December 5, 1934 – October 28, 2001
A native of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, Cynthia Jane (Young) Wrentmore started as a public health nurse with the Washtenaw County Department of Public Health in 1958 and became as its communicable disease coordinator in 1981. She served on the board for Wellness Networks/Huron Valley, later known as the HIV/AIDS Resource Center, and was a pioneering AIDS educator in the Ann Arbor area.
October 28, 1941 – June 15, 2001
Sylvia Robinson moved to Detroit at age 10, attended Northwestern High School, and earned her MSW from Wayne State. In 1977, she was appointed liaison to the gay community for the city’s Human Rights Department. Robinson also co-founded the Detroit Coalition of Black Gays in 1979, served as education officer for the Michigan Organization for Human Rights, and later attended Full Truth Fellowship Church.
No known obituary
June 19, 1966 – September 17, 2001
Jackson resident Michelle Marie “Mitch” Hughson was born in Lansing and graduated with the class of 1985 from Charlotte High School. For 12 years, Hughson worked as a radiologist technician at Hayes Green Beach Hospital in Charlotte.
January 22, 1940 – December 18, 2001
Jack Birkinsha of Byron Center was a Kansas native, earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School, and retired from the Great American Life Insurance Company. As an attorney in Detroit in the late 1970s, Birkinsha served as a trustee for the monthly paper Metro Gay News and, as a member of the Committee for Gay Rights, helped push for the city’s Omnibus Human Rights Ordinance.
St. Joseph News-Press, December 25, 2001
March 25, 1952 – Declared dead October 31, 2001
A 30-year employee of GM’s Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly Plant and a regular patron of the R&R in Detroit, Walter Greig Cunningham was murdered at age 49 in his Romulus apartment in what police believed was an anti-gay pick-up crime.
October 1, 1965 – January 24, 2001
Garland Gillard II operated PC Doctor, a computer repair business, and served as minister of music for Full Truth Unity Fellowship Church in Detroit. He died from AIDS-related complications at age 35.
February 28, 1921 – May 20, 2001
David Whitney Brewer was founding vice chairman in 1958 of the Detroit Area Council of the Mattachine Society, the first known homosexual organization in the State of Michigan.
Michigan LGBTQ Remember 