October 17, 1930 – July 31, 2010
JoAnn Westrick grew up in Toledo, Ohio and earned her B.S. in Nursing from Wayne State in Detroit in 1969. From 1975 to 1993 she taught on the faculty of Michigan State University college of Nursing, specializing in psychiatric mental-health nursing. She was survived by her partner of 27 years Donna Hardenberg.
November 19, 1930 – October 4, 2013
A native of Muncie, Indiana, Betty Jo Hudson earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s from Ball State University. After a long career as a university administrator, including more than two decades at Ohio State University, she and her life partner Barbara Young retired to Torch Lake in the northern lower peninsula.
April 7, 1921 – June 15, 2014
As a fighter pilot in World War II, Pontiac native and Rochester Hills resident Robert Harper survived weeks in the jungles of the Philippines after his plane was shot down. With degrees from Albion and Michigan State University, he taught in the Waterford Schools for twenty-five years. Harper was of a generation that never told their parents they were gay.
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.”
April 24, 1929 – April 16, 2004
Usein “Mike” Alieff Jr. grew up in Pontiac and for many years ran his own piano school in Birmingham. He and his life companion Max LePard shared a home in Royal Oak for more than forty years. In their retirement, he and LePard were crochet instructors at the Royal Oak Senior Center.
August 25, 1952 – May 18, 1987
Born in Ann Arbor, Ben Lowery graduated from Dundee High School in 1970 and earned his Bachelor’s in telecommunications from Michigan State University in 1980. He taught school in New Mexico before returning to Michigan to work in his father’s construction business. He died of complications from AIDS at age 34.
July 22, 1943 – August 5, 1985
William John Mathieson grew up in Grove City, Pennsylvania and attended graduate school at Michigan State University where he earned a Master’s in Spanish in 1967. He later worked as an instructor at San Francisco Community College. He died of complications from AIDS at age 42.
No known obituary.
August 18, 1949 – September 2, 2010
A retired social studies teacher with the Dowagiac Union School District, Terry Kuseske became one of the state’s leading LGBTQ rights advocates of the new millennium. He served on the board of the newly rechristened Equality Michigan, led a successful ballot initiative to secure a gay-rights ordinance in Kalamazoo, and won a seat as an openly gay candidate to the Kalamazoo City Commission.
August 2, 1934 – June 26, 2006
A graduate of Michigan State University, Clinton Township resident James Johnstone taught math with the Fraser Schools for 30 years. He served as a union leader with the Michigan Education Association, was long active in Democratic politics, and was an ardent supporter of the ACLU, NOW, and PFLAG.
November 19, 1955 – September 27, 2003
As board chair and educator with Gospel Against AIDS/Global Research, Education, and Training Network, physician Isabello Reyes Jr. pushed for AIDS education, care, and civil rights protections. In addition to his advocacy, Reyes taught at Wayne State University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Detroit.
Michigan LGBTQ Remember 