A powerpoint about my book, Before They Left Us, a historical memoir about San Francisco starting in the mid-70s portraying the people, politics, and passion surrounding its Midwestern narrator, a young woman living in the Castro neighborhood. Includes Harvey Milk/George Moscone assassinations. and the onset of AIDS in both San Francisco and Minneapolis.

1. BEFORE THEY LEFT US
A LYRICAL MEMOIR BY ROSEMARY ANN DAVIS

2. DAYS OF
WONDER
• San Francisco, heart
of the Bay Area, with
cafes, flower shops
and lovers on every
corner, seduced me
as well into its nest
of steep hills,
suspension bridges
and open arms.

3. • I navigated my way in and out of
Victorians, across to Sausalito,
and deep into coffee shops where
I tasted addictive chocolate
croissants and dreamed of
photographing friends, finding a
date for my birthday, and joining
a political discussion, all the while
humming the Rolling Stones’
song “Miss You.”

4. • It was my good fortune to live in San
Francisco as a young woman during my
twenties. Having grown up in
Milwaukee, I was shocked by San
Francisco.

5. • The differences between
the two cities were
enormous: the architecture,
culture, politics and sense
of freedom left over from
the “flower power” era of
the 1960s.

6. • My years as an
adopted daughter of
California
transformed my life.
I moved around quite
a bit among
apartment buildings,
Victorian flats and
duplexes.

7. • Through these moves, I gained
new roommates, different views
of the city, and eventually I
came to live alone in a gracious,
large apartment that faced
Delores Park.

8. • The years between 1975 and
1979 epitomized the height of
gay culture, and since I lived
mostly in the Castro area, I
became friends with many gay
men. Although this community
was not my own, I was welcomed
and cared for by my new
acquaintances and others.

9. • By the time I decided to return to the
Midwest in 1980, settling in Minneapolis, my
friendships were solidified, and I cared deeply
about these people.

10. • In San Francisco, I came of age both figuratively
and chronologically. A power shift occurred
during those years as working class and minority
groups joined with union employees and the
elderly to form coalitions that in turn began to
accelerate social change.

11. • Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician in
America, became my neighborhood’s
Supervisor. He was later assassinated along
with San Francisco’s Mayor George Moscone
on November 27, 1978.

12. “An Elegy To Dispel Gloom” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
(After the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk in San Francisco, November 1978)
Let us not sit upon the ground
and tell sad stories
of the death of sanity.
Two humans made of flesh
are meshed in death
and no more need be said.
It is pure vanity
to think that all humanity
be bathed in red

13. because one young mad man
one so bad man
lost his head.
The force that threw the red fuse
drove the bullet
does not drive everyone
through the City of Saint Francis
where there’s a breathless hush
in the air today

14. a hush at City Hall
and a hush at the Hall of Justice
a hush in Saint Francis Wood
where no bird tries to sing
a hush on the Great Highway
and in the great harbor
upon the great ships
and on the Embarcadero
from the Mission Rock
to the Eagle Cafe

15. a hush on the great red bridge
a hush in the Outer Mission
and at Hunter’s Point
a hush at a hot potato stand on Pier 39
and a hush at the People’s Temple
tries its wings
a hush and a weeping
at the Convent of the Sacred Heart
on Upper Broadway
a hush upon the fleshpots
of Lower Broadway

16. a pall upon the punk rock
at Mabuhay Gardens
and upon the cafes and bookstores
of old North Beach
a hush upon the landscape
of the still wild West
where two sweet dudes are dead
and no more need be said.

17. Do not sit upon the ground and speak
of other senseless murderings
or worse disasters waiting
in the wings.
Do not sit upon the ground and talk
of the death of things beyond
these sad sad happenings.
Such men as these do rise above
our worst imaginings.

18. • I observed and later participated in all this
political upheaval, and it built on values that
had been established during my upbringing.
Milwaukee already had the infamous
reputation as one of the most segregated
cities in America. I rebelled against that
notion. Although too young to participate, I
internalized the lessons learned.

19. • In San Francisco, I learned what other causes I believed in, and what I was willing
to do to protect and promote them. I became a believer in gay rights and
women’s rights, while having the normal experiences of a young person at that
time, and I also learned how to love.

20. NIGHTS OF
RECKONING
• A short time after relocating to the Twin Cities in
Minnesota during the early1980s, AIDS leveled
my old neighborhood, the Castro. I spent the next
thirteen years going back to visit the sick and bury
my dead.

21. • First acquaintences, then
neighbors and finally my
closest friends succumbed
to the virus. The
experience for me, as well
as many others, proved
devastating. I became
active in the Minnesota
AIDS Project in order to
channel my grief.

22. • Twenty-five years later my stories
began to emerge. I went back to
college at the age of 48 and
graduated with a Masters degree in
creative writing, which was much
different than my previously studies in
photography, film and video both in
San Francisco and in St. Paul. The
stories reflected both the days of
innocence in the 1970s, but mostly
they portray the urgency of watching
a generation of young men slip away.

23. • While I spent three years in a
support group for family and
friends of people with AIDS,
men were dying at an alarming
rate back in my old
neighborhood. During the mid-
1980s more than 1,000 gay men
died in a six-teen block radius of
where I had lived. Within one
year, these people literally
disappeared.

24. • I dealt with those illnesses and deaths as they happened
mostly from afar, as I had just situated back into the
Midwest. However, through visits, I came to know the
disease and how the responses of those who contracted
it differed. AIDS also began to strike down men and
others I knew in the Twin Cities: a teacher, a child, a
politician. This too, affected me.

25. WASHINGTON DC
• During the 80s and 90s, I went to
Washington D.C. many times – with
friends to see the AIDS Quilt and
panels we had made. I made four
panels, one for each of my close
friends: John, Paul, Howard and one
for a stranger who died in Northern
Minnesota.

26. ACT-UP D.C.
• I went alone to
Washington, D.C. to
participate in an Act-Up
protest entitled “Hands
Around the White House,”
which included a die-in. It
was held on Monday,
October 12, 1992. People
threw human ashes at the
White House.

27. • Feelings of anger and frustration fueled
my AIDS activism on both a local level in
the Twin Cities and nationally in San
Francisco and Washington, D.C.
Eventually, this grief evolved into
acceptance.

28. BEFORE THEY LEFT US
• Before They Left Us is a lyrical
memoir that speaks to the
universality of loss. The book is
divided into three sections:
discover, grieve, and heal.

29. • Although the medical treatment
of AIDS has changed
dramatically since 1996 – when
the cocktail of medicines
making it possible to survive
longer with AIDS was
introduced – my memories and
details of it are just as sharp, just
as poignant as if it were still
1988, the year I felt AIDS was at
its worst. I can still sense the
desperation amidst so much
beauty.

30. SAN FRANCISCO ITSELF IS ART, ABOVE ALL LITERARY ART. EVERY BLOCK
IS A SHORT STORY, EVERY HILL A NOVEL, EVERY HOME A POEM, EVERY
DWELLER WITHIN IMMORTAL. THAT IS THE WHOLE TRUTH.
- WILLIAM SAROYAN
Before They Left Us
Published by Old Road Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-7322845-0-0 (paperback)
978-1-7322845-2-4 (hardcover)
978-1-7322845-1-7 (ebook)
Visit www.rosemaryanndavis.com for more information
about the author.