Archivist Jean-Nickolaus Tretter celebrated for preserving LGBTQ history

He saw something others did not.

Jean-Nickolaus Tretter stashed away posters. He assembled pamphlets and periodicals, sought buttons from events, T-shirts from softball teams. He even made the case for collecting candy tossed by drag queens at the Pride Parade.

When few people saw value in gay history, Tretter sought to preserve it.

Tretter, who died in December at age 76, spent decades amassing one of the nation's largest collections of LGBTQ material, now housed at the University of Minnesota's Elmer L. Andersen Library. His friends, family and admirers gathered Friday in the building that contains documents from a past he fought to save.

"He once said to me that 'If we don't preserve our history, if we don't write our history, they will write it for us. And if they write it, it'll be a lie,' " said James Garlough, his friend of 25 years. "He stood on the front lines of the LGBTQIA rights movement in Minnesota from the beginning."

The crowd celebrated Tretter's life on the first day of the Twin Cities Pride Festival. Tretter was an organizer of the first Twin Cities Pride event in 1972, and Garlough said one of his friend's favorite things in life was to "hold court" at Pride's History Pavilion, spending hours telling young LGBTQ people about their shared history.

Friends and curators of the library's Tretter Collection described a man whose enthusiasm for collecting fell somewhere between visionary archivist and compulsive hoarder.

The library's collection includes millions of printed pages, thousands of buttons and more than a thousand T-shirts, curator Aiden Bettine said. There is material collected from around the world, including items in about 60 languages. But much of it centers on LGBTQ history in the Midwest and the Twin Cities.

"Jean had the vision — albeit it overly expansive — to preserve everything that he could, and the optimism to believe that if he built it, we would come. We would see how precious the materials were, and we would step up to preserve them and make them accessible," said Lisa Vecoli, a former curator of the collection.

Tretter grew up in Little Falls, Minn., and around the Twin Cities. After serving in the Navy as a linguist during the Vietnam War, he returned to his home state. He aimed to study at the University of Minnesota and wanted to focus on gay and lesbian anthropology, but he did not receive support from the U.

He went on to work with young people with disabilities in Ramsey County, and he began gathering pieces of gay history in earnest — though his niece noted his passion for collecting dated back to his childhood.

Tretter eventually filled his St. Paul home with material, boxes taking over his living space.

In 2000, his collection landed at the University of Minnesota. The building that houses the material also hosts panel discussions and other events focused on LGBTQ history.

Many people have donated to the collection, Bettine said, noting that shortly before Tretter's celebration of life on Friday he had received a sign from a gay bar.

Without Tretter, the U would not have an LGBTQ archive, and stories and artifacts preserved there would have been scattered and lost forever, Vecoli said. "We owe him a profound debt of gratitude for his stubborn dedication," she said.

Tretter also played a key role in the history of the Gay Games, which continue to be held every four years and bring together athletes in more than 30 sports. Shamey Cramer recalled meeting him at the inaugural games in 1982.

He said Tretter wrote the "red book" of rules that has since been updated but continues to govern the games to this day, and he produced a quarterly bulletin on the games that was shared around the world.

During the first Gay Games, Cramer recalled efforts to organize an Olympics-style torch relay across the country. They had planned to skip the Midwest — jumping the torch from eastern Ohio to Denver — when Cramer said Tretter stepped in, making calls to assemble people so the heartland would not be left out of the relay.

Cramer said Tretter inspired him to also become an archivist, and one of his friend's comments will always stick with him. "He said, 'You know, if we don't preserve our history, who will?' "

Amid the remembrances at Friday's celebration of life, members of the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus performed songs. Material about the chorus is, of course, archived in the Tretter Collection.