July 27, 1933 – March 22, 2019
Margaret “Peg” Powell was born in Lansing and served as an MP with the Women’s Army Corps during the Korean War. She raised her younger sister and two children of her own and studied to become an LPN, specializing in hospice care. Powell was active in Lansing’s lesbian community in the 1970s and 1980s before moving to Wisconsin. She was survived by Mary Kay Schleiter, her partner of 32 years.
Lesbian Connection, November/December 2019
May 1, 1942 – November 18, 1992
Born in Texas, Rodolfo “Rudy” Aviles grew up in Bay City and served four years in the U.S. Navy. He attended Delta College and Saginaw Valley State University and worked with the Michigan Employment Security Commission. Aviles was active in numerous civic causes, including bilingual education and raising money for Hispanic scholarships. He died from AIDS-related complications at age 50.
Bay City Times, November 18, 1992
January 4, 1934 – May 9, 1999
Civil rights activist Harold McCormick was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and served in the U.S. Army from 1956 to 1962. After moving to Metro Detroit, he was engaged in social work and became CEO of Quality Human Services. McCormick led a largely closeted life until he was found murdered in his Royal Oak Township apartment, the victim of a man he met at an adult book store.
Detroit Free Press, May 13, 1999
January 12, 1966 – October 25, 2019
Tara Louise Kelley was born in Flint, graduated from Bentley High School in Burton, and served six years in the U.S. Navy. She later earned her Bachelor’s at the University of Michigan-Flint, served in the National Guard, and for 19 years worked as a corrections officer with the State of Michigan. Kelley and her longtime partner Angelina Winn were found dead in their Kingsley home in a tragic murder-suicide.
February 18, 1951 – November 2, 1989
Donald Lee “Don” DeMorrow Jr. was born in and grew up in Benton Harbor. Following high school, from 1969 to 1971, he served as a corpsman in the U.S. Navy. Three years later he settled in California. DeMorrow met his lover Hess Davison in 1979 and the two shared a home in Guernesville, north of San Francisco. He died from AIDS-related complications at age 38.
January 26, 1963 – March 9, 1995
Scott Bernard Amedure moved to Waterford from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when he was five, left high school at 17 to join the U.S. Army, and later worked as a bartender at Popper’s in Pontiac. In March 1995, two days after Amedure revealed his secret crush on his straight acquaintance Jonathan Schmitz during a taping of the Jenny Jones Show, Schmitz murdered him in his Orion Township mobile home.
June 20, 1935 – November 17, 2018
Born in Detroit, Frances Suzanne Moore moved to California at age 22, served as a journalist in the U.S. Navy, and worked at the Jet Propulsion Lab of California Tech. As an activist in San Diego, she cared for patients with AIDS and served as chair of the local Gay Academic Union. Moore was preceded in death by her wife and partner of 27 years Charlynn Johnson.
January 20, 1957 – November 18, 1999
Pontiac resident Kraig Marlon Knorr was born in Alpena and attended Hillman Community High School. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1977 to 1979 and later earned his B.A. at the University of Michigan-Flint, where he worked as a tutor in the writing center. In the 1990s, Knorr worked as DJ at the State Bar in Flint and at Popper’s in Pontiac.
Alpena News, November 21, 1999
September 2, 1936 – December 26, 2019
Kentucky native Ann Sorrell moved to Detroit at age seven. She sold bakery goods, worked as a postal worker, and served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve before earning her B.A. and M.A. from Eastern Michigan University. She taught the hearing impaired in the Ann Arbor schools. Sorrell and her life partner Marge Elde were among the first lesbian couples married in Washtenaw County in June 2015.
July 21, 1930 – March 13, 2018
Betsy Ann Boyette was born in rural North Carolina and served as a radio operator in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War before attending DeVry Technical Institute in Chicago as its first female graduate. In the mid-1980s, she started her own interior decorator business, retiring to Saugatuck in 2002. Boyette and her spouse Dianne Wendt were together 43 years and married in 2015.
Commercial Record, March 22, 2018
Michigan LGBTQ Remember 