Leona "Little Rusty" Kronberg, Portland's "Queen of Vice"
Extavernmouse
ran a Portland brothel for decades
By Katy Muldoon, The Oregonian
Lore has it that Leona "Little Rusty" Kronberg knew all the right
people -- from Portland police who used her brothel as their
clubhouse, to William O. Douglas, the U.S. Supreme Court associate
justice who enjoyed the petite redhead's company in the city's toniest
nightclubs and hotels.
Kronberg, who died May 9, 2011, at 89, made her living in the world's
oldest profession during an era when vice and corruption flowed like a
river through Portland.
She worked for decades out of a two-story, white house in the Lair
Hill neighborhood, near the corner of S.W. First Avenue and -- where
else? -- Hooker Street. And after moving to an east Portland
apartment, those who knew her say, she kept her business going, even
as she pushed 80.
Today, her image lives on in the new McMenamins Crystal Hotel at 303
S.W. 12th Ave., where walls hold a handful of vintage "Little Rusty"
photographs. Plus, a painting by Lyle Hehn, hanging inside the Stark
Street entrance to the hotel's Zeus Cafe, depicts a saucy Kronberg
perched on a barstool, one hand on a man's thigh and the other
cradling a cigarette.
She was a prominent character in "Portland Confidential," published in
2004 by WestWinds Press. About 10 years ago, author Phil Stanford, a
former columnist for The Oregonian, interviewed her extensively for
that nonfiction exploration of lurid post-war Portland.
"She was one of the people," Stanford said, "who made it all real to
me."
At 5-foot-1, with a shock of thick red hair, Leona "Little Rusty"
Kronberg turned heads in Portland during the middle of the last
century.
Born Leona Wright, in Harlan County, Kentucky, on Sept. 24, 1921, the
coal miner's daughter had such an independent streak she left home as
a teen.
She made her way to Detroit and worked as a dime-a-dance girl, paid by
gents for a spin around the dance hall.
Stanford writes, "Before long, she'd hooked up with a shakedown
artist ... who took her to Chicago and then Los Angeles. After a short
stay in San Francisco, it was on to the great Pacific Northwest."
Deborah Hock, Kronberg's niece, who lives in Redmond, remembers her as
an interesting character with a good heart.
Her aunt liked to drink. She always looked stylishly coifed -- still
sporting red hair and heels when she was elderly and using a cane. And
when family needed help, Kronberg was there for them.
As girls, Hock and her sister, Dianna Hart, enjoyed visiting their
"Aunt Rusty," as they called her, but they knew they weren't supposed
to show up at her house without calling first.
"She never let us be exposed to anything," Hock said.
Hock's family spoke little of Kronberg's business. Still, they stayed
in touch after she and Hock's merchant marine uncle, Lloyd Kronberg,
divorced; he was Rusty's second and last husband. She never had
children.
She rubbed elbows in Portland with famous names. Her niece says singer
and actress Ethel Merman was a friend. And in Stanford's book,
Kronberg recalled a night in the Clover Room, one of the city's
hottest nightclubs, watching a young Sammy Davis Jr. perform with his
father and with vaudeville man Will Mastin.
She and Douglas, the Supreme Court justice who was married four times
and nicknamed "Wild Bill," spent many hours together at the Plush
Room, a private nightclub in Northwest Portland, according to
Stanford's book. "Portland Confidential" includes a photo of an
inscription from Douglas, inside his book "Of Men and Mountains." It
reads: "For Rusty Wright -- in memory of a Smile, the Plush Room, and
the 2nd mortgage."
Kronberg told Stanford that a "Smile" was code for a drink. She
couldn't remember, she told him, what "the 2nd mortgage" referred to.
Leona "Little Rusty" Kronberg befriended Portland Police, even dating
the vice squad chief, according to "Portland Confidential" author Phil
Stanford.
Portland police, Stanford writes, were regulars at Kronberg's house,
showing up nightly to play cards in her kitchen. "They felt at home
there," Stanford said in a recent interview, "and of course, she was
happy to have them."
While the alliance may have kept her out of trouble with the law
during the 1950s, when she dated the head of the police vice squad,
her luck didn't last.
In 1971, Kronberg was one of several alleged madams indicted after a
prostitution probe and vice raids in Portland and Beaverton. She was
convicted of receiving the earnings of a prostitute, and spent time in
Rocky Butte Jail.
In her later years, Hock says, her aunt's health declined and dementia
set in. Street people, Hock says, took advantage of Kronberg,
procuring her 1964 Mustang and her jewelry. Eventually, the state
appointed a guardian for her, and "Little Rusty" spent her last years
in a group home.
Remembering the hours he spent interviewing her, Stanford, who is
working on a book he calls "Rose City Vice," recalled Kronberg's
vulnerable side.
"Although I'm sure she had to be tough to survive," he said, "you
could see the little lost girl in her.
"It's not a profession of choice, however people might like to
sentimentalize it, but once you get into the life like that, it's
extremely hard to get out of it."
Kris Baker
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2011/05/life_story_leona_little_rusty.html