November 15, 1953 – October 24, 1991
Dale Allen Cramton grew up in Jackson and graduated from Parkside High School. As a first-year college student, he was founder of the Gay Liberation Front at Central Michigan University in September 1971. Cramton later moved to Los Angeles where he made a life for himself as an artist. He died from AIDS-related complications at age 37.
Jackson Citizen-Patriot, October 26, 1991
October 19, 1949 – July 5, 2017
Born in Allegheny, Virginia, Angela Romagnoli grew up within a union family in Dearborn and retained a passion for social justice her whole life. At the University of Michigan she took part in the Students for a Democratic Society in the late 1960s and helped found the campus Radicalesbians in 1970.
April 14, 1942 – June 26, 2010
Betsy Lou Robson of Lansing worked as a bus driver for the Capital Area Transit Authority from 1973 to 2001. Following her death, her family established a scholarship in her name for LGBT students at Lansing Community College.
November 23, 1857 – January 11, 1915
Born in Newark, Ohio, Katharine Coman graduated from the University of Michigan in 1880 and went on to become a leading industrial historian and dean of Wellesley College. Prior to her death at age 58, she shared a 25-year relationship with poet and Wellesley professor Katherine Lee Bates in what was then known as a “Boston marriage.”
July 24, 1967 – January 28, 1991
Michael LaGatella graduated from Lincoln High School in Warren and tended bar at the Woodward in Detroit while attending Wayne State University. After he took his own life, LaGatella’s friends established a scholarship in his name for gay and lesbian students at Wayne.
Wayne State Celebrates 20th Anniversary of LaGatella Scholarship
July 15, 1946 – April 21, 2014
Frances Kelleher grew up on Long Island, received her B.A. from the College of New Rochelle, and earned her Ph.D. from New York University. She served as professor of European history at Grand Valley State, where she taught for 25 years.
May 6, 1949 – July 16, 2012
A native of St. Louis, Michael McGuire earned degrees from SUNY-Fredonia and Michigan State University. As professor of music therapy at Eastern Michigan University, McGuire helped push the university to establish a campus LGBT resource center and create the Stonewall Scholarship to provide financial aid to LGBT student leaders.
Between The Lines, July 26, 2012
Michael G. McGuire papers at Eastern Michigan University Archives
August 14, 1922 – June 6, 1993
Finley Hooper grew up in Detroit and was an assistant professor of Greek and Roman history at Michigan State University in the mid-1950s when he was discovered to be homosexual and forced to leave. He subsequently enjoyed a long and esteemed academic career at Wayne State University.
Grosse Pointe News, June 17, 1993
November 2, 1942 – July 17, 2012
Lansing resident Judith Rogers Dill earned her doctorate in German language and literature from the University of Michigan in 1979 and at Lansing Community College and Michigan State University. She later pursued a career in information systems management and belonged to the Arts Chorale of Greater Lansing.
January 19, 1911 – February 8, 2004
Rev. Anne Garrison was a longtime ally who joined Michigan State University campus ministries after retiring as a business professor. She served on the bishop’s committee that produced a pioneering 1973 report that recommended greater inclusions for gay people within the Michigan Diocese of the Episcopal Church.
Detroit Free Press, February 17. 2004
Michigan LGBTQ Remember 