REVISITING THE PEORIA WOMEN'S CLUB
But not for film noir this time
I first learned of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion in a 2023 interview with Lena Andrews (https://www.buzzsprout.com/1950812/episodes/13891816-valiant-women-by-lena-andrews), the author of Valiant Women. Andrews explained that the 6888th was a mostly African American battalion of the Women’s Army Corps (They also had members of Caribbean and Mexican descent). The soldiers were cited for helping break the postal bottleneck that had piled up in the latter stages of WWII. By 1945, 17 million pieces of mail from soldiers as well as letters from the home front had not been distributed.
Andrews said a film directed by Tyler Perry was forthcoming on Netflix. The Six Triple Eight started streaming in December 2024 but when a special luncheon show was announced this month at the Peoria Women’s Club, I had to go. First, I wanted to see the movie. Second, the Peoria Women’s Club is one of those special buildings in this town with so much history, that you can almost see it oozing out of the windows onto Madison Avenue outside.
As for the film, I’ll go along with the Hollywood Reporter’s review: “The real-life story ultimately exerts such emotional force that even when we know we’re being shamelessly manipulated … you can’t help but get choked up. Perry pulls the heartstrings shamelessly but expertly in a way that would make Frank Capra proud.”
Just as Matthew Delmont noted in Half American (another podcast: this one recorded in 2022-- https://www.buzzsprout.com/1950812/episodes/11536779-half-american-by-matthew-delmont), African Americans had to deal with more than the enemy in WWII. Black soldiers faced racist restrictions in addition to the horrors of war.
Six Triple Eight is worth seeing. It helps you realize how so many people from all backgrounds made contributions when the chips, or in this case, the mails were down.
After the movie, we got a chance to climb the stairs for a tour of the club’s second-floor auditorium, unused since 1970. Actually there have been a few uses of the venue over the years.
One of them I’m glad to say was the first Peoria Film Noir Festival organized by the Peoria Public Library in 2003. The library’s former PR director, Maggie Nelson, along with Wanda Phillips, head of the library’s art and music department; and yours truly (then a reporter for the Peoria Journal Star) got together to plan a special week-long celebration.
Nelson had met Eddie Muller, founder of the Film Noir Foundation and author of numerous film noir books who holds his own star-studded film noir festival every spring in California (and now heads annual festivals at cities around the country). I had the good fortune to talk with Eddie last year regarding his latest book, Noir Bar (https://www.buzzsprout.com/1950812/episodes/13904490-noir-bar-by-eddie-muller).
When we spoke, Muller recalled his time in Peoria and the old building where we showed several films. Without power (we ran an extension cord from downstairs to plug in the projector). With no air conditioning, open windows meant that every passing siren added real-life drama to our program.
I think we had about 40 people for Kiss Me Deadly, one of the features we ran with Muller providing fascinating background information as an introduction. The ladies of the Peoria Women’s Club provided desserts for the occasion.
There’s something about revisiting an old theater that summons up the past. On my recent tour of the club auditorium, unheated with the paint peeling off the walls just as I remember it from 2003, I ran into someone on the tour from out of the past. Reeling in the years, I had to trip down the club’s wonderful old stairwell to sort it all out.
Thinking back, after that first effort at the club 22 years ago, we ran film noir for several years at the Apollo Theater, another classic structure in Downtown Peoria (and now for sale). I recall Norm Kelly, who spent 20 years as a private eye and insurance investigator in Peoria, speaking at the Apollo on several occasions, the perfect lead-in to an evening of noir.
Kelly, who died in 2020 at 88, liked to bring the noir home to central Illinois. “Just tell me the year the movie was released and I’ll tell people what was going on in Peoria at that time,” he would say.
"I guess I have a nose for the seedy side of Peoria and I've always been interested in how we got such a reputation of 'sin city,'" he said. But Kelly wasn’t a cheerleader when it came to recounting Peoria's nefarious past. "The fact that we had a reputation as a gangster town was then and is still way out of proportion from reality. But it's fun to read about," he said.
Lynette Steger leads a tour of the auditorium at the Peoria Women’s Club.
History—whether it’s WWII or right here in Peoria—is always fascinating. Lynette Steger, who conducted the tour, said refurbishing efforts for the auditorium are in the works but funding remains an issue. But when you’re a building that’s been open for business since 1893, you develop patience.