Francois Clemmons was raised in Youngstown, Ohio, in a predominantly black community. His father worked in the steel mills and his mother sang in

Essay written May 2006 I grew up as an only child in suburbs of Chicago and Detroit. By the time I was in kindergarten

Essay written July, 2004. My Oberlin story from the early 1960’s is about how typical it was then to deny one’s nontraditional sexual orientation,

Essay written in 2004. Edited in 2006. As the only son of a comfortably well-off banker and a locally influential schoolteacher, I had a

“[Prof.] Melcher was my major confidante…” An only child, Larry Palmer was raised in a strict but loving religious household in the small town

“The producer called me into his office…” Thomas Tibbetts was born and raised in the college town of Marietta, Ohio. Neither his father, who

“Oberlin was a very strange place…” Raised in a Jewish family in Michigan City, Indiana, Allan Spear’s father was a traveling salesman and his

Born and raised in the backwoods of South Dakota, Vance was the seventh of nine children. His father worked for the Bureau of Indian

“I got a very positive introduction to queer culture…” Bobbi Keppel was one of two children raised by educated, agnostic, “somewhat oddball” parents outside

Essay written October 2014. In early September of 1948, I traveled by train from South Dakota to Cleveland, took the bus to Oberlin, and