November 12, 1978 – May 9, 2021
Bay City resident Brandon Socia was born in Saginaw and attended Bay City Central High School. After working on the family potato farm growing up, he went on to cook at a number of local restaurants. Socia was survived by his partner Jordan Ward.
December 1, 1944 – December 15, 1989
A Bay City native and onetime resident of Midland and Saginaw, Joyce Kayden attended Bay City Central High School. She went on to work as assistant store manager for Rite Aid. Kayden preceded in death by her father and brother and was survived by her mother and daughter.
Bay City Times, December 17, 1989
February 13, 1938 – May 6, 2020
Born in Ohio, Karen Sue Johnston graduated from Saginaw High School in 1956 and earned her B.S. in biology from Albion College in 1960. After pursuing advanced degrees at Columbia and DePaul, she served as Director of Physical Therapy at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak from 1970 to 1996. Johnstone represented in the U.S. at four Paralympics Games. Her partner Dr. Jane C. Perrin survived her.
August 15, 2947 – March 17, 2005
Kenneth John Arnold was born in Detroit and graduated in 1965 from Lincoln Park High School in Lincoln Park. He later moved to Bay City and in the early 1970s, he became proprietor of Chalet Interiors in Saginaw. Often known by his drag name Bambi, Arnold took over Tallulah’s Show Bar in the 1990s and rechristened it Bambi’s Bottoms Up.
Saginaw News, March 19, 2005
March 11, 1910 – February 8, 1994
World War II vet Ralph Thompson Stallings began working as a bellhop while attending Saginaw High School and rose in the ranks of hotels in Flint and Detroit. He met his life partner Ralph O’Reilly at a bridge party when neither played bridge. They soon shared an apartment in Detroit and later a home in Davisburg, where they raised Japanese bonsai before moving to Escondido, California in the early 1980s.
Times-Advocate, February 11, 1994
March 4, 1935 – August 4, 2007
Born in Greenleaf Township in rural Sanilac County, Charles Henry “Chuck” Darr grew up on a farm, later moved to Saginaw, and worked at Marlette Homes. He volunteered with Green House Gathering Place and the local LGBT community group Perceptions. In 2007, he was beaten to death at age 69 by a former renter. Darr was preceded in death by his longtime lover William Harper.
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
June 11, 1962 – June 25, 2019
Saginaw native Patricia “Pat” Ann Lawrence-Smith, also known as Patricia Smith, worked as an emergency medical technician in Genesee County and resided for 25 years in Davison. She and her partner Lauriejane Smith were united in marriage in September 2015.
November 5, 1928 – January 3, 2009
Born in Saginaw, Gerald Laverne Hillert was a draftsman for Consumers Power in Saginaw in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and later worked as an interior designer for Sears-Roebuck in Detroit. Hillert was also an early subscriber to ONE magazine. He and his companion of 56 years Robert Costa retired to Vero Beach, Florida.
January 6, 1956 – October 29, 2014
Saginaw native Thomas Lohr Jr. graduated from Eisenhower High School and earned a B.A. in marketing at Michigan State University in 1979. After a successful career in advertising in Chicago, he joined his life partner Roger Boike in operating Groundworkes, a landscaping business in Lakeside, Michigan. Lohr was also actively involved in Chicago’s LGBTQ community, participating in two AIDS Rides bicycle fundraisers.
Michigan LGBTQ Remember 