Me, My Father, His Father, and the Father Before

Parents

My parents were Matthew Robert Kohn (1901-1971) from the farm area 9 miles southwest of Tipton KS and Louise Josephine Deneke-Kohn (1913-1990) from a farm east of Beloit KS. They married on my mother's 34th birthday, 1947.02.13—Dad was then 46 years old. The witnesses to their marriage at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church were her brother Leo Deneke and friend Margaret M. Heger, both of Beloit. The officiant was Monsignor William J Butzer.

Math Kohn (1901-1971) in 1942

Before they met, Dad lived and worked on his parents' farm about 9 miles southwest of Tipton (the southwest quarter of section 33 (T8S R11W) or section 8-south (T9S R11W), in Bloom township, Osborne county KS). It's not clear to me if the farm was only ranch land, but the homestead was at the eastern end of about 300 acres of hilly and rocky pasture land, on which grazed a hundred or so cattle. It seems likely that the family rented other land for feed crops (alfalfa, milo, sorghum, and other small grains) to sustain the cattle during the winter.

Although Dad was already 40 years old by Pearl Harbor, he was still not exempt from the peacetime draft that was enacted in 1940. He enlisted or was drafted on 4 November 1942, and he was inducted into the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Fort Benning GA. However, he served only four months and was discharged on 5 March 1943 from Fort Belvoir VA. I believe that the short enlistment resulted from a change in the age range for conscription from 21 through 45 to 18 through 38, which became effective after December 5, 1942. Dad returned to Kansas and took a job as a mechanic at Voss Motors in Downs.

Louise Deneke-Kohn (1913-1990) in 1939

Meanwhile, Mom saw her oldest sister Mary Agnes marry Peter Braun of Tipton in 1931 and die in childbirth in 1936. Her brother Pete married Nora Long of New Almelo KS in 1938 and began growing his family to four children by 1946. Her next-younger sister Cecilia entered the novitiate in 1938 and took final vows in the Congregation of St. Joseph in 1941, after which she took the name Sister Mary Henrita Deneke.

Mom began to attend nursing school at St. Margaret's Hospital in 1938, and she was awarded a diploma in 1944. A portion of that time was spent as a nursing assistant at a munitions factory near Kansas City KS. With her freshly awarded diploma, she returned to Beloit and worked at Community Hospital. Aunt Nora once said that Mom confided in her about a fear of remaining unmarried and had asked Nora, "Should I marry just for the security of it, if someone comes along, whether I love him or not?" 

Jimmy and Tommy Kohn, early 1952

Aunt Nora offered no insight on how they met, but Mom and Dad did marry in early 1947. Mom and Dad first lived in Downs KS, near where Dad worked. Mom commuted 25 miles each way to Beloit Community Hospital. My brother Jimmy was born in November 1948, and that was likely a reason for Mom to become a full-time housewife and mother. They purchased 160 acres in Jewell County (Ionia township (T4S R9W) section 13), about 5 miles northwest of Ionia and about ten miles south of Esbon. I was born in August 1951, and I once discovered that Mom and Dad had begun the process of adopting a child before Mom was pregnant with me.

The farm included a two-story frame house, granary, equipment shed, barn, and a small pond east of the barn. The livestock included at various times about 15 cattle, 10 hogs, 25 sheep, 20 laying hens, usually 2 dogs, several cats, and one pony "Goldie." A small wood of locust trees provided a wind break from the north, and osage and large junipers provided wind breaks west and south of the house. As we grew, Jimmy and I learned some chores, including gathering eggs, feeding and milking cows, shearing sheep, and slopping hogs. We were both too small to help much in the fields, which included alfalfa and small grains as well as pasture. I guess that Dad also rented nearby land for wheat farming, though I don't remember wheat harvest on the farm. A nearby land owner was Frank Kissinger, whose name I vaguely associate with wheat crops. Our nearest neighbors were the Thomas and Dietz families, about a mile to the west.

Jimmy went to the Ionia public school for first through third grades, from autumn 1953 through spring 1956. (The Kansas school system for rural children did not include kindergarten.) When I began school in 1956, we were bused along with neighbor kids to Esbon's public schools. The Ionia school attendance was small enough to place three grades in one classroom of 24 pupils, and the Esbon school placed grades 1 and 2 together for a classroom of about 20 pupils. My first teacher was "Miss Dolores" Holleran.

Mom resumed nursing at Community Hospital after both Jim and I were in school. I remember summers when Dad would take us to the public swimming pool in Beloit, and then we would pick up Mom at the end of her 7 a.m.-to-3 p.m. shift at the hospital. I also remember a couple of winters when she got stuck in snow drifts on the way home from work. It turned out that the 30-mile commute to Beloit was too strenuous, and Mom and Dad decided to forsake their farm life for "the city." They arranged for an auction of the whole farm to occur in summer 1959. The house sold separately, and it was lifted from its foundation and moved to Ionia. (I found the house there in 2001, long uninhabited and rotted through with a termite infestation. A return visit in 2014 found the same property empty, and the town itself deserted but for a dozen families.)

We moved to Beloit in time to enroll Jimmy and me in St. John's Catholic School for Jim's 7th grade and my 4th grade. My class was one of the largest for many years—33 classmates, give or take a few each year. I don't remember my 4th-grade teacher, but Mrs. Golda Poelma taught 5th grade. Each school day began with assembly for Mass in the large, stone parish church. I had begun to develop a deep religiosity, and this likely resulted from —or furthered— an estrangement from my new classmates. My mother and at least the two aunts who were nuns in the Congretation of St. Joseph (Sisters Henrita (Cecilia) Deneke and Edna Louise (Isabella) Kohn) encouraged this religiosity. I'm sure they would have regretted it had they seen me "celebrating Mass" alone at home in vestments pieced together from sheets and comforters with hand-pressed "hosts" and Coca-Cola "wine." These feelings increased as I was encouraged to learn to serve as an altar boy and subtly shunned from recess team games in which my coordination and strength were insubstantial. Near the end of eighth grade, I asked Monsignor Fraser if he would recommend me for entry to pre-seminary school at St. Fidelis Friary, but he suggested I continue study at the parish high school.

Grandparents

Mike Kohn and Louise Ohnsat,
married 1900.08.13 at St. Boniface, Tipton.

My father's parents lived most of their lives in the Tipton KS area, and as youngsters they lived on farms about a mile apart. Mike Kohn married at 21, and his bride Louise Ohnsat was almost 25. They married 13 August 1900 at St. Boniface in Tipton. Their witnesses were Louise's brother Bernard Ohnsat and Mike's sister Katherine Kohn.

Mike Kohn, age 71.

John Michael Kohn (1879-1965) was born March 18th at his parents' homestead north of Tipton (Carr Creek township, T7S R10W section 25 in Mitchell county). He was their third child, and the second son to survive infancy. He was usually called Mike because his father also had the first name of John.

Sometime between the 1880 census and the birth of Mike's first sister in January 1881, the family moved to La Crosse WI. His uncle Mathias Kohn (1829-1888) had lived there since 1855, and he operated a saloon that included boarding rooms and a restaurant. The Mathias Kohn family had grown to nine children by the time that the John M. Kohn family arrived, another two children came through 1885, and two orphaned children were adopted as well in the 1890s.

Mike's father John M. had a dairy at the eastern edge of La Crosse, and he delivered milk daily to customers in town. I suppose that Mike and his older brother Pete (1877-1941) helped in the barn and herded the milk cows to and from pasture. Mike and Pete likely attended school in La Crosse, and it's possible they attended a Catholic parish school. The family lived in La Crosse until 1887 or 1888, when they moved back to the Tipton, after their mother died from heat stroke in August 1887. Her mother and sister had come from Tipton to help John M with his five children (Peter, age ten; Mike, age eight; Katie, age six; Annie, almost five; and Ben, just turning three). They persuaded John M. that Tipton would make a better home for them, with plenty of land available for ranching and several families of in-laws to help establish a homestead for the family.

Louise Ohnsat-Kohn, age 75.

Louise Ohnsat-Kohn (1875-1959) was born 2 December 1875 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By 1878, the Ohnsat family resettled in Osborne county, about ten miles west of Tipton.

Mike Kohn and Louise Kohn,
50th wedding anniversary (1950) at their Tipton home.

Great Grandparents

John Mathew (John M., Johann Mathias) Kohn (1839-1919)

John M. Kohn, seated right

Susanna Reinert-Kohn, seated left

John M. Kohn family, about 1895, on their ranch farm southwest
of Tipton in Bloom twp, Osborne county KS. l to r: Ben (age 11),
Annie (13), Kate (14), Mike (16), John M (56); Peter (18) is likely
behind the camera.

Susanna Reinert (1848-1887)

What I learned from attending my cousin near her death

It's Saturday today. I listened to This American Life on WYSO, as I do most Saturday mornings while I let a dose of Fosamax process through my empty stomach, fed Howard-the-Lab, made a big mug of triple-shot latté, and toasted a sesame seed bagel.

As Ira Glass introduced today's theme, "Death and Taxes," I flashed back two weeks, when I told a dying relative a lie: "Next year, we'll be wishing you a happy birthday in your home." Without a word, she floored me with eyes that said: "What, are you really so full of shit that you think I'll walk out of this hospital room and live to see my 80th birthday? We both know, or at least I know, that I'm this close to my last breath!"

o o o — o o o

My husband's cousin Barbara had worked at the Fernald plant near Cincinnati as an industrial electrician while the plant was being decommissioned. Nuclear materials were still in storage there, and more than once Barb had been in sight of yellow cake or other fuel products. Within 15 years, Barb developed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which progressed to a diagnosis of lung cancer in late 2009.

She was a generation older than Chuck, and she married and relocated to California when Chuck was almost three. He had only a few interactions with her as they grew up, but as an adult he sailed the San Francisco Bay with her captaining. Her intelligence made her a master sailor and in one period a naturalist with a special focus on bats and other mammals of flight. From this enthusiasm came her respect for the Chiroptera order of animals. She called herself "a tough ol' bat," and the description stuck as a nickname among her many friends—fellow workers at Fernald, members of the motorcycle club she had joined, musicians who gigged with her or her wife Marcia, almost everyone except her family of a few cousins.

The nickname "Bat" proved true as she waged war with cancer. After surgery and radiation therapy, she was diagnosed to be cancer free. Bat resumed her life as never before. She and Marcia lived each new day as a fresh experience, an opportunity to bike together at a whim. They biked long distances to attend national meetings with other members of the Motor Maids and short distances to see Chuck and me up in Dayton.

The flow of a several more years brought new concerns about cancer recurrence. A second lung surgery was needed 22 months after the first. Another year later, new scans revealed a metastasis in her brain. At first her body responded fairly well to treatment. The cancer cells seemed to die from gamma knife treatments and chemotherapy, but the site never cleared of necrotic tissue. Large doses of corticosteroids were used for long periods, and their side effects transformed Bat into a person easily exhausted by her previous, active lifestyle. And caring for Bat at home had required Marcia to sacrifice the retail jobs that helped them stay ahead of mounting bills.

o o o — o o o

Bat had moved from home to a residential rehabilitation facility. The plan was to rebuild her ability to maintain a life, though a quieter one, at home and to regain enough self-sufficiency to allow Marcia to return to work.

I visited Bat on a Wednesday afternoon. She was bloated, barely mobile, her body on its way to becoming one with the hospital bed. Nevertheless, her eyes were bright, focused, and she kept in the conversation. But she was totally unable to provide the stream of family stories that was characteristic of her in the past. Occasionally Bat rattled a cough, and Marcia explained for her, "We think it's the steroids, the prednisone, that have taken her voice. She hasn't been able to do more than whisper for several days now." Bat's dinner arrived, and she ate with moderate appetite. When I was getting ready to leave, Marcia reminded me that Bat was looking forward to her 79th birthday next Sunday.

A day later, Bat had been transferred to Bethesda North to treat what had now been diagnosed as pneumonia. Placing her in the rehab facility had been, in retrospect, too hopeful a step for Bat's transformed and exhausted body. It had become difficult for her even to sit up in bed, let alone getting to a chair in the room or to the bathroom unassisted. This lack of movement contributed, I suspect, to the pneumonia.

I came to her bedside on  April 13. That date in 1935, Bat—Barbara Morton—was born in Alliance, Ohio. Her mother, Ethel Ora Derry, had been born there—and married there too, to George Morton. Ethel's parents had been married there as well, and Alliance was the last home of Barb's great grandmother, Oracelia Maxwell-Derry. Though that lineage had been told to me by Barb herself, she had no energy to talk about family. Nor to talk at all. Whatever treatments were given at Bethesda were of little use. The pneumonia lingered, and Barb looked even less herself.

A nursing aid brought in a tray. A wedge of chocolate cake supported a match of a candle. A half-cup bowl held a sphere of vanilla ice cream. Marcia lit the candle, then she and I sang the familiar repeating phrases and provided the breath to extinguish the unsteady flame. And then came the time that I told that bald-faced lie...

o o o — o o o

Barb rallied, then faltered. Three times over the week. She bargained with the doctor, "Let's decide on Friday whether I've beat this pneumonia and can get back home to recover." Marcia called attorneys handling the workers' compensation settlement from Fernald, medical supply companies providing a hospital bed at home, social workers evaluating the home environment, and a Hospice of Cincinnati representative advising a temporary stay at their facility before bringing Barb home. On Wednesday, Barb was taken to Hospice. On Friday, her friends set up a schedule that kept two or more attending Barb and Marcia for as long as needed. On Saturday I visited. I remembered the unsteady candle light from six days earlier and the red votive candles at death vigils when I was a child. On Sunday, Barb departed quietly before Easter's dawn.

A moral without a maxim

Barb taught me that it is possible to know that one's own death is approaching, and it may be up to the dying to teach family and friends how the death should progress. The "Death and Taxes" broadcast clarified that the dying are often unable to articulate their own wishes as death approaches, particularly to the attending family and professionals. Observing Barb's slow week of dying left me with strongly felt wishes about how my own death would best be managed, given that I die from "old age" or slow compromises from illness.

Foremost, I want no silence in the room where I die. Nor darkness. Women can comfort, men can curse, children can prattle. Let all visitors to the deathwatch come with an understanding that they may continue their living, even while in the room with me.

I would like to hear music almost constantly. Music has been a force in my life since childhood, though my tastes have sharpened since then. Let the music never cease, not even in ER, OR, ICU, or hospice. My favorite music includes

• The Wagner Ring cycle—I have long listened equally to the Solti original and the Goodall English translation, and the Boulez version occasionally.
• Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht, as well as his chamber symphonies and Ode to Napoléon Buonaparte. I have loved other Schoenberg works, too, and I've driven Chuck to distraction by listening to Berg's Wozzeck, Lulu, and "Seven Early Songs."
• Schubert's Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, 
• Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmelites, 
• Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle, 
• Stravinsky's ballets (even Agon), 
• Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise, 
• Fauré's Requiem, 
• Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima and Cello Concerto #2, 
• String quartets by Mozart and Beethoven. 
• Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along (in all three versions), Sweeney Todd, and Sunday in the Park With George—Don't play Sondheim's Follies, because I don't want yet another insight about its characters!
• Guettel's The Light in the Piazza. 
• Weisgall's Six Characters in Search of an Author. 
• John Lennon's In My Life, the song that Chuck and I measure all life by. (I won't object to other Beatles songs.)

Let my friends talk above or below the music, think good thoughts, remind me of their presence with a stroke on the thigh, a rub of the shoulder, a cooling touch on the brow, or even a gentle lift of the testes.

Bring your friends I should have met. Bring your children to know that death is natural, a common thing among all of us born.

Flowers are not necessary. Rather, bring a favorite photograph, sketch, or art reproduction that speaks to you and may inspire me.

Don't close the curtains. Let in the sunshine!

Don't swathe me in pajamas or hospital gowns. I have slept naked all my life, and want no encumbrance at death.

Once it is clear that Death is approaching, don't make useless attempts to prevent the inevitable. Whatever strength I have for breath, that is enough. No tubes, no forced feeding, no fluids.
When I and my body are separated, take any parts that can be of use for others or research. Then burn the rest. Let the volatiles join my spirit, and let the precipitates join the earth.

Please also read this for another approach to serious illness, medical care, and dealing with one's death.

Just a brush is what we need

If we're lucky, Death brushes against us a few times in life. Sometimes the brush is a near miss, other times the brush occurs when a friend or relative meets Death. We can choose to learn from these close encounters, or we can shelter ourselves, repress our feelings, and refuse to grow.

Tom Kohn

Twenty years ago I had a near miss. I was in a training race on my bicycle, and a car collided with me as the driver turned off a one-lane bridge with poor sight lines. Unaware that the race course had inherent problems in safety, unknowing that the race organizer had not gained approval from the townships or counties involved, unable to know that nobody on my racing team would care enough to identify me when the ambulance came, and unfortunate that, faced with the need to answer hard questions, my racing companions would take flight and leave me bloody, unconscious, and seriously injured. But Death didn't finish his job with me, perhaps because enough angels came to my help and scared Death in his work. I survived after two weeks hospitalization, seven surgeries, and several years learning to cope with cognitive impairment. I learned that, if I retained a headstrong focus on cycling in dangerous situations, I might well die in another bike collision.

Chuck Derry

Ten years ago my husband Chuck had a long dance with Death. Days before we were to spend Spring Break in our favorite getaway, a doctor advised Chuck, "I don't like how this x-ray looks. This white area here, near your heart, shouldn't be there. Let's get a CT-scan, and get the ball rolling for surgery." It was a rare thymoma, one that wrapped around his heart. The surgery included removing the outer layer of tissue around his heart, because the surgeon suspected that cancer had bridged the gap between the thymus and the heart. After he recovered from the open-chest surgery, he was given radiation treatments to kill any remaining cancer cells in his chest. But the radiation also damaged his heart and lungs. A year later he needed stents to relieve arteries that had collapsed from radiation damage. A year after that, he needed open-chest surgery to replace several arteries with veins from his legs. But bleeding didn't stop after the surgery, so his chest was opened again to find and repair the bleeding areas. And then opened again for another surgery because more bleeders started up. Death waged a long campaign, but Chuck won each battle. I learned that the will to survive can allow us to prevail against catastrophic disease, and that the love of friends and family can foster the will and make recovery easier.

Tom with Louise Deneke-Kohn, 1913-1990

My mother's death was an example of a brush with Death where too many distractions kept me from learning and growing. Mom and I had a troubled time after I divorced my wife to live more honestly as a gay man. This changed when I met Chuck and, because of his influence, became more compassionate to Mom's loving concern. When mom died, I could hardly focus on her, because distractions and hostility came from my family who had never come to terms with a gay nephew, cousin, or brother. Her battle against Death was made lonelier by her family's grudging communication with me. I learned that the result of intolerance is complex, and it affects more victims than the obvious ones.

Florence Pounds-Iacano, 1924-2007

Aunt Florence, a life-long conservative follower of a retrograde Christian cult, had a long struggle against Death. For seven years, Florence personified the Iacano family's estrangement from Chuck after he met me, forged our commitment, and came out to relatives and friends. At one time, her minister had told her that speaking to Chuck would bring her everlasting damnation. Ironically, when Chuck visited her the day before her death, she could not speak because of intubation. Her eyes and unfaltering clasp of Chuck's hand could only imply her regret that she had been less compassionate than she should have been. I learned that we must express our love, overcome our own troubles, and accept our friends and family without condition. And we must do so long before that last moment when Death lurks at the doorway.

Barb Morton-Graham, 1935-2014

Chuck's cousin Barbara Morton-Graham died this morning at 4:40, before the sunrise of Easter. She called herself Ole' Bat, and might have been happy being called a tough old gal. When she exited from a marriage and needed to earn a living, she apprenticed as an electrician, and ended with a well-paying job at the Fernald nuclear energy plant. Working through its de-commissioning, she was in occasional proximity to fissable materials. But she felt it was better for her to be in danger than the young men she worked with, who had a full lifetime yet to enjoy. For years she battled against lung cancer and ensuing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and the last few months were especially hard. I was able visit her occasionally in these last few weeks. Diagnosed and hospitalized a week ago with pneumonia that was never controlled, her breathing was labored over many days. Friday she was moved from hospital to hospice, and I was beside her yesterday evening while she slowly and bravely advanced toward Death. In the end, Death befriended her and relieved her of a compromised body.

Louise Ohnsat-Kohn, 1875-1959

Sitting there beside her, among her friends from the Motor Maids motorcycle club, I was reminded of the gathered daughters and daughters-in-law as my grandmother Louise Ohnsat-Kohn passed.

There was no hospice then in May 1959. The death watch occurred at home. The front bedroom, where great-grandparents' photos watched my grandparent's bed, was dark, the shades drawn, the curtains pulled together. Grandma was alone in the bed, but five young women stood, sat, or kneeled around the bed. Two of them—my mother Louise and my aunt Sr. Edna Louise—were registered nurses. Even these women well-versed in care and comfort were at the far reaches of what medicine could offer in 1959 rural Kansas. The palliatives were few: a dry towel to dab at sweat and tears, a moist cloth to wet the lips, a slow fan to move the air, a low murmur of another recitation of the rosary. The words repeated momentarily in my head, drawn again into the Catholic practice I had thought I have recovered from; one voice chants, "Hailmaryfullofgrace thelordiswiththee, blessedart-thouamongwomen, andblessedisthefruitofthywomb,Jesus." A throng of automatonic responses, "Holymarymotherofgod prayforussinners nowandatthehourofourdeath,Amen." Not quite a monotone, barely inflected, related to chant, but never a sweeping antiphon.

I realize now that the muddle of words was not a means of compressing the rosary to its alloted ten minutes (one credo and triad followed by five decades of an Our Father and ten Hail Marys), but of creating a low buzz that blocked the world outside the house, a white noise that dampened the curses and weeping from the men smoking in the front parlor, a somber music that balanced the flow of visiting neighbors and family who brought pies, cookies, hams, roasts, casseroled vegetables, potted stews, and repeated questions of the details of sickness and impending death.

Pulled back—Barbara stirred, coughed weakly—to the hospice room, with my dying cousin (no longer merely a cousin-in-law) and the ebb and flow of her friends, motocycle riders, lesbian couples, cat lovers, all part of the extended family of a pair of women, married—by the authority of the state of Ontario, Canada—now these ten years, six months, and seventeen days, and still lovers through these thirty years, five months, and nineteen days, who must now separate for a time.

Barbara and Marcia, about 1990

Notes for her biography

Barbara Morton-Graham, known to her close friends as Bat or Ol' Bat, was born 13 April 1935 to George Elwood Morton and Ethel Oracelia Derry in Alliance, Stark county, Ohio. She was their only child.
She married James Crawford Graham from [HOME UNKNOWN] on 15 Aug 1954 in Cleveland, Ohio. They lived in Ohio, Azusa CA, and San Anselmo, CA; and they had two sons: Anthony Crawford and James Chase.

Barbara created a new home with Marcia Gallas of North Miami Beach FL in Nov 1983, and they lived in Novato CA, Asheville NC, and Cincinnati OH. They celebrated their meeting date with their marriage on 8 Sep 2003 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Barbara is survived by her loving wife Marcia Gallas of Blue Ash, OH, sons Tony Graham and wife Vangie of Neshkoro, WI, James Graham and wife Peggy of Boulder Creek, CA, and grandchildren, Nikki Patten of Queen Creek, AZ, Kyle Graham of Tempe, AZ , Triona Graham and Brigid Graham of Vallejo, CA, Keiva Hummel of Oakland, CA, and Lauren Katz of Boulder Creek, CA. Cousins Charles Derry and husband Thomas Kohn of Palm Springs, CA, Denise Preucel and Max Gast of Cleveland, OH.

Related post

What I learned.

Marriage Journal

2013.12.17, a posting on Facebook, about 11:00 p.m.

"Back from a day of Christmas shopping that began with a trip to the Riverside county clerk's office in Palm Desert. We now have a license for signing by an authorized 'deputy of the state.' All the clerk's staff were wonderfully supportive, and the registrar took our photos as we signed the notarized application.

"33 years ago, when Chuck and I began developing our relationship, we had no expectation of marriage. Now, it is an emotional moment to follow the instructions of 'Please initial here,' 'Could you replace the word 'none' with a zero?' and 'Do you want to check whether the terminology should be "groom and groom" or "not applicable"? I think it always reads better with the words "groom," but a few before you have chosen the "n/a" option.'

"We plan to elope just before the end of the year. Nothing big, but something special."

Nick Piedescalzi, Chuck's colleague from Wright State University who was a professor of religion and an ordained minister, had expressed his hope to officiate at our marrige, when we made the decision. The time had come. It seemed certain that marriage would be allowed for gay couples throughout the nation. Because Ohio had been so backward in granting the right, we decided it should be in California where we would become legally married.

2013.12.18 a little after midnight

Chuck and I talked about the Facebook posting and agreed that posting about the marriage before the fact made it too indiscriminate in "who knew what and when they knew it." The problem we see is that many friends and family are not tied into social media, and so a Facebook posting is too broad a dissemination that lacks the immediacy of a photo document and a postal letter. So I deleted my posting, but not before Kyle Forquer and Nichol Simmons had already liked it.

Chuck and I will journal our feelings and events through the time, and we'll control how we tell friends about the event in a more orderly way.

2013.12.23

Chuck and I finished the script for our ceremony and sent it off to Nick. The text includes our vows and exchange of family rosaries, preceded by instructions to Nick for his introductory remarks.

We also finished a list of 150 friends we want to announce the event to in advance of any more public pronouncements on Facebook or mass emails.

2013.12.25

Thoughts on... We're now reaching the final days of our thirty-third year of being together. Some would draw a parallel to the death and resurrection occurring in Jesus' 33rd year. Is there really a parallel? It is not the death of our relationship as we have known it and seen it develop for so long, but perhaps it is a rebirth, a reclothing of the relationship we have known. It is a development of our political awareness as a couple, too, a sign that we expect Ohio and all these United States to come into alignment with the forward-thinking states and with the guidance of the Supreme Court.

Our parents were married fewer years than the time that Chuck and I have been together. Chuck's parents married in March 1947, and they were together 27 years and 3 months until his father died in June 1974. My parents married in February 1947, and they were together 24 years and 5 months until Matt died in July 1971.

We've learned a lot from them, though more by comparison than by having lessons taught by them. Some of the lessons were how not to behave.

2013.12.28

We drove today to Capitola in the Monterey area of the central California coast. Nick and Sybil live nearby in Aptos. We are staying at a quaint and quiet small hotel that Kazu had found for us, in the honeymoon suite.

2013.12.28 (personal reflections on our partnership and marriage)

We've gone through a lot, along our 33 year journey.
Ambling together in our first years, figuring out
That your strengths are planning and accounting and ...
Worrying that all the plans and figuring will come out right.
Discovering that my strengths were letting go, trying new things,
Opening us up to each enthusiasm as it came along.
Those early years were easy for us, both at the University,

Our next years were hell, with a full seven circles.
The first was the sales position disguised as philanthropy,
Which lasted days more than a year, from one Labor Day to the next.
The next was Comarco, which caused our first separation—with you chained to duty
At Wright State and developing the film program,
Testing the tether that Abe Bassett held,
Finding whether he trusted you enough to expand film studes—prudently, carefully—
And me forming a work life and a sense of business
First in Houston, then in Anaheim, again removed in Lempoc
And back to live in Bell with you while on sabbatical.
That renewed life together was hard in several ways,
Each of us testing new directions,
Though we finally agreed to return to the life we knew
In Dayton and among friends there.
So then, only seven years strong in our—what did we call it then?
Relationship? Partnership? ...I don't think then we had begun to think in terms of ...marriage?—
We grew more: you returned to teaching with renewed zeal,
My enthusiasms tested volleyball, wrestling, softball, cycling, and
Carried through to encouraging local athletes to join the Gay Games.
And my work world was a whirlwind,
In contrast to yours, commuting for two years to Cincinnati
Separated me from you and Dayton, but for the short time for dinner, sleep, and breakfast;
Then more stresses working with DPandL and NCR,
Until I was hired by Martha for work at Kodak.
During those years, you were my anchor at times and sextant when out of the harbor.

By 1990, we did indeed conceive of our lives as married,
Despite the unreadiness of the state and country.
We chose our meeting day to be the marker then,
When we first renewed the commitment we had made ten years before.
And we sealed it all as legally as possible,
To forestall any self-serving moves by blood relatives.

It's ever more clear to me that tensions we had
Were ripples felt from stresses of work,
That I found it difficult to compartment work from home.

But all those thirty-three years before have been only preamble.

 2013.12.29 (Final form of my personal reflection on marriage)

We've shared much—you and I—
A journey so far of 33 years
Ambling together at first,
Figuring out our strengths,
Discovering unknown weaknesses—
Yours: planning and accounting,
Worrying that the plans and accounts
Amounted to some thing,
But also a natural ability to make me laugh;
Mine: letting go and trying new things,
Opening us to new enthusiasms
With no deficit of attention, for a while,
But also sometimes to utter a subtle insight.

During years of trial and testing
New directions and strange separations
We held tru to our voyage together.
When at harbor, wherever, you were our anchor;
When at sea—not always tempest-tossed—you were our sextant.

Our understanding of what we have, of what we mean to each other
Has long preceded the state recognition and the courts' judgment.
Though we chose first to renew our commitment and mark the day we met,
We now understand better the important choice we each made at the end of December in 1980.

Happy that you offered the question then,
Proud that I accepted—no, embraced—the answer then,
And expectant that we can share more—
More years, yes,
More of each other,
More laughter,
And likely more tears too
In a newly restated marriage.
Let's share much more in our future life yet to live together.

2013.12.30

Today, the 33rd anniversary of our first commitment to each other, Nick led us in our vows during a simple ceremony with Sybil, our witness, taking photos.

We celebrated with a sweet, small cake and glasses of sparkling grape juice. Then Chuck and I drove off toward Palm Springs. We arrived home in darkness, about 8 p.m.

2014.01.23

Today I ordered stamps online, a simple white flower for weddings. (We had a bit of an internal dispute about having done so without Chuck's direct input.)

2014.02.01

We received stamps after a delay because of a backlog of orders due to price rise on the 26th. We together affixed them to envelopes, and delivered the envelopes to the main Palm Springs post office about 17:35.

2014.02.04

We received first email response about the mailing from Mitch Chen.

2014.02.07

We received the first reply from one of my friends—a super email from Phil Hinrichs.