's involvement, we sat down with City Council member, Heather Silverman.

- I think it's really important that we validate that past and what happened and the implications that it has on people's lives today, as well as the implications on our community in terms of generational wealth, opportunity, opportunity for individuals, as well as opportunity for communities.

- [Gabrielle] Much like the Venable family, Silverman says there's much more work to do.

- It was really important to me that we not only rename the park, right, because renaming it would just, in some ways, wipe it away, the history, but that we also somehow remember what happened here and do something about it.

So the resolution that renamed the park also created a task force and the task force is currently working on the rededication event.

- [Gabrielle] She says it's also important to recognize stories like these span generations.

- This park, it's not like it was the only situation.

It was part of a trend that was happening in this region and in the country.

- [Gabrielle] In the end, the Venable family says they want people to remember who their uncle was.

- He didn't become bitter about it.

He didn't let that deter him.

He built his house in Baldwin Hills and he continued on.

- [Gabrielle] They want people to know his story and that his story is everyone's story.

- American history includes the history of African-Americans in this country.

It's not a separate thing.

And this is a great American story.

- I'm just glad that it's being brought to light.

My uncle, Dr. Howard Venable just wanted to same option as his peers and colleagues.

He just wanted to be treated fairly and seen as a man who was contributing to his society and raising his family, in a loving community.

- [Jim] At the conclusion of the rededication, a proclamation was read.

It included not just the what, the naming of the park, but the why.

- In whereas a community and city leaders acknowledge and declare that the City used the power of eminent domain in connection with the creation of the first city park, the City acted at the urging and direction of people whose ulterior motive was the exclusion of the Venables from the city due to their race.

- [Jim] Family members received plaques with that proclamation.

But the intent is that this story, which the family has long lived with, would now be shared as everyone's history.

(audience claps) (soft music) Maybe you've noticed, Tennessee Williams is making something of a comeback.

Not on Broadway, but here in St. Louis, the place where he spent much of his childhood, a lot of it in this neighborhood in the Central West End.

His adolescence, his young adulthood, whether he liked it or not.

And famously, he did not think much of this city.

But I think for a long time, St. Louis did not think much of the contributions it made to his life.

Accepting blame, but not taking any credit.

That I think, is what's changing.

Since 2015, there has been a Tennessee Williams Festival here.

The 2021 festival put on "The Glass Menagerie," Williams' semi-autobiographical play set in St. Louis.

They staged it at the real and symbolic fire escapes behind one of the Williams family's apartments in the Central West End.

In addition to performances, there were plenty of lectures and panel discussions.

Washington University drama professor, Henry Schvey, was one of the speakers.

He's written a book, "Blue Song: St. Louis in the Life and Work of Tennessee Williams."

- But you asked, "Why the book?"

And I think the book was written to figure out what this relationship was.

- And now you get into this what if, you know?

But could there be Tennessee Williams as we know him, without the experiences he faced in St. Louis?

- I would say no.

- [Jim] The family came to St. Louis from Clarksdale, Mississippi when Tennessee Williams' father got a job at the International Shoe Company headquarters.

Tennessee, then Tom, was just eight.

And his mother was unhappy here, his father abusive.

His sister, in the early stages of mental illness.

So let me ask you this.

There's two factors here of things that are fraught with conflict.

One is the city and the new environment, and the other is the family.

- Yes.

- I think that family, in any city, may have resulted in the same writer.

- Yes.

But it was compounded by things.

He always romanticized the South.

He romanticized the place he had been uprooted from.

So that's an important aspect of it.

You're right, that family would've arguably destroyed, emotionally, anyone.

It destroyed his sister.

- Yeah.

- There were all sorts of influences there.

But in answer to that specific question, no, without St. Louis he would not have been the same writer by any stretch.

I mean, obviously we can say that about anyone, but in this case, St. Louis was much more than the sum total of negative influences.

It had many positive influences.

Teachers at these formidable schools, Ben Blewett, University City High School, University of Missouri, Washington University.

- We're talking the positive part of St. Louis.

- I'm talking positive.

- The educational system.

- Yes.

- The arts availability, - Absolutely.

- The theater, all of that.

Tom started to write, even in junior high.

He published some stories in high school.

He went to the University of Missouri.

But his father pulled him out of school and got him a job at the shoe company downtown.

He hated the job, but he was immersed in a working class world and Depression-era left-wing politics.

I think sometimes people forget that St. Louis in the 30s was a real hotbed of some pretty radical politics, socialists and communists.

There were marches on City Hall.

- So Williams was exposed to these different ideas than a normal quote unquote middle-class kid would be exposed to.

So again, this is another way in which being in St. Louis widened his horizon.

- In a way that he wouldn't have found in a small town.

- Of course not.

- Right.

- And even in a strange way, it's because of the way that adversity works.

Remarkably, as a great artist, he soaked it up.

Williams cut his teeth in St. Louis as a playwright.

In a number of plays that have a very strong social component.

- [Jim] When he went to Washington University, Tennessee Williams was writing poetry and plays.

And the story goes that when he didn't win the one-act play competition in his drama class, he angrily left the university.

But there's more to it than that.

And Professors Schvey himself helped provide some of the evidence, which led to the book title, "Blue Song."

- The title of the book relates to the discovery of a poem in a New Orleans bookstore in 2005.

I saw this and it stunned me of course, because it says Washington University stores campus... - [Jim] It was Tom Williams' Greek test.

He did poorly, and he knew he would fail the class.

Williams was feeling a failure.

Sad, lost, hopeless.

We know that because in the same booklet in pencil, he wrote a poem about being sad and lost and hopeless, which he titled "Blue Song."

- So the story, as you suggest, goes that well he left in a huff.

But it is much more complicated.

He was miserable for reasons not having to do with the city.

He was miserable because of what was happening in his family.

- But for a man who really doesn't have a home, writing is his home.

- Yes, absolutely.

That's very profound.

- The typewriter, - Yes.

- The pen and paper.

That's where he lives, that's where he belongs.

- Yes.

And that, as is commonly written about, saved his life.

I think it's a foregone conclusion or all but, that he would have ended up like Rose.

You know, clearly he was plagued by mental illness throughout his life.

And I think what saved him was his addiction, his compulsion, to write.

- [Jim] His first Broadway success was "The Glass Menagerie."

As he matured as a writer, he moved from the political to the personal, psychological themes based strongly on his family.

And with scenes, even if set in the South, that continued to draw on his experiences in St. Louis, and often the desire to escape.

- He was constantly trying to run away, to leave where he was.

But I think that the moral, if you like, of William's life, is that running away was profoundly and tragically impossible.

It's not a coincidence that he's buried here in Calvary Cemetery.

Although people would say that it's ironic and it's inappropriate.

I think it's significant because his life was one of attempted escape, but really it's about the impossibility of escape.

- And he never lived anywhere longer as he lived in St. Louis.

- No, we think of his having left St. Louis for New Orleans, let's say, or New York, or even Provincetown.

But these places, I'm not diminishing the importance of New Orleans, but I think that what he found in New Orleans was, of course, necessary counterbalance St. Louis and the sort of middle-class world, but he never escaped it.

He never escaped St. Louis.

St. Louis was in his blood.

Because, I mean, in his very last place, he's still writing portraits of his mother and father.

And of course so many of his plays throughout the decades owe a tremendous debt to his sister.

And he was always trying to write her story and write his own through her story.

And that never changed.

It's there in the very, very last things that he wrote.

He's still dealing with mental illness, with claustrophobia, with escape, with madness and with women.

And analogs of Rose.

- Like it or not, he really could not put St. Louis behind him.

- He never escaped.

He never did, no.

(somber music) - We're gonna stay on the hometown literary theme because recently it was September 26th.

Somebody said, "Hey, it's T.S.

Eliot's birthday," because that's the kind of place I work.

It's also the kind of place that would do a story about a hometown boy who made good, I mean really good.

This story by Patrick Murphy is from our archives.

- [Patrick] When the Central West End home of T.S.

Eliot went up for sale, it caught my eye.

In high school they made us read "The Wasteland," "The Hollow Men," and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

So I knew he was from St. Louis and that he was a great 20th century poet, playwright and critic.

I knew that the Broadway hit "Cats" was adapted from his book of verse "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats."

I even knew that he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948.

But to be honest, reading his work was, for me, a chore.

But I was curious, so I met realtor Suzanne Hunn at the open house in the 4400 block of Westminster, along with the Chair of Washington University's English department.

So is the house today pretty much the way it was when T.S.

Eliot and his family lived here?

- It absolutely is, it has been lovingly maintained and restored, the original woodwork, everything from the pocket doors to the picture rails.

- Now this picture on the wall over here, is that T.S.

Eliot and his family actually in this room?

- Yes it is.

Throughout the house, you will see pictures periodically in the different rooms with the Eliot family.

Here's the kitchen, the original floors.

- This is where Mama Eliot then would've made breakfast for little T.S.

- Exactly.

- Okay.

It's a beautiful house.

Just the kind of place a patrician St. Louis family would have lived at the turn of the century.

T.S.

's father was a prominent businessman and his grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot, was instrumental in the founding of Washington University, the St. Louis Public Schools, the St. Louis Art Museum, Mary Institute, and a lot of other major local institutions.

Eliot was actually born here at 2635 Locust, which you can see is a parking lot now.

There is a plaque over there in the sidewalk commemorating him.

The Eliot family was well off, but in the 1890s, this neighborhood was already starting to get pretty seedy with smoky factories, saloons, and brothels.

But Tom's father wanted to stay in the neighborhood because his mother lived just right around the corner.

In 1905, the family moved to the Central West End.

For a major literary figure, there aren't a lot of public tributes to Thomas Stearns Eliot around town.

There's a star in the University City Walk of Fame.

On the back wall of Christ Church Cathedral there's a plaque.

And tucked away in a corner of the main library's Rare Books department, is a tablet commemorating his life.

But that's not surprising.

Eliot might be a hometown boy made good, but he found his identity by leaving St. Louis behind for the East Coast and eventually England, where he became a British subject.

So he might've walked up and down Westminster and said, "Yeah, this is very nice, but I can do better."

- Importance is established elsewhere.

Not here.

When he was East, he was a Midwesterner in the East, right?

He was of Northern identification, but he had a Southern drawl.

Which he very, very vigorously sought to remedy.

His identity markers for him growing up were always double.

And so he was always not where he was.

And that's an interesting condition to inhabit.

- But that's a little bit like St. Louis too, isn't it?

It's not really a Northern city.

It's not really a Southern city.

It's not really Eastern/Western.

It's always had sort of an identity.

- Well, and that's why they should recognize the house that he sort of grew up in as a historic site of St. Louis.

I think he embodies that sort of border status that St. Louis has.

- Eliot was a modernist, linking tradition to the world of the 20th century.

A time when two world wars shook the foundations of Western life, and scientific theories like relativity and quantum physics changed our understanding of the nature of the universe and our place in it.

Every year, the T.S.

Eliot Society holds an annual get together, usually in St. Louis.

Where academics and fans from around the world let their hair down and chat about their favorite author.

This year, they celebrated his 120th birthday.

That's me trying to hold my own with a group of imminent T.S.

Eliot scholars.

(crowd chatting) - In our time, we're coming to understand that this is a guy who loved pop culture.

He loved jazz.

He loved dancing.

Like whenever friends would come visit him from America, he'd get them to teach him the latest dance steps in New York.

He wrote a fan letter to Eartha Kitt.

He corresponded with Groucho Marx.

This is a guy who was fascinated by popular culture.

But when you and I were young, our teachers were telling us, "Oh no, this is only serious."

You know, we talked philosophy and what not.

He did that too.

What I love about Eliot is that he bridges the two things, you know, the world of elite, high class culture and learning, but also real lives of ordinary people.

- [Patrick] And it seems that ev though Eliot left St. Louis, St. Louis never completely left him.

- Most of the images in his early poetry particularly come from the streets of St. Louis.

And so he walked on those streets, you know, the images from his poetry are from St. Louis.

And he says so, in old age.

You know, in old age he makes the circle back to St. Louis.

- Later in his life, again looking back, seeing that growing up in this city at that particular time, in this particular place was extremely and particularly influential on him.

He talks about how anyone who has not lived in, let alone grown up in, a river town, cannot understand rhythm the way someone who has done will understand that.

He says, "I do not know much about gods, but I think that the river is a strong brown God.

Sullen, untamed, and intractable.

His rhythm was present in the nursery bedroom, in the rank ailanthus of the April dooryard, in the smell of grapes on the autumn table, and the evening circle in the winter gaslight, the river is within us, and the sea is all about us."

- [Patrick] In 1953, T.S.

Eliot returned to St. Louis for the celebration of Washington University's 100th Anniversary, where he spoke of his feelings for his boyhood home.

- [T.S.

Eliot] Many other memories have invaded my mind since I received the invitation to address you today.

But I think these are enough to serve as a token of my thoughts and feelings.

I am very well satisfied with having been born in St. Louis.

In fact, I would even say I think I'm fortunate to have been born here rather than in Boston or New York or London.

- And that's "Living St.

Louis."

Thanks for joining us.

I'm Jim Kirchherr and we'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "Living St. Louis" is made possible by the support of the Betsy & Thomas Patterson Foundation, the Mary Ranken Jordan and Ettie A. Jordan Charitable Trust, and by the members of Nine PBS.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues)