June 27, 1957 – March 2, 2020
Long Island, New York native Beth Sara Greenapple resided in Royal Oak and Southfield after moving to Metro Detroit in 1995 and taught music at Hillel Day School in Farmington Hills and the Roeper School in Bloomfield Hills. She was a founding member of the Jewish Gay Network of Michigan and served as its early president. Greenapple was survived by her partner Julia Pais and their son Nadav Pais-Greenapple.
February 2, 1944 – April 3, 1995
David John Zechel of Farmington Hills was born in Detroit and graduated from Edwin Denby High School in 1962. He went on to work as a noted local interior decorator. In the early 1970s, along with his then partner, Rev. Robert Cullinan, Zechel was an early member of the Metropolitan Community Church of Detroit. He died from AIDS-related complications at age 51.
Detroit Free Press, April 5, 1995
January 9, 1940 – July 12, 2019
Farmington Hills resident Zan Alley attended high school and college in Birmingham, Alabama before moving to Michigan where she taught high school in Royal Oak for 17 years. She later worked as a director with the Michigan Education Association, negotiating more than three dozen union contracts. Alley was survived by her partner and wife Murphy Ayers.
November 18, 1955 – May 18, 2018
Detroit native Margaret Irene “Peggy” McNichol graduated from Mercy High School in Farmington Hills in 1973 and earned her B.S. in nursing from the University of Michigan in 1977. Following graduation, she relocated to the West Coast and lived in Seattle, Oakland, and Portland. McNichol went to medical for her M.D. and became a family care physician. She was survived by her wife Sue Sell.
March 28, 1964 – April 3, 2019
Canton resident Rodger Lynn Williams was born in Detroit, graduated from Clarenceville High School in Livonia, and later studied at William Tyndale College in Farmington Hills. Rev. Williams received his religious training at Concordia Seminary in Missouri and for 13 years served as pastor of Divine Shepherd Lutheran Church in Ann Arbor.
September 10, 1925 – December 20, 2014
Longtime Farmington Hills psychologist Howard Norton Baver began his career in Hartford, Connecticut before moving to Metro Detroit. As a straight therapist with a number of gay and bisexual clients, he founded The Gay Connection as a monthly discussion group in 1985 when many of them told him the only places they would meet were gay bars. Haver was also a key supporter of the Jewish Gay Network.
April 24, 1946 – April 8, 2007
Farmington Hills resident, CPA, and the mother of a gay son, Janis Warren was a devoted ally to Metro Detroit’s LGBTQ community. Among the causes that she supported were the Triangle Foundation, the Human Rights Campaign, and the Michigan Jewish AIDS Coalition.
