episode details
Welcome back to episode six! If you didn’t listen to the last episode, or any of the episodes before it, no worries, baby! While we intended for the podcast to be listened to in the order we release it, this season’s episodes aren't in chronological order, so if you listen out of order, you’ll still be able to easily follow along.
This week, we’ll be diving into housing during the AIDS epidemic in the District. In the 80s and 90s, it was impossible to be a part of the Queer community without being touched by HIV or AIDS.
Everyone lost someone. Everyone had a story of either a partner, a friend, or a neighbor who passed. And in the same token, everyone stepped up to care for one another. Whether that was letting a friend crash on a couch or starting a new organization to serve those living and dying with HIV and AIDS. While this episode contains a lot of tragedy and sadness, there is also so much love.
Special thanks to the Rainbow History Project, the DC Public Library, and the countless other academics and historians, whether featured in these episodes or not, who helped inspire and guide us through this process.
Audio editing by Abby Stuckrath and Julia Hay
A full transcript is available below or in this pdf. You can also find works cited and in-text citations for the episode in this pdf.
transcript
[QTDP theme music plays in the background]
Welcome back to episode six! We hope you enjoyed learning about some of the most prominent drag houses and organizations in the District last week.
If you didn’t listen to our previous episode, or any episodes before it, no worries! While we intended for the podcast to be listened to in the order we release it, this season’s episodes aren't in chronological order, so if you listen out of order, you’ll still be able to easily follow along. However, if you want to get a better feel for the format of the whole season, we recommend going back to episode one, ‘are you a homesexual?’
This week, we’ll be diving into housing during the AIDS epidemic in the District. In the 80s and 90s, it was impossible to be a part of the Queer community without being touched by HIV and AIDS
Everyone lost someone. Everyone had a story of either a partner, a friend, or a neighbor who passed. And in the same token, everyone stepped up to care for one another. Whether that was letting a friend crash on a couch or starting a new organization to serve those living and dying with HIV and AIDS.
While this episode contains a lot of tragedy and sadness, there is also so much love. So we start today’s episode with love, evident in both the grief and the community care that arose in the 1980s.
[QTDP theme music fades out]
[Soft piano music plays in the background]
ABBY: Starting in the 1980s, the AIDS epidemic transformed Queer people’s sense of community. With the flip of a switch, Queer folks became their own doctors and pharmacists, desperately trying to find a way to stop the death that haunted their community. Funerals became constant and obituaries seemed to take up more space than headlines in the gay local newspaper.
STEVEN BRANDT: We would actually leave work on Friday nights and rush to a bar to pick up the Blade to to see who had died. Because we would learn sometimes that someone was sick and we didn't even know they were sick. And now we opened up the the paper and they were dead.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Walking down the street, you could see the physical manifestation of the disease plaguing the gay community.
JAMES FISHER: You would also see people deathly ill, like walking down the street. It was heartbreaking. You would just see someone just deathly ill, and thin, and just horrible.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Queer humanity was constantly undermined and forgotten. No matter how hard Queer folks seemed to scream, for years, no one listened.
PAPAYA MANN: It was a war. It was like a war against AIDS that we didn't know how to fight and we didn't have the tools to fight.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Over 100,000 thousand people in the US died from complications of AIDS from 1981-1990. By the early 90s, AIDS was the leading cause of death for 25 to 44 year old men in the United States–beating out heart disease, stroke, and cancer. The sheer number of deaths is believed to be severely underestimated because of the unknown number of cases that were unreported and undiagnosed.
If you were diagnosed with AIDS, you became instantly more financially vulnerable. You could get fired from your job or refused work because of your status, which would then threaten your ability to pay rent. You could even be denied housing, resulting in you losing your home or being unable to find one in the first place. At times, the disease would make you physically unable to work or even care for yourself–feed yourself.
Socially, people with AIDS were isolated and shamed for their status. In the late 80s, a third of Americans thought employers should be able to fire someone for having AIDS. A 1986 Gallup poll found almost half of Americans believed that people living with AIDS only had themselves to blame. Sixty percent of Americans thought those with AIDS should carry around cards identifying their status.
As a Queer person who didn’t live through the AIDS epidemic, this reality feels unimaginable. Over the past year, I’ve interviewed around 80 Queer folks, many of whom were alive during the AIDS crisis. Everyone lost someone–no one was left unscathed. Everyone had a story of either a partner, a friend, or a neighbor who passed. I think the biggest lesson I’ve walked away from is that despite the devastating reality of AIDS, the Queer community didn’t cower from the fight. Many took to the streets protesting, some began volunteering at clinics, others handed out condoms on the dance floor. I haven’t met one Queer person of that generation who didn’t take part in the effort to combat AIDS and humanize those living with the disease.
[Soft piano music fades out]
Ron Bookbinder…he did all of the above. He protested…
[Sad piano music plays in the background]
[Archival audio of crowd chanting “Act up, fight back, fight AIDS!”]
He held support groups, led small socials at his local church in Arlington.
[Crowd chatters indistinctly]
During his lunch breaks from his job on Capitol Hill, he would hop in his car
[Car door closes, engine turns over]
and deliver meals to people with AIDS at their homes.
RON BOOKBINDER: Cause we didn't just deliver food. We'd sit with people and talk with them.
[Man laughs softly]
It was such an isolating disease.
ABBY: Ron, who invited you into his home for his and James’ bowtie-themed house wedding a couple of episodes ago, provided company and support to those left behind by people around them.
RON BOOKBINDER: People's family were rejecting them. Neighbors were afraid. And especially if you're very ill, you're in your room, you're not socializing.
[Sad piano music fades out]
ABBY: There was one stop on his delivery route…
[Car driving down the road]
…that Ron will never forget.
RON: There was one guy named Steve, who I became particularly friendly with. He at one point, I think, when he was really quite ill. He was so sweet. He gave me a little Christmas ornament. That were of angels, little angels that he wanted me to have. And he said I was his angel.
[Touching piano music plays]
ABBY: Steve passed away later that year. Ron and his partner, James, hang those two small plastic angels, whose faces are a little worn and the wings have lost some color, on their Christmas tree every year.
[Touching piano music fades out]
ABBY: It’s the small moments, like Ron’s, that shows how AIDS transformed what community looks like. Ron and many other people changed their personal lives, their routines, so they could help strangers, with the only previous connection being their shared Queerness and empathy.
Ron didn’t expect anything in return. No one did. They just wanted those suffering to feel loved, heard, and supported.
At a time where medical resources were scarce and local hospitals would deny care to those with HIV and AIDS, Queer folks were left with few options. Their homes were the only place where they could guarantee their safety, so Queer homes became personal clinics, hospice centers, and funeral homes.
Left without support from the government, Queer people learned new skills, read the latest research, and scrapped together the resources they needed to protect and support one another, including housing. In our research, we focused on three HIV and AIDS organizations who sought to fill the housing gap worsened by the epidemic.
[Soft, touching music plays in the background]
OTIS “BUDDY” SUTSON: Housing was a problem for people with HIV. They could no longer work, they couldn't support, couldn't support themselves.
ABBY STUCKRATH: That’s Otis, better known as Buddy Sutson. You might remember him from our house party episode, where he was one of the founders of Best of Washington, a Black gay social club.
Buddy used to work for the Federal Reserve. He never really expected to get involved in health and advocacy. I mean, no one planned to become an AIDS activist and organizer. It just happened.
OTIS “BUDDY” SUTSON: We went from partying to being a social club that helped people through HIV and AIDS. We sort of redirected our mission in terms of what we were doing. We weren't just about parties anymore. It was a good fit for me in the sense that, that I had the skills, I guess you could say, that that was needed at that time.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Those skills later made him the Executive Director of a vital housing resource for those living with HIV, Damien Ministries. A home built for those to:
LARNELL CARR: Basically die with dignity and respect.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Reverend Larnell Carr is a Deputy Director and Director of Food Services for Damien Ministries.
Damien Ministries, today, is a faith-based organization supporting those living with HIV. They provide food, clothes, mental health services, and free HIV testing.
Back in 1987, the Damien Ministries house opened its doors to those living and dying of HIV and AIDS.
It was founded by Louis Tesconi, who moved to D.C. to become a priest.
LARNELL CARR: As he was doing his priesthoods learning and all of that, he got sick. And as he got sick, he ended up finding out that he had the virus that causes AIDS, and basically he was kind of shunned, unfortunately, from his order and kind of pushed aside. And so he felt compelled to help people that were in a situation like he was now, and that's what kind of birth Damien ministries. And so we started out basically being like a hospice.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Loui Tesconi said in a profile in the U.S. Catholic Magazine: “I think we've really got to raise the consciousness of people of faith everywhere, to spread the word that every human life is valuable and no one is expendable. That's the message of Damien: no one is expendable.”
At that time, Damien Ministries was a completely volunteer-run organization.
They ran several homes in D.C., one specifically with women with AIDS, another for hispanic men with AIDS.
They opened all three of their homes within the first four years of their operations.
In 1991, Louis Tesconi, the founder of Damien Ministries died from complications of AIDS.
But his legacy lives on. While the houses are no longer core to their operations, their mission to serve the HIV community has never wavered.
LARNELL CARR: All we want to do is be a resource to help you live better.
[Soft, touching music fades out]
[Birds chirp]
CHENELYN BARKER: It kind of just looks like a regular house in the corner, but inside it's so much more.
[Thoughtful guitar music plays in the background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Chenelyn Barker is the director of development at Joseph’s House, a large three-story Adams Morgan home nestled on the corner of Lanier Place and Ontario Road. Like Damien Ministries, it too began as a warm and welcoming home for those dying of AIDS.
Joseph’s House opened in 1990 and was founded by Dr. David Hilfiker, who had previously co-founded Christ House, a medical care respite for homeless men.
Dr. Hilifiker lived at Christ House and began seeing an exponential number of his patients dying from complications of AIDS. Their last days were spent in emergency rooms and back alleys because, at that time, D.C. homeless shelters refused service to those living with AIDS.
So, in 1990, he and his wife, Marja Kaikkonen, sought to give those dying of the disease a home.
CHENELYN BAKER: I believe it was the founder's wife who, and a staff member who was walking around the neighborhood and saw this house for sale, and so they purchased it. And at that time, during the height of the AIDS epidemic, it was a place where men could come here and die with dignity, to have holistic care, to be able to die in peace, surrounded by friends and loved ones, which we still do today, and that's what makes our mission so special. It's very much how it was founded, where no one dies alone.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Today, according to Chenelyn, Joseph’s House is the only operating housing facility dedicated to serving those with HIV, AIDS, and cancer in D.C. Despite the circumstances that bring people into the house, the home is vibrant and filled with joy.
Its walls are adorned with photos of deceased residents, old co-workers, and homemade artwork.
CHENELYN BAKER: Having it be in a home setting, you feel more comfortable, you feel more relaxed, you know. Our residents are able to move around the house freely. There's a sense of joy, compassion. The residents lean on each other for emotional support. We have family dinners around the dining table, and it's just a time of fellowship.
[Crowd laughs lightly]
You know, laughter is good for the soul. There's a lot of laughter at the house, and that's all part of, you know, that's all part of their journey to health.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Chenelyn knew that she wanted to work with Joseph’s House when she saw their commitment to helping guide and comfort patients in their last moments. When her own grandmother passed away, she felt and saw the importance of being surrounded by loved ones during death. And that’s exactly what Joseph’s House was designed to do.
CHENELYN BAKER: A resident came in through our hospice care program, and they passed away within a couple days of being here. And people were wondering, well, ‘Geez, why did they spend that time having that resident travel all the way from the hospital to here, knowing that they would pass away soon?’ But it makes a difference. It's special, because that person did not pass away alone in the hospital room. They passed away with our community members beside them, knowing that they were loved in their own way, and they passed away in the comfort of a room with dignity.
[Thoughtful guitar music fades out]
[Birds chirp]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Before Joseph’s House and Damien Ministries, there was a local LGBTQ+ healthcare provider who began housing those with HIV and AIDS
In the 80s, The Whitman Walker Clinic was one of the only centers in D.C. to provide care to those living with the disease.
The clinic opened the Schwartz Housing Program, a free housing project for people living with AIDS in the early 1980s. It was run by Reverend Harold Burris, a minister and AIDS activist.
It housed and supported displaced folks who were living with AIDS. The program owned several houses all across the District.
DAVID FACENDA: These houses were safe spaces where people could go and know that once they crossed through that door, they didn't have to worry about their HIV status, per se, in terms of, like, being discriminated against or being shunned, or being, you know, evicted.
ABBY: David Facenda got involved in the program in 1990.
[Light guitar music plays]
DAVID FACENDA: I remember my first, very first time where I showed up to volunteer was at the Curtis White House. It was up on Arkansas Avenue in Northwest.
[David Facenda interview clip fades underneath]
ABBY: Each Schwartz Housing home was named in honor of someone who died of AIDS.
DAVID FACENDA: I'd go there on the weekends, cut the grass…
[Lawn mower whirs]
[Paint brush scrapes against wall]
…paint, do some minor repairs with the volunteer coordinator, and just engage with the clients.
[David interview clip fades underneath]
ABBY: What started as a simple volunteer gig, became a full time job. He left his life as an engineer to become a therapist and social worker for Whitman Walker.
DAVID FACENDA: Each house had about five or six residents, and I was, my office was in the Chavez house, and it was in it was a townhouse in the middle of Mount Pleasant, and it had an English basement. So that's where I’d do the counseling. So the clients would come once a week to get like counseling services. I'd run a weekly house meeting in each of the houses.
ABBY: These houses weren’t just rooms with beds, but homes with community.
DAVID FACENDA: Internally within the houses celebrate milestones, like a sober anniversary or a birthday or the holidays…
[Crowd sings “Happy Birthday’ in the background]
…like, we decorate the houses together, so there was a lot of community connection that way.
Abby: They also had their regular domestic disputes like any other household, from dirty dishes in the sink to someone eating your leftovers. Most importantly, the Schwartz housing program provided a sense of stability and normalcy.
Information on the Schwartz Housing Program is hard to come by, and the names associated with the program even more so. But after hearing David’s story, we knew that we wanted to talk to someone that lived in one of these houses; a task we knew was going to be hard to complete.
[Light guitar music fades out]
Until one of QTDP’s very own sent me an email.
[Email notification dings]
[Computer mouse double clicks]
[Keyboard typing underneath]
ANDREW: Hey Abby! I was just talking to my parents about the research we did for communal housing for AIDS patients, and my Dad told me that he actually used to live in one of those houses here in Adams Morgan with my uncle.
ABBY: Andrew joined QTDP this last fall as a researcher and producer. He led our research efforts in AIDS housing and unbeknownst to him, Andrew had a very personal tie to this history.
ANDREW: He said he'd be willing to talk to you guys about it if you’d like, but no worries if that's not the direction you want to go. I just wanted to let you know.
[Gentle music plays in the background]
ABBY: I immediately responded, and within a couple weeks the three of us, me, Andrew and his Dad, Paul, jumped on a Zoom call.
PAUL WIDMAN: It was, there there was such good times amidst all the tragedy and the reason we were there.
ABBY: Paul Widman, who now lives in Minnesota, is a father of four, director of his local parks and recreation department, and a Mormon bishop.
He was raised in a small conservative town in Oregon with five siblings.
Growing up, Paul and his older brother Andy were best friends. Paul knew Andy was gay, that wasn’t a shock.
But, Andy having AIDS was.
It was 1987, a year where more than forty thousand people died from complications of AIDS.
There was only one thing on Paul's mind when Andy told him he had AIDS: “How can I help?”
PAUL WIDMAN: We're brothers, we're family first, and that, that's what really mattered.
ABBY: The good news was that Andy was recently accepted into the AZT protocol treatment with the National Institute of Health in D.C. AZT was the first FDA approved drug for treatment of AIDS in 1987, but it would later prove to be ineffective when used solely by itself. The NIH program that Andy was a part of would eventually go on to create the “drug cocktail” called HAART, a combination of three or more anti-retro-viral medicines, which came out almost a decade later in 1996. The so-called “drug cocktail” made HIV and AIDS a liveable, treatable condition.
Andy’s acceptance into the AZT program meant he had to move across the country, from Oregon to the District. This is where Paul comes in. He had studied and worked in the DMV a few years earlier, so he was familiar with the area and knew a few people.
[Gentle music fades out]
So, he hopped in his car.
[Car engine turns over]
[Car chugs along]
And drove to D.C., determined to find him and Andy a place to stay.
[Staccato string music plays in the background]
So he hit up an old D.C. acquaintance.
PAUL WIDMAN: I knew she had a town home with the, and I thought, you know, she used to rent rooms out. And thought maybe that would be a possibility. So, talked to her, and
typical of some other conversations, oh, it started out. ‘Oh, yeah, yeah, this would be great.
I've got a couple of rooms here. You could take one, your brother could take the other. And oh, this will work out great.’
And then, you know, we got into the details. And of course, things changed rather quickly…
ABBY: They always had the same excuse.
PAUL WIDMAN: Time and time again, I would just hear, ‘There's so much about this they don't know,’ you know, and kind of whispered and and fearful.
There was another friend, very similar situation, but his was more…
[Paul Widman interview fades underneath]
ABBY: For Paul, doors just–
[Doors close]
–kept closing every time Andy’s HIV/AIDS status came up.
At this point, Paul was desperate, time was running out. Andy would be there soon, and they would have nowhere to stay. He wanted, no he needed, to do this. He needed to find Andy a home.
Then, he found the Whitman Walker Clinic.
[Door opens]
[Staccato string music fades into hopeful music]
[Hopeful music fades out]
PAUL WIDMAN: They had a office that did nothing but find housing for people coming in for protocol treatment and people that needed housing because of losing their jobs because of the AIDS crisis.
ABBY: Paul was initially pretty hesitant about approaching the clinic.
PAUL WIDMAN: I knew they were going to go out and talk about, ‘Hey, what are we going to do with this straight guy from Oregon that you know doesn't know what he's doing?’
ABBY: But Paul was instantly understood, and for the first time since moving back to D.C., he wasn’t met with whispers about the unknowns.
PAUL WIDMAN: You know, they're not asking me if I'm scared or, you know, ‘Hey, all the facts aren't in on this AIDS crisis that you need to be…’ I didn't hear any of that, and I, it was just so reassuring.
ABBY: The Whitman Walker staff knew of the NIH program that Andy was a part of and were excited that he was moving to D.C. They told Paul about the Schwartz Housing program.
PAUL WIDMAN: They were getting houses donated. And I mean, totally donated or fundraising to purchase homes. And I just couldn't get my head around that. You know, here I was kind of living out of my car and couch surfing trying to get all this together.
[Paul Widman interview fades underneath]
ABBY: Then, they offered Paul something he thought was unimaginable, a room for him and Andy. The catch? It wouldn’t be open for a week or two, leaving Paul with nowhere to stay in the meantime, a problem that was quickly remedied by an assistant at the clinic.
PAUL: He said, ‘Would you feel comfortable staying at my house?’ And I said, ‘Well, no, the, I mean, the question should be, would you be comfortable having me at your house?’ And and he said, ‘Sure!’
ABBY: So Paul, stunned, and slightly confused, by the nonchalant and natural opening of arms, accepted the offer.
PAUL WIDMAN: I thought they were doing it out of obligation, that there would be long, awkward silence, you know? I just didn't know what to expect. But soon as I got there, they said, ‘Hey, have a seat. We want to get to know you better.’ And and, you know, I sat in their front room, they asked me all kinds of questions. You know, how was I feeling about it? How was the family reacting and, but more more so, ‘What can we do to help?’ You know? And then they started really what they knew about NIH. They started to tell me what to expect.
[Paul Widman interview fades underneath]
ABBY: Paul sat on this stranger's couch and explained all the ways he was going to work and provide money for rent–until he was interrupted.
PAUL: He said, ‘Oh, wait a minute. You said you needed rent money. I guess we forgot to tell you, there's no rent involved here for for the, you know, the housing.’ You know, I was just floored. I just like, I get, I guess why I get a little emotional about it is, I just wasn't expecting that at all.
[Moving music plays in the background]
ABBY: This was Paul’s first introduction to the gay community. One that he was too scared to approach for help in fear of being misunderstood or being perceived as ignorant. Little did he know that Queer community wouldn’t just point him in the right direction, but hold his hand every step of the way.
Earlier that morning Paul was preparing himself to rally together his family to scrounge up some cash to get Andy a home–which he knew wouldn’t provide much–and within less than 12 hours, everything had changed.
PAUL WIDMAN: From the time I showed up to Whitman Walker Clinic, you know, mid-morning till that night, I was staying at someone's house who cared and understood, and then I was a step away from, you know, being in a home that they were going to provide.
I called my brother Andy. He was just floored. He's, he's, he goes, ‘Wow, you did that all by yourself?’ And, [Paul laughs] it was kind of a joke, cause Andy was the most charismatic one of the family. And, you know, he kind of thought of me as just kind of fumbling through things at times. I mean, that was kind of the running joke. And so I go, ‘Yeah, I did pretty good.’
[Moving music lingers, then fades out]
ABBY: A couple weeks later, Paul, Andy, and Andy’s best friend, Tony, moved into an English style basement apartment in Adams Morgan.
It was a long narrow basement–tiny–with a twin bed in the living room for Paul and a king bed (that took up practically the whole bedroom) for Andy and Tony.
Three people in a small compact space could feel claustrophobic, especially when you’re living with a sibling, who we all know gets under your skin like no other.
PAUL WIDMAN: You know, siblings, there's sometimes some angst unspoken, whatever. Tony could just cut through that and get us laughing in seconds.
ABBY: And so their life in D.C. began. Andy’s treatment was non-stop, x-rays, blood tests, but the worst was his weekly spinal tap.
PAUL WIDMAN: He had really bad reactions to that. He would get really, really bad migraines.
ABBY: So when Andy needed space and darkness. Paul and Tony knew how to make themselves sparse.
Paul worked at TGI Fridays as a waiter.
[Crowd chatters]
[Plates and silverware clink]
Tony, worked at Tracks–
[Dance beat plays]
–a legendary warehouse club that was a nightlife haven for the Queer community in Navy Yard that you might remember from last season.
One night after wrapping up his shift at TGI Fridays, Paul drove to Tracks to wait for Tony to get off, and suddenly he found himself jumping in and casually working as a barback for Tony.
[Cocktail shaker rattles]
[Drink pours into glass]
And when the night ended, the Tracks manager handed him a wad of cash.
PAUL WIDMAN: I said ‘Oh, no, no, I'm, I was just here, you know, have fun waiting for Tony to give him a ride.’
[Dance beat fades out]
He goes, ‘I know why you're here’ and what he you know, he was telling me the deeper meaning.
ABBY: The manager let him work under the table, handing him hundreds of dollars every night he jumped in to help. A job, bar backing, would typically only pay him 20 or 30 bucks a shift. But, not for Paul, not when the manager knew what home Paul was going back to and who Paul was providing for.
Again, the gay community wrapped their arms around this young man, giving him not just comfort and support, but a physical home and income. Paul tried his best to give that right back, like being an assistant to Tony’s alter-ego, Rita Rocket.
[Disco beat plays]
[Crowd cheers]
PAUL WIDMAN: Tony, he was a drag queen, and so they would have contests and shows at Tracks, and he was very serious about it, and and needed an assistant for his show. You know, the the costume changes, and the, you know, making sure he had his shoes and his bag, you know.
ABBY: Andy, when he was feeling better, would occasionally join Paul and Tony for their shifts and excursions. He always had the same complaint.
PAUL WIDMAN: My uniform of the day, I guess back in those days, was jeans and a T-shirt, you know, and and a jacket if it was cold. So Andy would like look at me and I knew what was coming…
[Record scratch, disco beat stops]
He’d go, ‘Oh, no, you know you're not going to wear that, are you?’
[Disco beat plays again]
And so I'd have to wear a nice shirt, you know, mostly out of his closet, because mine was not really anything that he would find acceptable. So that always became our running joke, you know, ‘Is that what you're wearing?’ and so we had a lot of fun with that.
[Disco beat swells, then fades out]
ABBY: After a year in the program, Andy wasn’t better. The medicine, while it advanced research, didn't provide relief to his symptoms or slow down its progression. Paul decided to stay in D.C., where he later met his wife Cara and got married.
Andy went back to Oregon.
He died about a year later, in 1989.
36 years later, Paul sat on a Zoom call with us for almost two hours reminiscing about their brotherly adventures.
PAUL WIDMAN: You got me talking, and maybe I talk too much.
ABBY AND ANDREW: No, no, not at all.
ABBY: Andrew later told me that he had never heard his Dad talk at length about anything like that before. But, when asked about Andy…Paul could talk endlessly.
Before we said our goodbyes, I had just one last question.
[Light music plays in the background]
ABBY: Did you name Andrew after Andy?
PAUL WIDMAN: Yes, so, I'll try to hang on here.
When Andy was in hospice and still lucid, he was asking, ‘When you going to have kids?’ You know? And you know, just kind of gave me a hard time. And I said, ‘I don't know.’ And then, you know, the conversation progressed about our childhood and stuff like that, and I just said, and I wasn't even thinking about the moment we were in, like, this is something I need to tell you before you go. It just kind of came up. ‘You know, if I ever have a son, I'm going to name him Andy.’ And he just, you know, that just meant so much to him.
[Light music swells, then fades out]
[QTDP theme music plays in the background]
Thanks for listening until the end of the episode.
Don’t worry, we promise we won’t leave you hanging too long. Next week, we’ll be learning about communal living. Queers have a long history of supporting one another through hardship, as we’ve seen through today’s episode. Housing struggles have remained pervasive in the Queer community, so next week we’ll dive into the people, communities, and organizations who helped to provide communal housing for Queer folks.
We want to thank the Rainbow History Project, the DC Public Library, and the countless other academics and historians, whether featured in these episodes or not, who truly helped inspire and guide us through this process.
And, of course, shout out to the rest of the QTDP team, Julia, Andrew, Ellie, and Mads for making this podcast happen.
You can find a transcript for this, and every episode, on our website at queeringthedistrictpodcast.com and linked below in the episode notes.
If you want to learn more and stay up to date on all things Queering the District Podcast, follow our social media pages @queeringthedistrictpodcast! You don’t want to miss exclusive interview clips, juicy voicemails, and bi-weekly spotlights.
Have a story to share? Do you think we missed something? Give us a call, and bare it all after the beep at 202-753-6570.
If you’re still with us, as always, we finish every episode with a Phi-Phi voicemail left by a local Queer. And if you’ve listened to all our episodes or attended one of our live podcasting events, you might recognize his voice…
JEFF ROLLINS: Hi this is Jeff Rollins, docent at the Congressional Cemetery. I actually have, quickly, two favorite moments.
One is, I give this tour, I used to give it to Montgomery County High School students, and I actually got a letter from one of the students, who after I talked about Kenneth Dresser, and talked about him dying from HIV/AIDS, wrote me a letter saying like, she understood more what her uncle had gone through. And just hearing these stories brought new context.
And then going to an older generation, I had someone who was Leonard Matlovich’s age, who was in the Marines around the same time that Matlovich was, and he was on the tour with his current husband and ex-wife, and he was married to this woman at the time that Leonarad Matlovich was on the cover. And he said that it really, ‘it scared the shit out of him,’ is what he said. And the arms on his hair stood up, but he knew he was the same as Leonard. So, it made him eventually come out to his wife. They’re still friends, like she was on the tour. And they’re going to be buried there in a bench. And their bench is in front of Leonard’s and has two cats on the front because if you ever go to Congressional, it’s also a dog walking park, so there’s a lot of dogs there, and they wanted to pay homage to cats. So just the generations, like I said it talks about American history and LGBTQ history, and it became real with those two scenarios.
