Gender Performance Behind and Beyond the Walls
No documentation of “out” gender diverse inmates survives in penitentiary inmate records. Nevertheless, Melvin Aldous, an inmate of the Idaho State Penitentiary from 1963 to 1969, discussed how it was common to refer to male inmates coupling up as “a guy and his gal”; the gals “walked like ladies, they talked like ladies, and they dressed as close to a lady as they could.”[1] The stories of Virginia “Pug” Pugmire and Jerry Edward Carlson demonstrate how diverse gender performance in and out of the penitentiary aroused concern and punishment from prison officials.
Virginia Lorene “Pug” Pugmire
Virginia “Pug” Pugmire had a record at the Idaho State Penitentiary of being attracted to both women and men and preferring “men’s work” over “women’s work.”[2] Born in 1936 in Blackfoot, Idaho, Pugmire attended at least two reformatory schools before serving time at the penitentiary: Gainesville State School for Girls in Gainesville, Texas, and St. Anthony’s in 1952. At St. Anthony’s, Pugmire recounted how, for the first time in her life, she felt at home.[3] After the reform schools, Pugmire worked odd jobs, such as driving a dump truck or wrapping cheese at Kraft’s Foods in Pocatello.[4]
Pugmire had a long list of convictions mostly related to burglary and forgery. On July 15, 1955, Judge Merlin Young convicted Pugmire of burglary with a sentence of no longer than fourteen years at the penitentiary. In her initial psychological evaluation, officials focused on Pugmire’s sexuality and the need to move her to State Hospital South due to her sexual attractions to women.[5] Warden L. E. Clapp subsequently sent a letter to Pocatello Chief of Police A. L. Oliver, tipping him off with the names of female homosexuals and common sex spots that Pugmire had shared.[6]
In 1956, Idaho Board of Correction vice chairman Mark Maxwell sent a letter to State Hospital South requesting that Pugmire be transferred there due to “abnormal sex behavior”; Pugmire then spent a few weeks at the hospital until she left on parole.[7] Pugmire broke her parole on September 28, 1956, after she traded her father’s car at a dealership in Pocatello and left the state of Idaho with three other people. Police returned her to the penitentiary two weeks later. The Board of Pardons granted a second parole on October 1, 1957, after which Pugmire married DeVerl Conlin in Elko, Nevada, on November 26; they divorced two years later.[8] Pugmire again violated parole through an attempted burglary and returned to the penitentiary. On December 18, 1958, she escaped from the Women’s Ward with Nancy Frances Christopher and Mary Ann Gardner. Law enforcement caught her three days later in Twin Falls, Idaho, and the state added three years to her sentence.[9]
During her time at the penitentiary, Pugmire took a course on bookkeeping and received a High Equivalency Certificate. In 1960, Pugmire’s former Latter-Day Saints (LDS) Bishop Melvin Walker of Pocatello wrote to the penitentiary to communicate that, when she was “just starting into woman hood [sic],” Pugmire wanted to be a boy. He was “sure what could have been done for her was not done” and asked if he could help her.[10] Given that it was common in the mid-twentieth century for people to conflate homosexuality and cross-gender identification, it is possible that the bishop noticed Pugmire’s attraction to women. Pugmire, however, also said that “she has wanted to be a boy for as long as she can remember,” so she might have identified as transgender if given the freedom and language to do so.[11]
Prison officials discharged Pugmire from the penitentiary on April 10, 1961.[12] She later married Clyde Alan Shock, Sr., in Boise on December 31, 1969. He divorced her on February 9, 1973.[13] She married a third time in Elko, Nevada, on March 4, 1974. Not much is known about her life after that.[14]
Jerry Edward Carlson
Jerry Edward Carlson could not hide his effeminacy and same-sex desires. He was born in 1940, in Pocatello, Idaho. His mother died in childbirth and his grandparents raised him in Blackfoot, Idaho. He enlisted in the Army after graduating high school in 1958 and received an honorable discharge for emotional instability after two months of service. Carlson briefly attended college and trade school and in 1963 married LaVern Waddoups.[15]
According to a subsequent media story, LaVern knew of Carlson’s homosexuality when they were married.[16] Carlson later told prison officials that he would regularly leave home at night to cruise for gay sex.[17] At the request of his wife, Carlson previously had agreed to go to State Hospital South for two weeks during their marriage. Superintendent of State Hospital South Richard Lake later recalled that they tried many types of therapy with Carlson with no success.[18] He separated from his wife in November 1964 and LaVern divorced him in 1967.[19]
On July 23, 1965, Carlson allegedly made “homosexual advances” on a seventeen-year-old “boy.” Carlson admitted to police that it was the first time he had approached a minor and claimed that he had previously engaged in oral and anal sex with adult men. Investigators concluded that Carlson probably had made “numerous approaches toward juveniles in the past,” but because they cited no evidence to prove this, the authorities might have assumed this due to homophobic biases and misconceptions. One of Carlson’s investigation reports judged that “the subject was reared in a rather sissified manner and this effeminate attitude prevails now.” Carlson pleaded guilty of attempting to commit ICAN on September 15 and the court sentenced him to five years’ probation “with hope of rehabilitating him.”[20]
Parole Officer Joe Spivey displayed great disdain for Carlson throughout his reports, but beyond complaining about Carlson’s laziness, he did not have a valid reason to revoke Carlson’s parole until September 21, 1966, when Carlson stole a neighbor’s dog from inside their garage. Spivey recommended the immediate revocation of Carlson’s parole and his incarceration at the penitentiary.[21]
In his hospital and inmate records, Carlson pleaded for help to “become a normal person.” Carlson’s interview with Dr. S. Wayne Smith at State Hospital South yielded a prognosis that he would never be “cured” of homosexuality. On December 15, 1966, Spivey reported that Carlson “remains a chronic liar, whiner, and maintains certain effeminate appearances of a hopeless homosexual.” After the theft of his neighbor’s dog, Judge Paul Crane revoked his parole and sentenced him to three years for assault with intent to commit ICAN; he arrived at the penitentiary on March 8, 1967. Two months later, guards escorted Carlson to Captain Howard’s office after some inmates had “performed homosexual acts on him” and threatened him if he told anyone. Howard subsequently moved Carlson to segregation in Cellhouse One.[22]
Penitentiary guards frequently moved Carlson around to different work areas during his incarceration, from the Sign Shop and the Bullgang to the Tag Plant and finally the Tailor Shop.[23] Penitentiary staff knew that work areas like the Tailor Shop and Barber Shop had predominantly homosexual inmates as workers.[24]
The Board of Pardons granted Carlson parole in 1968, but the Board quickly revoked its decision after Carlson received a poor work performance review and his parole officer found him associating with parolee Thomas Wayne Walker and traveling out of state to meet AWOL Sailor Gail Sage. The Board granted Carlson a second parole on August 11, 1969, with a maximum sentence expiring on March 8, 1970. At this point Carlson wanted to work as a carpenter and his grandmother in Blackfoot offered to house him.[25]
Few records survive of the rest of Carlson’s life. On July 1, 1974, Carlson and Sage were on a boat in Jensen Grove Lake in Blackfoot, Idaho, when they witnessed the drowning of a young boy.[26] Carlson died on September 17, 1987, at his home in Pocatello. His obituary noted Chris Paul as a caretaker and “constant companion” during an unnamed illness.[27]
Notes
[1] Melvin Aldous, interview by Dick Hadlock, 24 Aug. 1985, Oral History Center, ISA, Boise, Idaho.
[2] Virginia Pugmire inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[3] Virginia Pugmire inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[4] Virginia Pugmire inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[5] Though Wolf cites the penitentiary administration’s desire to send Pugmire to a St. Anthony reformatory (a youth reform school), knowing her inmate file, it most likely was State Hospital South in Blackfoot, which served as the mental health facility for any inmate who displayed same-sex attraction. See Carissa Wolf, “Hard Times, Small Crimes,” in Numbered: Inside Idaho’s Prison for Women, 1887-1968, ed. Todd Shallat and Amber Beierle (Idaho State Historical Society, 2020), 88.
[6] Warden L.E. Clapp to A.L. Oliver, 16 Sept. 1955, Virginia Pugmire inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[7] Mark Maxwell to State Hospital South, 5 May 1956, Virginia Pugmire inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[8] “Certificate of Divorce,” 9 June 1959, State of Idaho, Ancestry.com; “DeVerl Conlin,” Idaho State Journal, 11 June 1959.
[9] Virginia Pugmire inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[10] Melvin Walker to Warden L.E. Clapp, 24 Nov. 1960, Virginia Pugmire inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[11] Virginia Pugmire inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[12] Virginia Pugmire inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[13] “Marriage Licenses,” The Idaho Statesman, 3 Jan. 1970; “Shock, Clyde,” The Idaho Statesman, 9 Feb. 1973.
[14] “Glenns Ferry,” The Times-News, 4 Mar. 1974.
[15] Jerry Edward Carlson inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[16] Carlson told this to parole officer Joe Spivey in his pre-sentence investigation report. See Jerry Edward Carlson inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[17] Jerry Edward Carlson inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[18] Jerry Edward Carlson inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[19] Jerry Edward Carlson inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[20] Jerry Edward Carlson inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[21] Jerry Edward Carlson inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[22] Jerry Edward Carlson inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[23] Guards were called “bulls,” so the Bullgang referred to working where the guards needed the inmates. The Tag Plant produced license plates. See Beierle, Phillips, and Wakatsuki, Old Idaho Penitentiary, 70.
[24] Josef Munch, interview by Eilene Porter, 15 July 1987, Oral History Center, ISA, Boise, Idaho.
[25] Jerry Edward Carlson inmate file, ISPIFC, AR 42, ISA.
[26] “Boy Drowns in Lake,” Idaho State Journal, 1 July 1974.
[27] “Jerry Carlson,” The Marjorie Rawson Obituary Collection, Pocatello Idaho Family History Center, Pocatello, Idaho, Ancestry.com.