March 27, 1918 – October 24, 1960
Detroit native Kirk Ashton Havers attended the New York School of Fine Arts. As a 32-year-old Grosse Pointe Farms resident in 1950, he was prosecuted in the Detroit Recorder’s Court for accosting and soliciting. Ten years later, employed as a hospital orderly, Havers lost his life in an automobile crash.
Detroit Free Press, October 27, 1960
October 2, 1910 – August 26, 1972
Henry Bernard Bertschinger was born in Detroit and later resided in Roseville and Mount Clemens. Prior to World War II, he worked as a baker and in the late 1950s he held a factory job at Bundy Tubing in Warren. In 1947, Bertschinger was arrested for accosting an undercover Detroit police officer.
No known obituary
October 21, 1949 – May 28, 2007
Born in Detroit, Kathye Jo Langstaff of Dexter attended Belleville High School and went on to work with developmentally disabled adults. An avid sports fan, Langstaff played third-base on several Ann Arbor area lesbian softball teams and later served as base coach.
Lesbian Connection September/October 2007
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
October 11, 1925 – Jun 19, 2012
Jerry Mae Palmer served as a role model for masculine-identified lesbians in Detroit’s African American LGBTQ community. Born in Alabama, she later moved to Michigan where she worked on the line as an assembler for one the automobile manufacturers. Before her death at age 86, Palmer and her friends provided vital safe spaces for people to proudly be themselves through a variety of social events.
May 10, 1945 – January 1, 2002
Colorado native and longtime Saginaw resident John Michael Monahan worked as a rehabilitation therapist. During the 1980s, he became active in the Michigan Organization for Human Rights and in 1990 co-founded the Triangle Foundation and served as its president. Following a heart transplant in 1993, Monahan moved to Detroit to engage in activism full time.
Between The Lines, January 10, 2002
Saginaw News, January 16, 2002
January 24, 1959 – July 16, 2011
Thaddeus Allen Rusztowicz of East Lansing and Ft. Lauderdale, Florida was born in Detroit and earned his Bachelor’s in marketing in 1982 from Michigan State University. He enjoyed a long career in design, retiring as president of the auto supplier LPC Manufacturing to a new career in real estate. Rusztowicz was survived by Mark Clouse, his life partner of 21 years.
July 28, 1931 – October 28, 2006
Shirley Ann Weaver, formerly of Livonia, was born in Detroit and met her loving companion Barbara Sowers in the early 1960s. Weaver retired as a public school teacher and counselor in 1989 and relocated with Sowers to Port Charlotte, Florida.
October 24, 1944 – August 24, 1993
Detroit resident and Highland Park native Edward Walker grew up in Dearborn Township. He joined the U.S. Army following high school and was awarded a Purple Heart for wounds he received while serving in Vietnam. During the 1970s, he worked as an assembler at Ford Motor Company. From 1980 until his death, Walker operated the Hayloft Saloon with his lover Len Lippert.
July 19, 1941 – May 30, 2016
Taylor resident and Detroit native Diane Mary Bono graduated from Allen Park High School in 1959 and later worked as a cosmetology instructor. From 1974 to 1979, along with her then-partner Donna Chartier and their friend June Reynolds, Bono operated the Casbah Lounge, the first lesbian-owned lesbian bar in Detroit.
No known obituary
Michigan LGBTQ Remember 