June 2, 1966 – February 21, 2019
Lisa Maria Rodriguez Ortiz was born in Chicago and as a teenager moved to Michigan, where she graduated from Okemos High School and attended the University of Michigan and Boston College. For 26 years she taught Spanish at Greenhills School in Ann Arbor. Ortiz resided in Ypsilanti with her daughters and wife Julia Marvin.
October 25, 1968 – August 7, 2013
Detroit native Sean Franklin Sasser graduated from Cass Technical High School and attended the University of Chicago for a year. He gained national celebrity a few years later as the HIV-positive AIDS educator boyfriend of Pedro Zamora on MTV’s The Real World in San Francisco. Sasser went on to become a pastry chef and was survived by husband and longtime partner Michael Kaplan.
October 3, 1970 – November 27, 2017
Jacqueline Maurier of Livonia earned her B.A. in psychology from the University of Michigan and an Associate degree from Henry Ford Community College. She worked as a surgical technologist at Garden City Hospital and taught as a surgical instructor. The mother of two, Maurier was survived by her significant other Cristi Dikeou.
February 20, 1941 – May 19, 1993
Flint native and Swartz Creek resident John Rex Brooks was a graduate of Michigan State University with a B.A. and M.A. specializing in counseling and psychology. He was a teacher and counselor at Longfellow Junior High, later Longfellow Middle School, for 29 years, and was long active in the Flint teacher’s union. He died from AIDS-related complications at age 52.
Flint Journal, May 20, 1993
February 18, 1963 – April 22, 2012
Flint native Denise Lynn Welsh grew up in Burton and worked as a teacher consultant for student with autism spectrum disorders in the Genesee Intermediate School District for more than two decades. She was survived by her sons and her life partner Betsy Curtis.
May 30, 1899 – January 23, 1988
Thelma Gray James graduated with high distinction from the University of Michigan in 1920. She joined the faculty of the College of the City of Detroit, forerunner of Wayne State University, in 1923, retiring from Wayne in 1967 as a pioneering folklorist. James shared various Detroit homes with her close partner of 40 years Marguerite Hicks.
Detroit Free Press, January 24, 1988
March 30, 1889 – August 25, 1970
Born in Hannibal, Missouri, Eva McKinley West earned her Bachelor’s degree at Wellesley College and Master’s at Columbia University. From 1927 to 1964, she chaired the English Department at the University Liggett School. West shared homes in Detroit and Grosse Pointe Woods for more than 35 years with Liggett headmistress Katharine Ogden.
Grosse Pointe News, August 27, 1970
October 20, 1896 – March 6, 1991
Longtime headmistress at the Liggett School, later known as the University Liggett School, Katharine Ogden was born in Ithaca, New York, received her B.S. at Vassar College, and earned her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. For more than 35 years, she resided in Detroit and Grosse Pointe Woods with her friend and companion Eva McKinley West, who preceded Ogden in death.
Grosse Pointe News, March 14, 1991
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.
February 12, 1938 – February 1, 2016
Louis Rhodes Farmer was born in Lynchburg, Virginia and moved to Michigan in 1956. He was employed as a custodian for the University of Michigan while working his way through college, served in the U.S. military from 1961 to 1963, and earned his M.A. in education from Eastern Michigan University in 1970. Farmer retired from teaching with the Chlesea School District in 1988 and lived in Ypsilanti.
Michigan LGBTQ Remember 