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Belle Brezing

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Portrait of Belle Brezing ca. 1895

Belle Brezing (June 16, 1860[1] – August 11, 1940) was a nationally known madam in Lexington, Kentucky at the end of the 19th century and into the beginning of the 20th.[2]

Biography

Belle Brezing was born Mary Belle Cox, the illegitimate daughter of Sarah Ann Cox. Sarah Cox was a dressmaker who also worked part time as a prostitute. Sarah Cox subsequently married George Brezing, a saloon operative, grocer and alcoholic, whose name Belle adopted.[2]

At the age of 12, the age of consent at the time, Brezing was seduced by Dionesio Mucci, a local merchant who was three times her age.[1] Soon after, Brezing wrote a poem:

Sitting to night in my chamber, a school girl figure and lonely, I kiss the end of my finger, that and that only.

Reveries rises from the smoky mouth. Memories conger [sic] surround me. Boys that are married or single. Gather around me … Boys that like to be kissed, and like to give kisses.

Kisses well I remember them: Those in the corner were fleetest: Sweet were those on the sly in the Dark were the sweetest …

Boys is pretty and blooming sweetly, yea sweetness over thair [sic] rest. Them I loved dearly and truly and the best.[3]

The relationship with Mucci lasted two years, although Brezing had other lovers during this time, including cigar makers[3] James Kenney and Johnny Cook.[1]

In 1875, soon after her 15th birthday, Brezing was pregnant, possibly by Johnny Cook,[1] but she had at least three lovers at this time.[2] When Brezing was 3 months pregnant she married James Kenney, but never lived with him. After the wedding ceremony she returned to her mother's house. Nine days later, Brezing wrote to Cook asking for a gun. Cook was found outside Brezing's house with a bullet in his skull. Mucci was alledgedly the last person to see Cook alive. Kenney immediately left Lexington and didn't return for ten years. The death was recorded as a suicide, but popular opinion was that Cook was murdered.[1]

On March 14 1876, Brezing gave birth to a daughter, Daisy May Kenney.[3] In May of that year Brezing's mother died of cancer. Whilst at the funeral, her mothers landlord padlocked the house leaving Brezing and her baby homeless.[3][4]

Brezing is believed to have been the model for Belle Watling[5] in Gone with the Wind. She is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Lexington. Her tombstone reads "Blessed Be the Pure in Heart".[6] Time magazine published an obituary on her death.[7]

Belle's first job in a brothel began December 24, 1879, in a house maintained by Jenny Hill, which has the distinction of being the former residence of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln.[8]

Belle's "bawdy house"

Gov Blackburn's Pardon of Belle's "bawdy house"

Her final and most elaborate "working house" was located at 153 Megowan Street (now 153 N. Eastern Ave). The brothels in the area were shut down in 1915 under order of the US Army since they were considered a distraction for the soldiers in the area. Belle continued to live there until her death in 1940. Her estate was auctioned off over several days. The house was converted into apartments and in 1973 a fire consumed the upper floor. The remaining architectural details were auctioned off. Bricks salvaged from the home were sold to the public with the inscription: "Brick from the Belle Brezing Home - The most orderly of Dis-orderly Homes".

Still standing, one of her other former houses, is on the campus of Transylvania University, and houses a women's locker room.[9]

Trivia

  • Brezing also spelled her name "Breezing," and it is occasionally misspelled as "Breazing."
  • The defunct Lexington City Brewery produced a beer named for Brezing.
  • The Lyndon House Bed & Breakfast on N. Broadway has a room named in honor of Brezing.
  • In 2013, the memory of Belle Brezing inspired a new venue in Lexington, Kentucky, Belle's Cocktail House.

For more complete biographical information and numerous photographs see the University of Kentucky Audio-Visual Archives

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Young-Brown 2011.
  2. ^ a b c Holland, Moran & Sceurman 2008, p. 96.
  3. ^ a b c d Soodalter, Ron (26 November 2014). "Belle of the Brothel". kentuckymonthly.com. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
  4. ^ Tattershall 2014.
  5. ^ Lexington Herald-Leader 9, April 2008 - retrieved June 20, 2008
  6. ^ United States Congress 1992, p. 13222.
  7. ^ Boyd 2011.
  8. ^ Belle Brezing retrieved June 20, 2008 Archived June 12, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  9. ^ Lexington-Fayette History Page - retrieved June 20, 2008 Archived June 12, 2008, at the Wayback Machine

4. Wall, Maryjean. Madam Belle: Money, Sex, and Influence in a Southern Brothel. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2016.

  • Thompson, Elmer. I. ("Buddy") Madame Belle Brezing (1983)

Bibliography


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