Theodore Pierce was a member of a middle class African-American family in Madison, Wisconsin and an associate of several Wisconsin governors. He was very interested in art, especially dance, and was a significant figure
in the local homosexual communities.
Pierce was born in Chicago on March 18, 1907 to Omar Adams and Ida Pierce Adams Caire. In 1910, he went to live in Madison, Wisconsin with his mother's brother and his wife, Samuel S. and Mollie Pierce, who raised him as their own son. Samuel Pierce was a Pullman porter and an executive messenger to several Wisconsin governors. Also part of the family group was Theodore Pierce's grandmother, Hettie Pierce, who died in 1945 at the age of 115. Pierce had several sisters and brothers, including Edwina, Harold, Edgar, and Alyce who lived with their mother in New Orleans.
From 1913 to 1924, Pierce attended Marquette Elementary, Emerson Junior High, Central High schools, and he graduated from East High School in 1924. He attended the University of Wisconsin for two years, but did not graduate. Between 1926 and 1936 Pierce managed the tailor shop owned by Samuel Pierce in the Loraine Hotel. Following the elder Pierce's death in 1936, Theodore was appointed to fill his uncle's position of executive messenger by Governor Philip La Follette. He held this job for 11 years under four Wisconsin governors until Governor Oscar Rennebohm eliminated the position
in 1947. In 1956 Pierce was hired by the Acquisitions Department of Memorial Library at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and he continued in that position until his retirement in 1972. Suffering from chronic lymphocytic leukemia, he moved to St. Mary's Care Center in August 1998 and died on January 2,
1999.
