May 27, 1949 – September 5, 2020
Sandra Lee Peckens of Harbor Springs was born in Ann Arbor and grew up in Otsego. She earned her B.A. in social work from Michigan State University in 1971 and went on for her MSW, also at MSU. Peckens career took her to hospitals in Metro Detroit and Northern Michigan Hospital in Petoskey. She and her longtime partner Sally Hood were united in a civil union in 2008 and legally married in 2010.
May 3, 1952 – November 23, 2016
Born in Byron Center, Portage resident Sheila Fortuin graduated from Byron Center High School in 1970, and attended Ferris State University for a short time before taking a job with the city of East Grand Rapids. She later worked at the Rock-Tenn paper plant in Otsego until its closure in 2004. Fortuin and her life partner Trish Breithaupt shared 21 years together.
January 8, 1901 – January 10, 1996
A native of Otsego, Forman Brown attended the University of Michigan in the early 1920s and, with cousin Harry Burnett and companion Roddy Brandon, formed the famed Yale Puppeteers. In his eighties, Brown revealed that he was the author of the 1933 gay novel Better Angel written under the penname Richard Meeker.
Los Angeles Times, January 12, 1996
Michigan LGBTQ Remember 