“Confirmed” Homosexuals
Eleanor Vivian Archuleta
Romantic or sexual love between women fell outside the purview of sodomy laws in most U.S. states (because phallic oral or anal penetration was required), but Idaho State Penitentiary staff punished female inmates who admitted to their attractions to women by denying their pardon requests or, more commonly, sending them to State Hospital South.
Eleanor Vivian “Archie” Carbajal Archuleta came to the penitentiary with a known history of queerness. Archuleta was born in 1938 in Grand Junction, Colorado, to Pilar and Ramona (née Lovato) Carbajal.[1] Her mother died during Archuleta’s infancy, and her godparents, Agapito and Florencia Archuleta, adopted her. Her family subsequently moved to Pocatello, where she attended St. Anthony Catholic School until 1956. Archuleta worked traditionally blue-collar jobs as a youth, washing dishes at St. Anthony Hospital, farming potatoes, and waitressing at Chris Café in Pocatello.[2] As Archuleta grew up, some of the trouble she got into stemmed from her low income and her same-sex sexual activities.
Archuleta cycled in and out of Idaho State Industrial School in St. Anthony, Idaho, (hereafter referred to as St. Anthony’s) for years. In 1957, officials sent Archuleta to State Hospital South in Blackfoot for her “homo sexuality tendencies.”[3] State Hospital South opened in 1886 to serve Idahoans with a variety of mental health concerns. By 1949, the hospital was caring for an average of 665 patients a year, with facility buildings ranging in condition from poor to newly built.[4] Archuleta was released in 1958. When she was not incarcerated or institutionalized, Archuleta had an ongoing romantic relationship with Rose Dominguez and, as stated by Judge Darwin D. Brown in her intake paperwork, “She always assumed the position of the girl in such unnatural associations.”[5]
On December 18, 1959, Archuleta forged a check with Dominguez for $37.50 at Petersen’s Market, a grocery store in Pocatello. She pled guilty and Judge Brown sentenced her to two years; she arrived at the penitentiary on September 3, 1959, at age twenty-one. Prison officials were notified of Archuleta’s attraction to women, and a recommendation by Judge Brown on her intake card stated, “If you have a man available with whom she can fall in love I am sure her problem would be cured.” Judge Brown condescendingly treated Archuleta’s same-sex attractions as something that could go away with the “right man,” as if her sexual interests denoted an illness with an easy remedy. Archuleta applied for a pardon in April 1960, and the Board of Pardons discharged her on September 3, 1960, with a two-year probation. Though she never returned to the penitentiary, Bannock County police suspended her driver’s license in February 1964 for drunk driving.[6]
Archuleta avoided activities that placed her in the public record for the rest of her life, which ended on June 5, 1998, in Salt Lake City, Utah.[7] Her 1998 obituary recounted that she met her lifelong partner Debbie Guyer in Pocatello and loved fishing, camping, and arts and crafts. Her earlier partner, Rose Dominguez, fought for marriage equality in Salt Lake City.[8] In a 1996 news article on Utah gay and lesbian activists, Dominguez, who identified as a lesbian, stated, “We don’t want special rights, we want equal rights and the U.S. Supreme Court has said we deserve it.”[9]
Gordon Robert Larsen
While female inmates experienced institutional homophobia, their convictions were not based on their sexual attractions. For male inmates, ICAN convictions put targets on their back for medical intervention, institutional segregation, and labels like “menace to society” and “confirmed homosexual” at the penitentiary. The story of Gordon Robert Larsen reflects how homophobia in the courts, the penitentiary, and the broader world created longer and more uncomfortable sentences for men who could not hide their homosexuality.
Gordon Robert Larsen gradually accepted the type of man he was, one who enjoyed creating store displays and the occasional tryst with another man. Larsen was born in 1924 in Devils Lake, North Dakota. His family moved to Wallace, Idaho, in 1936, and after graduating from Wallace High School in 1942, he enlisted in the army to serve in World War Two. By the time police picked him up for questioning, Larsen worked at the Mode Department Store in downtown Boise.[10]
Larsen came under suspicion as a suspected homosexual during the start of the Boys of Boise scandal, a city-wide crusade against homosexuality to “protect” children. On October 3, 1955, in Boise, Larsen gave Eldon Halverson a blowjob.[11] Investigator Bill Goodman and his agents watched known gay cruising (or sex) spots, which led to Larsen’s questioning and arrest by Chief of Police James Brandon on December 11.[12] Larsen lost his job and apartment after the arrest, but by 1956 he had found retail merchandising work in Imperial Beach, California.[13] After Larsen pled not guilty, the courts delayed his trial, hoping he would change his plea. His trial commenced on November 20, 1956, and after he was found guilty Judge Oliver Koelsch sentenced him to serve time not exceeding five years.[14] After more delays, Larsen arrived at the penitentiary on March 26, 1960.
During his incarceration, penitentiary staff segregated Larsen in Cellhouse One for almost six months in 1960.One of the first built structures at the penitentiary, Cellhouse One included segregation cells specifically for homosexual inmates.[15] By the 1950s, Cellhouse One showed significant deterioration and lacked necessities such as proper ventilation and plumbing, and it was condemned for habitation in the 1960s.[16] During the Boys of Boise scandal, Warden L. E. Clapp expressed that homosexual inmates ideally would be housed in a separate institution. Sure enough, in the mid-1950s the penitentiary isolated 50-60 of its 923 inmates in the “homosexual block” of Cellhouse One in one-person cells from 4:45 PM to 7:45 AM.[17]
For his entire incarceration, Larsen’s mother refused to acknowledge her son’s guilt, stating that “misconduct has not been and never will be acknowledged for my son is not guilty.”[18] In his Board of Pardons paperwork, Larsen stated that he planned to move back to San Diego where his parents lived to continue his department store display work.[19] In 1960, John H. Noble, Jr., of the Marston Company in San Diego sent the warden a letter defending Larsen’s character and verifying that the company would re-employ him after his release.[20] The promise of work after release worked in his favor. Larsen applied to the July 1961 Board of Pardons and the Board granted him final release on July 24, 1961.[21] As of 1979, he lived in San Diego and worked as a display director at the Robinsons department store, continuing to pursue his professional passions.[22] Larsen died on March 28, 1983, in San Diego.[23]
Notes
[1] Ramona’s name at times is spelled “Romona.” I use “Ramona” because her name was spelled this way in most census records, city directories, and cemetery records.
[2] Eleanor Vivian Archuleta inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[3] Eleanor Vivian Archuleta inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[4] The Central Inspection Board of the American Psychiatric Association, “Report on the State Mental Hospitals of Idaho,” Aug. 1950, ID DOCS H2430.01 SOU, ISA.
[5] Eleanor Vivian Archuleta inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[6] “County Drivers Lose Licenses,” Idaho State Journal, 8 Mar. 1964, 7.
[7] “Eleanor Carbajal Archuleta,” Salt Lake Tribune, 7 June 1998, 36.
[8] “Rose Dominguez Obituary,” Idaho State Journal, 24 Feb. 2019.
[9] “Gay Activists Celebrate Supreme Court Decision,” South Idaho Press, 21 May 1996, 2.
[10] John Gerassi and Peter Boag, The Boys of Boise: Furor, Vice, and Folly in an American City, 2nd ed. (University of Washington Press, 2001), 191.
[11] “Gordon Larsen is Found Guilty of Morals Charge,” Idaho Statesman, 21 Nov. 1956, 8; Gordon Larsen inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[12] Gerassi, Boys of Boise, xxix, 40-44.
[13] Gerassi, Boys of Boise, 191; Gordon Larsen inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[14] Gerassi, Boys of Boise, 191, xxxi-xxxii.
[15] Thomas Reese, interview by Chris Brady, 29 Dec. 1995, Oral History Center, ISA, Boise, Idaho.
[16] For more on the architectural history of the Idaho State Penitentiary, see Arthur Hart’s 1973 National Register of Historic Places nomination form. Nikki Eng, “Life and Death at the Old Idaho Penitentiary,” (master’s thesis, BSU, 1997), F754.B65 E5, ISA.
[17] “Doctors Gave Parolees Clean Bill of Health,” Idaho State Journal, 14 Dec. 1955, 16.
[18] Inmate history form, April 16, 1960, Gordon Larsen inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[19] Gordon Larsen inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[20] John H. Noble, Jr. to Warden L.E. Clapp, 5 Jul. 1960, Gordon Larsen inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[21] Gordon Larsen inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[22] “San Diego, California, 1979 City Directory,” U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995, Ancestry.com.
[23] “Larsen, Gordon R.,” San Diego Union, 30 Mar. 1983.