Above: A Nexstar video about the history of Pride Month.
SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) – San Diego’s LGBTQ+ community has an incredibly rich and dynamic history – one that stretches back as far as the city has existed.
Most San Diegans probably have a passing knowledge of some of the city’s LGBTQ+ hotspots, like Hillcrest’s “Gayborhood.”
However, most may not know that some of San Diego’s most influential residents more than a century ago — people who shaped parts of the city itself — would also be among the earliest members of the local LGBTQ+ community.
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Kate sessions
Pioneering horticulturist Kate Sessions was instrumental in shaping what was then San Diego in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Residents may know her as the “Mother of Balboa Park” or from her namesake park overlooking Mission Bay at the base of Mount Soledad.
Born in 1857 in Oakland, Sessions moved south to San Diego in 1884, where she founded several plant nurseries and flower shops. In doing so, she committed to planting trees and other wildlife in the city, creating some of today’s green spaces.
What San Diegans may not know about Sessions is that historians consider her one of the earliest representatives of the city’s burgeoning LGBTQ+ community.
According to city historians, little is known about San Diego’s queer community before the 20th century, given societal conventions and laws that criminalized activities related to same-sex relationships and forced them to keep their personal lives largely behind closed doors.
Sessions also existed at a time when the concepts of “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality” were still unused descriptors for sexual desire: both terms were coined by the Hungarian journalist Karl Maria Kertbeny in the late 1860s, but were not widely adopted. used. about their current significance – well into the 20th century.
Because many people who would be considered members of the modern LGBTQ+ community lived their most authentic lives in secret, historians seeking to shed light on their stories often turn to other accounts of how people understood same-sex relationships at the time.
This includes the concept of ‘romantic friendships’, or close friendships between two members of the same sex that are often ambiguous in nature. According to local historians, Sessions had such a friendship.
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The horticulturist, who never married, is known to have maintained a very intimate, lifelong friendship with botanist Alice Eastwood.
“Our friendship developed through flowers — our children, that I grow and that you name,” Sessions said of her relationship with Eastwood, according to the Lambda Archives, a local history center that collects artifacts about San Diego’s LGBTQ+ community.
However, historians note that it will probably never be known whether this affection translated into a physical relationship between the two.
Jesse Shepard
Artist Jesse Shepard is probably a lesser-known name to San Diegans compared to Sessions, but he also left a lasting impression – namely in the Sherman Heights neighborhood, where his home still stands as one of the best-preserved Victorians in the city.
Born in England in 1848, Shepard was an eccentric pianist, especially praised in circles of wealthy or affluent Europeans. He also wrote a book, ‘The Valley of Shadows’, under the pseudonym Francis Grierson, which is now considered an American classic.
Shepard lived in San Diego for a very short time in the late 1980s, only about three years. He built Villa Montezuma as his residence after being invited to move to the area by local investment bankers, who sought to increase intrigue in the new town for potential residents.
The elegant Queen Anne-style home became an impressive backdrop for a Shepard who held a number of “drawing room” receptions where he performed, hosting celebrities from then-California Governor Robert Waterman to Civil War hero General Benjamin Grierson, his cousin.
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However, Shepard sold the house in 1989 amid largely self-inflicted financial troubles, which coincided with the abrupt collapse of San Diego’s real estate market when promises about the arrival of the railroad in the city failed to materialize. It now serves as a city museum.
During his brief stay in San Diego, the musician lived at Villa Montezuma, along with his “secretary” and likely romantic companion, Lawrence W. Tonner.
Tonner was 15 years younger than Shepard, but was described by historians in a 1987 article in the Journal of San Diego History as a “devoted” consort. He lived with the musician even after he left San Diego, until his death in 1927, playing piano at a recital at their home.
As with Sessions, not much else is known about Shepard and Tonner’s relationship beyond the affection historians have gleaned from statements about their forty years of life together.
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