2010-2019

Delma Welch was born in Washington D.C. and grew up in Cardiff, Maryland as a Catholic with her three brothers and one sister. Delma began going to NOW [National Organization for Women] meetings in 1975 after becoming interested in feminism from an early age. After being in a relationship with a man for 23 years, she met her future wife at the YWCA and ended her marriage. Originally a stay at home mother, Delma has since held several jobs throughout her life, including her current position at the Margaret Moul Home. Today, she lives in York, Pennsylvania with her partner of 25 years, Peg Welch. In this interview, Delma discusses her involvement in many civil rights organizations and marches starting in the 70s, issues with coming out to her family, and marriage to Peg—once in Canada and once more in Pennsylvania, when gay marriage became legalized in the state. She also briefly expresses the importance of lesbian and woman-only spaces and her positive experiences dealing with the legal system as a lesbian woman in a same-sex relationship.

Jude Sharp was born in November of 1947 in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania and graduated from the Philadelphia High School for Girls. She then attended the Tyler College of Art and studied the art of making jewelry. When she was 21, Jude married her first husband and moved to Denver, Colorado, where she opened her first jewelry shop. Upon ending her relationship, Jude moved back to Lancaster where she met her first girlfriend. Jude has been working with jewelry for nearly 50 years since, and currently has her own business, J. A. Sharp Custom Jeweler. In this interview, Jude discusses the roles her relationships and artistic visions have played in her life. In her childhood, she and her family frequently moved from town to town as her father, a Methodist minister, was transferred to different churches. She speaks of a pervading feeling of ostracism that was assuaged when she came out as lesbian, finally being able to be true to herself. Jude marvels at the changes her community has seen, and laments at the continuing problems with drug and alcohol abuse that face many LGBT individuals today, relating to her own experience. She reflects upon her desire to put creativity to a good purpose and form relationships with others through the medium of crafting personalized jewelry. Additionally, Jude discusses how her own sexuality has played a role throughout the rise of her career.

Barry Loveland interviews Alex Reber, now 32, who relates fascinating stories of what it was like growing up as an only child of an Evangelical Christian family raised on a farm in Bethel, a rural town between Harrisburg and Allentown and becoming an important political LGBT activist in Central PA. His accounts at camp and high school reveal the difficulty of being gay and the interesting paths towards his independence. In Lebanon Valley College he was outed and blackballed at church, being called evil and having parents refuse to help him pay tuition. A gay couple started a foundation to help gay students complete college and Alex, a gifted child who received a scholarship, graduated a semester early. His tales about finding and working with a thriving gay community in Harrisburg are enthralling. He got an internship and became friends with Dan Miller, a leader in the gay community, in Dan’s accounting firm, Miller, Dixon, Drake. He tells in detail his work over ten years with Planned Parenthood, beginning with his own experience of being treated and shamed by a physician. He discusses his romance and marriage to his husband during the exciting time when marriage became legal in Pennsylvania. It was a momentous time. He explains what it was like attending the Equality March, primaries for Obama and Clinton, and his experience at the 2016 Democratic Convention. He recounts the inside stories of the contradictions and fun of local state politics— and stories about running candidates for state office and working on committees for the Democratic Party of Pennsylvania. He is very involved at the Center, FAB, and getting LGBT people to run for office.

Heidi Notario was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1973, where she was attending college for biology before moving to the United States in 1995. Heidi discusses her disillusion with the ideals of communism as a factor contributing to her desire to go live with her aunt in the U.S. After arrival, she learned English while working at a daycare center before returning to college, eventually completing a Bachelors in Sociology at Moravian College in Bethlehem, PA, and a graduate degree in Sociology from Lehigh University. Heidi discusses her relationship with her fifteen year old son, and what she has observed raising him as a lesbian and a single mother in Central Pennsylvania. She details her involvement as the vice-president at the LGBTQ Center of Central Pennsylvania, as well as her work on gender-based violence and Latinos at the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence. Heidi touches on intimate partner violence against LGBTQ, and especially trans-identifying, people, as well as the differences in LGBTQ communities in Harrisburg, Allentown, and other larger cities.

Emily Newberry was born in June of 1944 in St. Louis, Missouri, shortly thereafter moving to West Haven, Connecticut, and then Schenectady, New York, after her parents got divorced—a shameful and hidden family secret—and her dad remarried. Emily moved to the Central Pennsylvania area when she attended Dickinson College. Emily became involved in advocacy work while attending Dickinson. After graduation, she became a member of the Socialist Party and was involved with the organizations the Cleveland Draft Resistance Union and the American Communist Workers Movement, Marxist-Leninist. Working as a machinist and then as an organizational development consultant, Emily has been married three times herself, and today, lives in Portland, Oregon. In this interview, she discusses her experience repressing her transgender identity throughout her life until 2005. After coming out, Emily has faced discrimination from her workplace, insurance company, and therapists. She also discusses the importance of her women’s circles in fundraising enough money to have gender confirming surgery. Today, she continues her advocacy work as a performance poet and writer as well as attending panels regarding LGBT issues. She expresses how welcoming the Dickinson community has been during her visit back to campus.

Mary Nancarrow grew up in a suburb of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in the 1950s and 1960s with divorced parents and two siblings. After graduating from Shippensburg University, she became prominent in the women’s movement and the LGBT movement in Central Pennsylvania, serving on the Governor’s Council for Sexual Minorities and the Rural Gay Caucus. Mary was also heavily involved in the National Organization for Women [NOW] and was elected NOW Pennsylvania President, working to pass marital rape legislation, funding and campaigning for political races, and fundraising money for the NOW PAC. After her presidency, she helped to plan the National March for LGBT Rights in Washington D.C. and volunteered for the Harrisburg Gay and Lesbian Switchboard. Today, Mary lives in Harrisburg and sings in the Women’s Chorus. In this interview, Mary discusses her childhood and early relationship to religion as well as her involvement with the anti-Vietnam War movement throughout high school and college. She also describes her contributions to Shippensburg Gays United, feminism within the gay rights movement, and the experience of coming out to her parents and friends. Mary concludes the interview by acknowledging the incredible extent to which the LGBT community has changed over her lifetime and expresses her hope to see ongoing growth in civil rights in the future.

Daniel (Dan) C. Miller’s colorful humor and personality were persistent throughout the interview. He shares his experiences growing up and coming out in his early 30s. His coming out experience was during his time working for Donald L. DeMuth. Specifically, homosexuality was listed as a fireable offense in his contract; the contract also contained one of the most overly broad non-compete clauses held up in a court of law. As Miller fought for the rights of the LGBT community he found himself thrust upon the public stage. Miller shares how he was fired from DeMuth and one year later faced a lawsuit on the basis of the non-compete clause; Miller countersued for wrongful termination. Miller contributes his lack of resources and knowledge of the legal system, as well as Judge Kevin Hess’s instruction to the jury, who did not want homosexuality to be a factor in the jury’s deliberation, as factors which caused him to lose the case. Despite the financial and incredible emotional cost of this case, he cites that gays around the area who had also been fired reached out to him. Dan Miller, who grew up without gay mentors or people to look to, became the hero he was looking for.

Daniel Maneval was born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania on October 3, 1947. In this interview, Daniel speaks frankly about his experiences growing up as an only child, about the homophobic violence he has experienced, and the gay organizations he has lead and participated in throughout his life. He specifically speaks on his experiences with his parent’s death and the independence he was forced to cultivate as a result. He first became involved with Susquehanna Valley Gays United and was a founding member of Homophiles of Williamsport. He also was a critical component to leading a protest against Anita Bryant, and participated in several Rural Gay Caucuses. He was forced to move out of his family home after homophobic gang-related attacks on his property, and experienced gay-bashing outside a bar in Williamsport. Daniel reflects on the differences he sees in the Williamsport LGBT community today. This interview provides an in-depth history of gay life in Williamsport from the 1950s to today.

Dr. Rachel Levine was born in Wakefield, Massachusetts on October 28th, 1957. With a great sense of humor Dr. Levine discusses her interesting life. She attended Belmont Hill School, where she excelled and engaged in athletic and creative activities. She graduated from Harvard College. She then earned her medical degree from the Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana. She trained from 1983-1988: three years of pediatrics, a year as chief resident, and a year doing an adolescent medicine fellowship, specializing in eating disorders and the medical care of young people with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. She was working at Mount Sinai and Lenox Hill while in practice for five more years, from 1988 to 1993. She moved from Manhattan to Central Pennsylvania in 1993, joining Penn State College of Medicine faculty at Hershey Medical Center where she was Director of Pediatrics and Adolescent medicine. She was married before getting her medical license and had a son and daughter in Hershey. She transitioned in her forties, while at Hershey, and she is grateful for their support throughout. Dr. Levine is currently the Acting Secretary of Health and Physician General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the Penn State College of Medicine.

David Leas was born in 1955 in Columbia, Pennsylvania. He comes from a working class family and described the sense of independence he got from his first job as busboy for the Accomac Inn. This job lead to a foray into the restaurant business, starting with opening the Railroad House in Marietta with his partner Marlon. David then went on to be an evening manager at Isaac’s and then transitioned into a higher up management job within the restaurant. Due to his pull at Isaac’s, he was able to convince the restaurant and other local restaurants to raise funds and collaborate with the Lancaster AIDS Project and SCAAN. David was also one of the original members of Gays United Lancaster and The Rural Gay Caucus, an organization formed in reaction to the urban focus of the Council of Sexual Minorities, formed by Governor Shapp. He also was one of the main driving forces behind the newsletter, Gay Era, often spearheading the publication of it. He remarks on how many of his friends, such as Bari Weaver, had to move due to the extreme harassment they faced for being openly gay. He then touches on the evolution of gay bars in the area and how he met his partner, Ben, who he has been living with in Elizabethtown for around twenty years.

Lorraine Kujawa was one of the co-founders of the Lavender Letter in Harrisburg during the late seventies and eighties. The Lavender Letter was created to provide events for the lesbian community to attend in Pennsylvania. She started the newsletter in order to bring the lesbian community together by highlighting events available in Harrisburg, Lancaster, and other parts of Central Pennsylvania. Additionally in the interview, Lorraine Kujawa compares the differences in the communities of Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she currently lives, and Central Pennsylvania, where she grew up, towards the LGBT community.

Colin Kreitzer was born in 1947 in Enola, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Wormleysburg, Pennsylvania with his parents and his younger sister. He attended West Chester College and moved to Harrisburg in 1977, where he began getting involved in the gay community through activism and social activities. In this interview Colin reviews his involvement in the Gay and Lesbian Switchboard of Harrisburg, Dignity, Metropolitan Community Church, and volleyball. He also talks about the stigma of growing up as a closeted gay man, the bullying he experienced in primary and secondary school, and how he came to accept his sexuality and come out when he was in college. He discusses his past relationships and the struggles that he has experienced trying to forge healthy, emotional connections with others. Colin is also involved in Alcoholics Anonymous, and explains the values he has gained from the organization and the changes in his own character and behavior.

Suzanne Kohr, formerly Ott, was raised in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. She is now 60 years old, and resides in Newberrytown, Pennsylvania. Suzanne had two children with her first husband, and has been married to her second husband, Tom Kohr, for almost two decades. Suzanne was the second oldest of eight children. She had seven brothers; Steve, Danny, Alan and Brian are all still living —and John, Andrew and Greg have passed away. Suzanne was close to her youngest brother Andrew who died from AIDS complications in 1997. Sue discusses Andrew’s strained relationship with his parents and siblings, and the prejudice he faced. She goes on to discuss some of his significant relationships, and life after moving away from Shippensburg to Virginia. Sue elaborates on Andrew’s frustration over HIV/AIDS treatment available to him, and his treatment up until his death. Sue concludes by describing Andrew’s legacy, and her hopes for increased acceptance of homosexuality by society.

Nikki Knerr was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1945 and attended York College and Pennsylvania State University where she studied mass communications. In 1967, Nikki opened her first graphic design business which ran for 25 years in Camp Hill, before she retired to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. When the HIV/AIDS crisis emerged along with negative social stigma in the late 1980s, she organized the Unity Festival to raise funds and awareness for those infected, as well as for the greater LGBT community around Pennsylvania. In this interview, Nikki discusses the joyful moments and struggles of belonging to the gay community. She emphasizes the role gay bars such as D-Gem and Altland’s Ranch played in uniting LGBT individuals, as well as the compassion and perseverance demonstrated by the thousands of volunteers that participated in the Unity Festivals. In the interview, Nikki touches upon some of the amusing highlights involving the organization of the festivals. She marvels at the modern progress of LGBT rights and opportunities to unite in settings of merriment, yet admits that ostracism and societal barriers still exist in other spheres of life.

David Klinepeter, father of the late Daniel Klinepeter, gives insight as a parent of a member of the LGBT community. He also speaks about his experience losing his son to AIDS and his advocacy with AIDS Memorial Quilt: The Names Project.

Nancy Helm was born in Lancaster Pennsylvania and graduated from Manheim Township High School in 1981. After graduating she worked for a printing company and did other odd jobs before opening a hair salon with her partner. Not long after that she opened a book store across the street called The Closet. She opened the bookstore as an outlet for the gay community of Lancaster so they could meet and hang out and shop. But, the bookstore was eventually the target of anti-gay crime in the 1990s. It was bombed twice and received multiple threats, including from the KKK. In this emotional interview Nancy gives her story about how she dealt with this and how it affected her life as well as the life of the gay community.

Walter Heiliger was born in 1944 and grew up in rural Carroll County, Maryland, the second of three children. Walter, who describes himself as “severely hearing-impaired,” encountered difficulties in school and in connecting with others growing up, as he did not receive support for his hearing issues. Over the course of his career, Walter worked in a number of different positions at a variety of companies, including Head Ski Company and Black and Decker in Maryland and York Technical Institute and Freezing Equipment Sales in Pennsylvania. Now retired, he currently works part-time as a custodian at South York School District. Although he was aware that he was interested in men early on and had several relationships with men, he decided to marry a woman in an attempt to live a “normal” life. While the marriage was unfulfilling on many levels, Walter credits his wife for greatly improving his quality of life by getting him hearing aids and speech therapy, and it was through that marriage that Walter was able to have his three children. Walter came out in 1999, then in his mid-50s, and describes the varying levels of support he’s received from his family. Since coming out, he has slowly become more vocal in the LGBT community, joining PFLAG in Mechanicsburg for a time, attending programs for seniors through the LGBT Center, and working part-time at Altland’s Ranch in York. In this interview, Walter shares stories from his life, including his relationship with Bill, his most serious partner since coming out, who passed away in 2006. He also discusses the importance of reaching out to seniors in the LGBT community, as well as married men, and the idea of LGBT rights as a human rights issue rather than a political one.

Richard H. Hause was born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, on May 21, 1947, moving to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, after he graduated from high school in 1965. After coming out to his family when he was eighteen, Richard began working for the State Government in the Department of Highways, and he eventually retired from the State Government in the Department of Public Welfare just eight years ago. While Richard discusses in his interview the difficulties of identifying as LGBT in both personal and professional spheres, he also illustrates the vibrancy of the gay community by citing memorable experiences both occurring in Harrisburg as well as in nearby communities such as Washington, D.C. He expresses his regular interest in LGBT activism, from supporting the Human Rights Campaign Fund to participating in the local Pride Festival every year to being an active member in the Dignity Chapter of Central Pennsylvania, one of the first LGBT organizations started in the area. Throughout his interview, Richard expresses the historical changes he has witnessed in the gay community both nationally and locally, and he emphasizes his distaste for organized religion, asserting its negative political influence on the gay rights movement.

Lori Hatch-Rivera was born in Rockville Central, New York on Long Island in 1958. After Lori’s family moved to South Florida, Lori enrolled into what is now Palm Beach Atlantic University and graduated in 1989 with a degree in history. After about ten years of teaching, Lori believed God was calling her to do ministry work and obtained her Master’s in Divinity at Florida Center for Theological Studies, and she is currently attending Lancaster Theological Seminary to fulfill her Doctorate in Ministry. She is the founder of an interfaith group located in Venice, Florida, and works closely with the LGBT Interfaith Coalition group and Equality PA. In this interview, Lori discusses familial issues surrounding her sexuality, her relationship with religion and the Metropolitan Community Church [MCC], as well as her social justice work within religious community in order to bring them greater awareness of LGBT identities. She also mentions future challenges for the LGBT community and her appreciation of Harrisburg’s tight-knit community. Today, she is married to her partner Darlene and is a Pastor at the MCC of Harrisburg.

Mary Margaret Hart and Lynn Daniels are a married lesbian couple living in Central Pennsylvania. Lynn was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1931, while Mary was born in 1949 in Cleveland, Ohio. Throughout the interview, Mary and Lynn discuss their childhoods, how they met, and the difficulties of raising a family together in Central Pennsylvania during the 1980s. Mary, a therapist, had previously been married and had two children with her first husband, John, before meeting Lynn while completing graduate school. The couple discusses raising their daughters, Rachel and Sheila, at a time and place without other lesbian parents as role models. The two stayed active in the gay community, and they recount the differences they’ve observed growing up two decades apart, as well as what they’ve observed of their daughter Sheila’s experience, who is also gay. The couple married in 2014 after being together for 35 years.

Jerre Freiberg was raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His family has close ties to the Lutheran Church, and he has remained affiliated with the church throughout his life. Jerre attended Elizabethtown College for two years before leaving to join the Navy. He remained in the Navy for 22 years, retiring in 1986. After retiring for the Navy, Jerre continued to work as Lancaster County’s budget analyst, and later as the Director of Administrative Services for the Lancaster Guidance Center. Jerre was diagnosed as HIV positive in 1992, and he subsequently became involved in several Lancaster area HIV/AIDS groups and organizations. In this interview, Jerre discusses his naval career —and being in a same-sex relationship during his years in service.  He details his experiences as being HIV positive in Lancaster, including his own work advocating for other HIV positive persons, such as being the director of the Betty Finney House which assisted low-income persons with HIV with housing needs. Jerre elaborates on some of his relationships, both before and after his HIV diagnosis. Jerre goes on to discuss changes he has seen since the early days of the AIDS crisis, and some of the challenges those who are currently HIV positive still face, particularly issues concerning senior citizens. He concludes with a reflection on changes within the LGBT community throughout his life — such as same sex marriage legalization and equality efforts.

Cassidy Frazee was born in 1957 in Cedar Lake, Indiana. Cassidy grew up in Cedar Lake with her younger sister, father and mother. They had a Catholic upbringing, but Cassidy explains she was no longer interested in religious affairs by the time she reached sixth grade, when her questions revolving around Catholicism angered the adults at her Sunday school. Growing up in rural Indiana in the 1960s and 1970s, there were not many positive representations of LGBT people. So, although Cassidy explains she had always felt that she was a girl, she did not learn of the term ‘transsexual’—the term used to describe transgender at the time—until reading one of her mother’s psychology books. After going through two marriages and securing a career as a computer programmer, Cassidy come out as a woman in 2015, after beginning to see a gender therapist in 2012. In this interview, Cassidy gives a timeline all the way through her transition and the experience of going through hormone replacement therapy (HRT); to explain the effect that estrogen has had on her as a person. Cassidy also shares personal, spiritual and emotional experiences that have time and time again confirmed her gender identity.

Paul Foltz grew up in Steelton in a very Catholic household, a background to which he attributes his unawareness of his sexuality until later in his college years. It wasn’t until he went to England to complete his graduate-level theatre studies, though, that he encountered a strong and open LGBT community that was growing after the recent decriminalization of homosexual acts, which encouraged him to come out and become comfortable with himself. Upon his return to the U.S., he remained out and was generally met with acceptance. He became involved in Pennsylvania’s LGBT community in helping to establish the Harrisburg Men’s Chorus and Dignity Philadelphia, as well as directing a drag troupe to raise money for HIV support. In this interview, he discusses these events, as well as his work as a costume designer at Theatre Harrisburg and teaching at the Bradley Academy for the Visual Arts and at HACC, in addition to his experiences with being out and gay in central PA.

John Folby was born in Pittsburgh in 1947. He was the oldest of five children in an Irish-Italian Catholic family. He relocated to Harrisburg in 1975 with his partner. John continues to live with his partner in Harrisburg in a relationship lasting more than 44 years. John is well-known for his activism in the LGBT community of Central Pennsylvania. In his younger days, John was involved in a Catholic group for lesbians and gays known as Dignity, and assisted in the Gay Switchboard Hotline. He began a 25-year career in a state government civil service position running a medical drug program for persons with HIV/AIDS. He continues his service to the LGBT community through consulting for the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health which offers the Pennsylvania Mid-Atlantic AIDS Education Training Center. John’s work with HIV/AIDS has been recognized with numerous awards, and the John Folby Award for Excellence is named in his honor. He additionally volunteers for the LGBT Center of Central PA’s History project. In this interview, John not only discusses his extensive activism efforts, but also his family’s reluctance to address and accept his homosexuality, his relationship with his partner, and changes within the LGBT community within his lifetime. He also discusses his and his partner’s decision to have John adopt his partner in order to financially protect themselves and their assets when gay marriage was illegal in Pennsylvanian.

Kathy Fillman was born in Coatesville, Pennsylvania to an Irish family that had their own business. Although she describes her childhood as idyllic, Kathy lived with her grandparents and three cousins due to her mother’s alcoholism and attended a Catholic private school until the seventh grade, when she started living with her mother again. Once Kathy graduated from high school at age 18, she immediately began working in order to leave her home where alcoholism and abuse were major issues. She worked a number of odd jobs, including being an employee at Pepperidge Farm, a manager at Hess and Atlantic Refining and Marketing Corporation, and an assistant at John Barnes. In this interview, Kathy describes reconnecting with and supporting her mother, now deceased, who battled cancer on numerous occasions. She also discusses her interest in spirituality and healing, her involvement in civil rights during her 20s and 30s, as well her positive experiences with the health care industry in appropriately dealing with her and her partner’s needs. Today, Kathy is recovering from several health issues but is optimistic about her own future as well as the future for younger generations of LGBT-identified individuals.