My Grandmother's Gay Artist Friends

Santa Fe, New Mexico, July 2004

My Grandma Davis was an ultra-devout fundamentalist Christian who always carried her worn study Bible, corresponded with a dozen missionaries, and got angry at the "hippies and radicals" she saw on tv.  Yet she seemed remarkably nonchalant about my junior high boyfriend Dan, and when we broke up, she found a new boy for me to "go around with."

When she died, during my sophomore year in high school, we had to sort through her  possessions.  I found an old trunk in the attic with surprising evidence that she had encountered gay people before.  It contained:

1. Jazz records: Hoagy Carmichael, Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Bix Beiderbecke.

2. Some paintings: a young woman with long red hair, wearing a blue evening gown and pearls; a still life; an old-fashioned cottage with a huge back yard covered with flowers, labeled "Devon."  When was Grandma Davis in Devon?

3. Some photographs of men, hugging, holding each other. One in a swimsuit, with a smooth, hard chest, standing on a beach, his arm around a taller, blond guy in a U.S. navy uniform (top photo).

Another of two very muscular, shirtless guys, one in white chinos, the other in overalls, apparently holding hands. (I asked for and got to keep them both.)

Dad could explain the music: "When your Grandma was younger, she was big into jazz.  Always going to concerts."

And the paintings:  "Right after high school, must have been in 1921, she went down to Indianapolis to art school.  Then, for some reason, she suddenly dropped out and went back home to Rome City.  That summer, 1923, she got saved at a Nazarene camp meeting, and married your Grandpa. "

I wondered what compelled a young woman to abandon her studies, her art, and her friends, shut them all away in a trunk in the attic for 52 years?

Did it have something to do with the hugging men?

Dad didn't know who they were.

A couple of years later, when I was in college, her younger brother Harry came to Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Nora's house.  He was only ten when Grandma went to Indianapolis, but he remembered that their parents disapproved:

"This was during Prohibition, and Gracie and her friends went wild, with hooch and jitterbugging -- two things Nazarenes hate most.  It makes sense that she would want to hide away memories of her old, sinful life after she converted."

"But...who were the hugging men?"  I showed him the pictures.

"This one looks like a fellow she knew from art school, Carl something or other.  She brought him up to Rome City a couple of times. The others are probably his friends.  Oscar, maybe. I remember one time they all went skinnydipping up at Indiana Dunes, and got arrested, and Pop told her not to associate with such 'vulgarians' again, but of course she didn't listen."

Vulgarians?  Code for "gay"?  I looked in a directory of Indiana artists, but didn't find any Carl or Oscar from Indianapolis who was the right age.

Wood Woolsey

Then in 2004, I was visiting Larry in New Mexico, and I stumbled upon the name of regional artist Wood Woolsey (1899-1970).  He lived in Indianapolis from 1921 to 1927, and he studied at the John Herron Art Institute at the same time as Gracie.

He had a younger brother, Carl, also an artist, who lived with him.  My grand-uncle must have mixed the names up.

Wood Woolsey never married.  Could he have been gay?

Grandma Davis at the start of her life, skinnydipping with some gay guys!

Did finding out cause her skittish retreat into fundamentalist Christianity?

Or did she have only warm memories of her gay friends?  There's also evidence that she may have married a gay man.  And that fifty years later, when her 13-year old grandson began talking about boys he liked, she understood, on some level, and advised "You should find a nice Christian boy."  And when he broke up, she found him another boy to "go around with."

See also: Beefcake and Boyfriends of the Jazz Age

I Fall Asleep in a Sailor's Arms

On a train near Norfolk, Virginia

When I was 10 years old, my Grandma Davis took me on a train trip from the station at Garrett to Washington, DC, and then to Walterboro, South Carolina, to visit my uncle and aunt and cousins.  We didn't get a sleeping car; we just reclined our seats with blankets and pillows.

I was too excited to sleep.  We went through so many interesting cities -- Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk, all lit up at night.  And people kept walking through the car -- the conductor, porters, passengers bustling about with suitcases.

About midnight, a cute boy in a sailor suit stumbled into the car and plopped into the seat across the aisle from me.  He was still a teenager, with brown hair and thick hands.  I still remember that he wore a class ring.

He looked over and noticed me staring at him.  "You should be asleep, little man," he said, smiling, in a distinctive Southern accent.  "You know what?  I just saw Santy Claus in the next car, and he told me you should go to sleep or he won't bring you any Christmas presents."

Did he think I was a baby? "I'm ten years old," I said stiffly, offended.  "Too old for Santa Claus."

"Sorry.  Hey, you want to see a magic trick?"

Sure, if it involves you taking your shirt off.  "My Dad was a sailor," I said.  "He went to Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Hawaii."

"That's great!  I just enlisted, so I haven't been anywhere yet.  I never even been on a train before.  My name is Beau.  That's B-E-A-U.  It's spelled funny because it's French."  He reached out his big hand with the class ring.  It enveloped my small hand.  I didn't want to let go.

"My name is Boomer.  I'm visiting South Carolina with my Grandma Davis."

Grandma Davis had roused and was watching us with her weird knowing smile.

"Howdy, Boomer's Grandma.  I'm Beau Reynolds, from Morgantown, West Virginia, home of the Fighting Mountaineers."

"Pleased to meet you," she said politely.

I was briefly distracted by a skyline through the window.

"Hey, why don't you sit over here by me? It's a window seat, so you can look out."

"Can I, Grandma?"

"Sure, if you want to. But you should try to get some sleep.  It's late."

"Don't worry, ma'am.  Putting boys to bed is my specialty.  I'll get out my guitar if I have to."

I leapt across the aisle, squeezed past Beau's legs, and climbed into the seat next to him.   I pulled up the armrest so I could cuddle against him.  Our arms touched.

"I...um...I...have a little brother about your age.  He plays football on his junior high team, and he likes hunting and fishing. I bet you'd like him."

"Is he cute?" I said without thinking -- I was too tired to guard myself.

Beau gave me a quizzical stare.  "Well, he's big and tough.  You like hunting?"

"No."

"Fishing?"

"No."

"Playing football?"

"No."

"Um..watching football?"

"No.  I like to watch The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family.  Do you like Peter or Greg best?  Everybody says they like Greg, but I think Peter is way cuter."

"Yeah, The Brady Bunch, real cool show," he said in a weird hesitant voice.  "Hey, want to hear a dirty joke?"

"Ok," I said with a grin, feeling very grown-up.

Beau said something like this:
Dick Butkiss walks into a bar.  He's like a big, muscular football player, so all the girls think he's cute.  And there's a sissy at the other end of the bar.  So Dick Butkiss sits down, and he's like, got his shirt off and everything, and the sissy can't take his eyes off him.  So Dick Butkiss says, he says, "I'm so lonely I could kiss a cow."  And the sissy, the sissy chirps right up.  "Moo!  I say, Moo!"

He laughed and slapped my knee.

I didn't know that Dick Butkus was a real person -- later I discovered that he was a football player, for the Chicago Bears.  

But I liked the part about the "sissy" wanting to kiss him.  I didn't know that there were grownup men who wanted to kiss men.

I was getting sleepy.  I nestled against Beau.  His chest was pleasantly firm.  He smelled of some kind of sweet cologne.

He reclined the seat, and put his arm around me, then wrapped his blanket around us both.  "You got to be careful of them sissies.  Don't make friends with them, or sooner or later they'll try to kiss you."

"Did a sissy ever try to kiss you, Beau?"

He pressed me close.  "Don't worry about me -- I'm all man.  If any sissy tried anything with me, I'd knock his block off!"

Soon after, I fell asleep in Beau's arms.  He got off the train at Norfolk, never knowing that he had spent the night with a "sissy."

I've been trying to understand this memory from my vantage point of 44 years.  A lonely sailor, away from home for the first time, tries to bond with a boy who reminds him of his little brother.  But the boy doesn't like any "manly" activities, just girly stuff like The Brady Bunch.  So he tells him a cautionary tale about sissies trying to kiss you.

But the cautionary tale is about a lonely guy -- like Beau -- meeting a "sissy" -- like me.  Was the Beau trying to remind himself to avoid letting guys get too close, because they might stir uncomfortable desires?

The tale doesn't have an unhappy ending.  We aren't told Dick Butkus's response to the "moo" request.   Maybe he was, indeed, perfectly willing to kiss a man.

I like to think that, when Beau got to his naval base in Norfolk, he was perfectly willing to kiss men, too.

A High School Boy Gives Me His Underwear

This story has been moved to RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

The Answer to the Naked Man's Question

This story has moved to RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Tracking Down My Jewish Cousins

When I was growing up in Rock Island, almost every kid in my class had grandparents or great-grandparents from the Old Country,  so"where you came from" was a constant classroom assignment.

"Bring some food from your country"
"Tell about how your country celebrates Christmas."
"Teach us a few words in your country's language."

In junior high the assignments became more complex: the political structure, history, and economy of your country.

By high school, we were writing histories of immigration from our country, writing reports on its literary classics, and charting its GDP.

Except for me.  My grandparents and great-grandparents, both biological and adopted, were born here, and no one remembered any farther back (except for Grandma Davis's great-grandmother coming from Quebec.). 

 I was forced to "just pick a country" to do the assignments: Spain, Finland, the Philippines, Japan, and India spring to mind.

Being American-born-American, with no particular ethnic heritage, I've always been eager to embrace any hints of anything non-WASP-y in my family tree.  Like my Native American relatives, who turned out to be Aunt Nora's husband's family.

And...Jewish?

I have two odd memories that suggest a Jewish connection:

1. It's around 1968, when I'm seven years old, but before we move to Rock Island.  My parents decide to drive out to see "Otto."  I don't know if he's a friend or relative or what: these things are never explained to kids.

Otto was the old man in the story The Muscles of Morris Street, but I don't make the connection.

He is way old, way older than my grandparents, bald with wrinkles and glasses that make his eyes look big.  

His living room is heavy with thick furniture, a dark-oak piano, black-and-white pictures of dour-looking relatives, and a very nervous, trembling poodle.

One of his photos shows some guys in old-timey swim uniforms.  Otto catches me looking at it.

"That's my son, back when he was not much bigger than you," he says.  "Do you like to swim?"

"No.  I like to watch tv."

"I don't have a television, but I can give you some paper to draw on."  He goes to his desk and pulls out a black-bound day calendar for the year 1963. Blank, never used. It starts in September, not January, and has dates for "Yom Kippur," "Rosh Hashanah," "Purim," "Pesach."  I don't know what any of those words mean at the time, but later I figure out that they're Jewish holidays.  So Otto is Jewish.

2. It's couple of years later,  maybe 1971, when I'm 10 years old. Grandma Davis has taken us to Fort Wayne, the big city about 30 miles from her farm.  In the midst of doing fun grandma-and-kids things, she drives us to a ritzy neighborhood far from downtown, and says "I have to stop at this house for a minute.  You can come in, but don't make fun because they're Jewish."

I'm offended.  Does she think I'm a hick?  There are lots of Jewish kids in our neighborhood in Rock Island.

We climb up a thick, heavy porch with granite pillars, and knock on the door.  A middle-aged man with wavy hair and a little paunch answers.

The only other thing I remember are two teenagers, a girl and a boy, sitting at the kitchen table, watching tv -- the first portable black and white tv set I had ever seen!

The boy doesn't have his shirt off, sorry.  But he is still cute, with dark crewcut hair and very pale skin.  And he looks very, very grown up.

"Have you been to see Otto?" Grandma Davis asks the boy.

He looks up sheepishly.  "We're.. .um... planning to go later today."  No doubt he wasn't.

"You should visit him," she insists.

So the cute boy with a tv in his kitchen was friends or relatives with the elderly Otto, who had no tv at all.  Weird!

When Grandma Davis died, I was bequeathed her Bible, with family records in it, and everything became clear:

Otto (1890-1971) married Blanche, Grandpa Davis' sister, in 1923.   Apparently he was never accepted by the family because he was 15 years older than Blanche, because this was his second marriage (the first ended in divorce), because he was Jewish, .,and because their son Wilbur was born five month after the wedding.

Scandal upon scandal in 1923!

Maybe Grandma Davis also rejected Otto and Blanche  -- or maybe she saw them during the 350 days a year that we weren't in town.  Blanche had already died by the time of Memory #1.  Memory #2 must have been an errand that brought us to see  Otto's son Wilbur.  

Wilbur was married in 1945, apparently just after he served in World War II, and had two Baby Boomer children, David (born 1948) and Kama (1950). The cute boy must have been David. Which makes him my...fourth cousin once removed?

What's important is: I have a Jewish connection.  Rather a distant connection, but I'll take it.  L'chaim!

And maybe I have even more contemporary Jewish relatives.

Grandma's Bible record ends there, but internet searches have yielded more.

David became some kind of business person in Chicago. He has one son, Jared David, who has never married.

According to Facebook, Jared lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where he's into crossfit.

Maybe gay?

He  "liked" St. Andrew's Episcopal Church.  The Episcopalians are pro-gay.










Wilbur's daughter Kama married Roger S___.  They have a daughter, Nikki, who is married to someone named Trusty in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Nikki has a son named Mason (my fifth cousin, once removed, by adoption).  On the swim team at St. Xavier High School.

St. Xavier High School?  

It seems that over the generations, my Jewish relatives assimilated and lost their Jewishness.

I'm still taking it as evidence of Jewish ancestry.

Sorry, I forgot to put in nude photos, but here's a nice Jewish boy with his penis out to tide you over.

"The President's Not Cute!": My Meeting with President Johnson

Indianapolis, Summer 1966

Everyone in the Boomer generation and older knows where they were on November 22, 1963, when they heard of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

My Cousin Joe remembers a murmur going through the school, a teacher crying, and being sent home early.

I was barely three years old, so all I have are some vague, confusing memories of people being sad.

I didn't know he was dead, or that Lyndon B. Johnson was the new President.  There were so many pictures of John F. Kennedy on tv and in books, and people talked about him so much, that I thought that he was still the President 2 1/2 years later.

All the pictures showed John F. Kennedy as handsome and athletic.  There were shirtless photos in Life magazine.  He had muscles!

And the movie PT-109 (1963) showed him rescuing a buddy from a sinking ship during World War II!  My friends and I made him a key player in our "my hero" games.

So I was thrilled one day in the summer of 1966, when we were visiting Indiana, and my Aunt Nora, my father's sister, suddenly announced "You're going to meet the President!"

Later I found out that Indiana was celebrating its Sesquicentennial, 150 years of statehood, and my grandmother's family was important, descended from pioneers.  She and some other "pioneer women" had been selected to shake hands with the President at the festival in Indianapolis.

We drove down with my Grandma, my Aunt Nora and two of my older cousins, Joey  and Eva Marie.

I remember a parade with boy scouts, some people walking around in pioneer costumes with a covered wagon, and a merry-go-round like at a carnival (but it wasn't a "carnival," forbidden for Nazarenes, it was a "festival").

 But the highlight was to be the address by the President.

My cousins and Aunt Nora and I stood at the head of the crowd, very near the row of chairs where Grandma was sitting and the podium where he would speak.  I couldn't wait.  Maybe he would come out in a swimsuit, like in the photos in Life magazine.  Or at least take his shirt off -- it was a hot July day, and lots of guys in the crowd had their shirts off.

"Isn't this exciting, Squirt?" my Cousin Joe said.  He was a grown-up, 12 years old (top photo looks like him), holding my hand so I wouldn't get lost. "Seeing the real, live President, just like on tv. Maybe he'll shake your hand!"

Then a band began to play "Hail to the Chief," someone announced "Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States,"  and....

An old, ugly guy marched onto the stage!

I tugged at Cousin Joe's shirt.  "Where's the President?"

"Why, that's him.  Doesn't he look the same as on television?"

There had been a terrible mistake!  Where was the hunky muscleman who ripped his shirt off and dived into shark-infested waters to rescue his buddy?  

This trip had been one big lie!

Outraged by the betrayal, I tore myself away and ran headlong through the crowd.  Cousin Joe ran after me, with Aunt Nora and Eva Marie following.  They caught up with me by the cotton candy machine.


"What on Earth is the matter with you?" Aunt Nora exclaimed.  "You're a big boy, too old for temper tantrums!

"It's your fault!" I said, starting to cry.  "You said we would meet the President!"

"Who do you think is talking up there, Bub?" Cousin Joe asked.

"Not the President!"

"What makes you say that?"

"He's not cute!"

Years later, Cousin Joe said that he "knew" that I was gay at that moment.

My First Indian Sausage Sighting and BDSM Scene

Dowagiac, Michigan, March, 1971

Dad always claimed that he was half Indian, from the Potawatomi tribe of southern Michigan.   But he didn't mean by blood: when his big sister Nora married a Potawatomi man (my Uncle Henry), he was sort of adopted by the family.  When I was a kid, we occasionally drove to Dowagiac, Michigan, about four hours from Rock Island, to visit Grandma Rani, a small, brown, wrinkled woman who always said "You've grown as big as a beanstalk!"

One day in fifth grade, Dad told me "We're going out to Michigan for your Grandma Rani's 90th birthday.  All of your uncles and aunts and cousins are throwing her a big party."

Cousins?  Potawatomi boys my own age?

I remembered the naked Indian boy that Bill and I saw at the Pow Wow last summer -- huge beneath the belt.

And Cousin Joe, half Indian -- huge.

Suddenly I was very interested in meeting my Indian cousins.

When we visited before, Grandma Rani lived in a farmhouse in the wild birch woods, but this time she was living with her daughter and her family in a rather rundown gray house on a side street in Dowagiac

There were a lot of people.  Some I knew, like my Aunt Nora and Cousin Joe.  Most I didn't.  We ate cake or pie (not both), leafed through photo albums, and helped the now wheelchair-bound Grandma Rani unwrap presents.

Indian parties turned out to be like every other grownup party, except that you got a piece of cake with a lit candle on it, and an old guy gave a long speech about how "Rani has honored our people," accompanied by a slow, steady drum.

A very long speech.  I asked Mom if I could go out and play.

I wasn't the only one.  There were a dozen kids in the back yard.  I walked up to a couple of guys about my age and one older, almost a teenager.  They had black hair and dark eyes and smooth coppery skin. My Indian cousins were cute!  But were they big?

"Do you like Daniel Boone?" I asked, to break the ice. Then I kicked myself -- I only thought of it because the theme song said "Daniel Boone was a big man."  But it was a Western, about   wild, savage Indians!  Of course they wouldn't watch that!

"It's pretty cool," the older one said.  "I dig his coonskin cap.  I'd like to make one myself, if I can hunt down a coon."

I relaxed.  One faux pas over. Soon the guys -- Javon (13), his brother Rodney (10), and their cousin Mike (9) were showing me around.  Downtown was only a three block walk away -- it had an ice cream store and a newsstand where you could get comic books.

I was full of cake from the party, and I had just spent my allowance on comic books at Schneider's on Monday, but I pretended enthusiasm.  I really wanted my Indian cousins to like me.

I squirmed when I saw Turok, Son of Stone among the comics -- it was about two Indians with feathered headdresses and loincloths trapped in a prehistoric land.  But my Indian cousins didn't seem to notice.

When we finished looking at (but not buying) comic books, Javon said "Come on, let's play in Mill Pond Park"

  My heart sank.  I didn't like playing outside, and I didn't really know how.  "Um...what do you like to play?" I asked.  "Hide and seek?  King of the hill?  Cowboys and..no..."

Javon grinned.  "Those are baby games.  Let's play Green Berets.  It will get us ready for the army when we grow up."

The game was basically Cowboys and Indians combined with Hide and Seek.  set in Vietnam.  The Viet Cong (our enemy) capture an American G.I., tie him up, and torture him for information.  Two or more Green Berets (an elite military group) have to find him, subdue the Viet Cong and rescue him.


We ran back to the house, got some rope and toy guns, and set to work.

As the oldest, Javan got the pivotal role, the G.I.  I volunteered to be the Viet Cong officer.

While Rodney and Mike waited, I put a t-shirt on Javon's head as a hood and led him into the woods.  We turned a few times to make it more difficult to find us.  Then I tied his hands behind a tree. He was still wearing a hood.

"So you won't talk!" I exclaimed.

"Not so loud!" Javon said  "They'll find us too soon."

"We'll make you talk."  I whispered.  I carefully unbuttoned his shirt and ran my hand over his smooth, hard chest.  "You won't be able to stand this torture for long."


"You won't get anything out of me!"

"Oh, no?  Not even if we hit you on the wiener?"  I undid his belt, unbuttoned his pants, and slid them down.  I heard a sharp intake of breath.

A little disappointing -- much smaller than my Cousin Joe's.  But I didn't get to see many wieners, let alone touch them.

"We'll see how brave you are when we're hitting you on the wiener!"

I reached out and grabbed it: soft and warm to the touch, with a rubbery foreskin.  Then Rodney and Mike came war-whooping out of the bushes.   Rodney pushed me away with a fake karate move, and Mike shot me with his toy gun.  I collapsed onto the ground, "dead."

In the next iteration, Rodney was the G.I., and Mike the Viet Cong officer.  Then we had to pack up and go home.

I saw my Indian cousins only once after that, at Grandma Rani's funeral.  We haven't stayed in contact.  I wonder if Javon still likes getting tied up.  And by who.

See also:The First Boy I Tied Up; An All-Nighter at the New York Bondage Club; and Cruising in the Navajo Nation.

Was My Grandfather Gay?

My father was adopted!

I didn't find out until grad school in Bloomington, when I became interested in family history, and began reading old newspapers to see if there was any mention of my grandparents.  And then I saw an obituary about a woman who died in Lagrange, Indiana, near my parents' home town of Garret, leaving four children, with the exact names and ages of my father and his brothers and sisters!

That was too big a coincidence!

My father didn't want to talk about it, so I called my Aunt Nora.

"Yes, we were adopted," she said.  "Your father never forgave the old man for giving us up. When he came around to visit, Frank would always hide in his room.  He wouldn't even go to the funeral.  But Frank Sr. was 59 years old, near retirement age, when his wife died, and he didn't think he could raise four kids alone.  So his friend Lloyd offered to help out, and ended up adopting us -- that's your Grandpa Davis."

That would explain the book I found in Aunt Nora's attic -- Skeezix Goes to War, published when my Dad was a kid, with his name signed in ink: "Frank J[...]."  He made a mistake, and started to write his old name.

I didn't think much about it for many years, but recently, I began to wonder -- my biological grandfather, Frank Jackson, didn't marry until he was in his late 40s.  Why wait so long?  And why did his friend Lloyd offer to raise his children?

Was there a Depression-era gay romance going on between my biological grandfather and my Grandpa Davis?

Thanks to the internet and my Cousin Eva's gedcoms, I have some promising details:

William Henry Jackson, my great-grandfather, was a prosperous businessman in Lagrange County, Indiana. His son William became a prominent lawyer, and his four daughters married into some of the wealthiest families in the country, including the McCormicks, who owned half of Chicago. But Frank, the youngest, born in 1878, was a ne-er-do-well.

In 1895, at age 17, he is arrested for "loitering," code for any number of activities, but often for cruising, searching for same-sex partners.

In 1903, he is working in his brother-in-law Charles Hinkley's confectioner's shop on 219 S. Main Street, Muncie, Indiana (today it's a bar).

In 1908 we find him in Cleveland, working in a music hall. Music hall entertainers were often gay.

Sometime after 1910, when his father dies, Frank returns to LaGrange, probably to help take care of his elderly mother. His acting or musical ambitions are put on hold.

Around 1918, he meets the 20-year old Lloyd Davis.

Lloyd lives in Fort Wayne, a two-hour drive from LaGrange in those days.  How do they meet?  What business does Frank have in Fort Wayne?

Maybe it's the nearest big city with a cruising area.

In 1923, Lloyd marries Grace (my Grandma Davis, who befriended gay men in art school.  Was this another one?).  They move to a farm near Garrett, about thirty miles from LaGrange.  To be close to Frank?

Lloyd goes to work as an engineer on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, a job that takes him to all of the big cities of the East Coast with 1920s gay subcultures.

In 1926, shortly after his mother dies, Frank marries her nurse, Orpha Maye Young (who comes from an Amish family).  He is 48, and she is 28, the same age as Lloyd. They have four children.

Hee and Lloyd remain friends.   There is no record of what Grace thinks of the friendship.

In the mid-1930s, Lloyd contracts a venereal disease, and must go to Hot Springs, Arkansas, for a cure.  Was he consorting with female prostitutes, or with rent boys?

Frank's wife dies in 1937, when he is 59 years old.  Lloyd and Grace offer to adopt his children.  They have none of their own.

Frank visits the children -- and Lloyd -- regularly until his death in 1955.  Lloyd dies two years later.

Were Lloyd and Frank gay?  Were they involved? There is no way to know for sure: no diaries, letters, photographs, or reminscences.  Everyone who knew Lloyd and Frank passed away long ago.

It remains a possibility, part of our hidden gay heritage.

See also:  Do Levis Show Bulges Better than Armani Wool Slacks?; and My Grandpa and the Witch in the Lake of the Woods.