PORTRAITS OF FOUR RELATIONSHIPS |
By T. Shawn Taylor |
February 22, 2004
(1) Lee Schrank, 67, and Just before Christmas in 1957, Lee Schrank went on a 6-week tour of Mexico to mend a broken heart. He was 18, and his first serious relationship with a man had ended badly. The last thing Schrank wanted to do was to start a new relationship. But when he laid eyes on Guillermo (Franco's given name), he fell in love immediately. "Bill did, too. He was tremendously in love with me . . . . . at first sight. He won't tell you that. But it was so obvious," Schrank said. Franco says there were no sparks initially. But after he noticed all the attention Schrank was getting at a party, Franco made his move. "Everybody wanted him. I thought, `Well, you're not going to take this one away from me,'" he said. Franco and Schrank spent two romantic weeks together in Franco's hometown of San Luis Potosi in central Mexico. Later, the two stayed in touch through letters, but the language barrier was daunting. For a while, a friend translated the letters for them, "but he soon got tired of that business," Schrank said. The next February, Franco, grief-stricken over his mother's death, moved to Chicago to live with his sister. He and Schrank, then of Milwaukee, dated for two years before Schrank came to live with Franco and his family in an apartment on Harrison Street near Pulaski Road. The two regularly attended mass together at a nearby Catholic church. One day, alone in the church sanctuary, Franco, 25, and Schrank, 23, knelt at the altar and exchanged vows and wedding bands engraved with their names and the words para siempre, which mean "forever" in Spanish. "That ring doesn't fit anymore," Schrank said. "At the time, I was about 120 pounds lighter." But Franco said: "He lost his. I've still got mine." Franco and Schrank say they would love to get married legally, mainly to protect investments such as their house and to obtain the rights spouses are entitled to in matters of life and death. "I would do it for financial reasons. For uncertainty about still being together? No. I don't have no doubts about that," Franco said.
(2) Rickey Sain, 46, and Jim Boushay, 56, Rickey Sain and Jim Boushay met at a party 11 years ago. Their attraction for one another was apparent. But for these divorced fathers, it was their intense love for their children that became the cornerstone of a lasting relationship. They have nine children from previous marriages, ranging in ages from 21 to 33. "I knew I needed someone like that. Someone who had children and whose children were very important to them," said Sain, director of organizational development for Horizons Community Services, a social service agency for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community on Chicago's North Side. Sain has four children and Boushay has five. But in talking about their children, the two dads do not make distinctions about who belongs to whom. They recently composed a letter to the kids that talked about their commitment to each other and their desire to be a model of a successful, loving relationship. "We made up our minds that we are going to demonstrate what good marriage looks like," said Boushay, who is president of Resources Unlimited Foundation, a social justice think tank in Oak Park. Both men embrace spirituality and start each day by meditating together, Boushay said. They do not belong to any church but visit 30 to 40 churches every year. "We go there as an interracial, gay, married couple," Boushay said. They have never held a formal commitment ceremony, but both said they would get married if they could. "Do I feel any particular compulsion to do it? No. Because the love I know for Rickey Sain is a love that is not contained in any kind of certificate," Boushay said. "And I mean that." Sain doubts that America is capable of supporting gay marriage anyway, pointing out the high divorce rate and how easy it is to get out. "Nobody's railing against that. Do we live in a culture that actually supports marriage? The idea of two people who really do stick with each other, no matter what? What are we protecting?" he asked.
(3) Lucy Shumpert, 46, and Hurdie Styles, 62, Lucy Shumpert says that the first time she heard the name "Hurdie," she knew that Styles was going to be her girlfriend. A friend had told Shumpert about this very cultured, artsy woman who had recently moved to Memphis from Seattle and was looking for something to do. Shumpert, estranged from her husband and raising daughters ages 9 and 14 at the time,was on the board of an all-black youth orchestra that her daughter, a violinist, played in. That year, Shumpert was to be the narrator for the orchestra's African-American History Month program. Shumpert called Hurdie, a nurse, and asked whether she'd be interested in sitting on the orchestra board and attending the concert. "She was on her way to Africa to do medical outreach. I got the orchestra to put the concert off for a week until she got back. She didn't know that part," said Shumpert, an artist, writer, poet and song lyricist whose drawings have appeared in Chicago galleries. The night before the concert, the two women talked on the phone, and Styles told Shumpert about her experiences in Africa. The next evening, Shumpert wove Styles' stories into her narrative. Styles called it brilliant. "She has a wonderful voice," said Styles, adding when she first saw Shumpert at the podium wearing a black skirt and white blouse, she thought she looked liked like a "PTA lady." Shumpert was so nervous that evening, she said she couldn't look at Styles. She called after the show. "I gave her two hours because I wanted her to anticipate my calling," Shumpert said. "It was apparent we'd become a couple after that phone call." On July 15, 2000, Shumpert and Styles, joined by friends, Shumpert's two daughters and Styles' son, now 36, exchanged vows on the lakefront at dawn on the boulders outside the planetarium. Shumpert's oldest daughter played violin. They'd love to make their marriage legal but Styles, after eight wonderful years, said she doesn't need the law or society's acceptance. "By the time you come out to yourself . . . . . get past your family . . . . . your children and their friends . . . . . and all the people you love, the general public cannot touch me at all."
(4) Mona Noriega, 48, and Evette Cardona, 41, With their shared passion for activist causes in the gay and Latino communities, it is a wonder that Mona Noriega and Evette Cardona didn't fall in love the instant they shook hands more than eight years ago. At the time, both women were busy. Cardona was active in a program for teenage moms and also was organizing a support group for gay Hispanic women called Amigas Latinas. Noriega, active in the gay community since the 1980s, had recently helped to open the Midwest office of Lambda Legal, a national gay civil rights group, in Chicago. She is now regional director. "We'd see each other around," said Noriega, a teen bride who had the first of her two children, a son, now 32, and a daughter, 29, when she was 15. "She came to me to ask for help" with Amigas Latinas, she said. "One day, the light hit us just right." Noriega was impressed that Cardona worked with teenage and lesbian mothers, having gone through both experiences herself. Noriega came out when her son was 3. "Latina girls are raised to get married and have babies. They're coming out later and dealing with divorce issues and custody issues," said Cardona, senior program director for the Polk Bros. Foundation, a legacy of the defunct furniture store chain that funds social service, education, arts and health programs. "What we believe in, what we live our lives for . . . . . we share that at a gut level," Cardona said. In October, the two women registered as domestic partners with Cook County. It was symbolic, Noriega said, but it meant a lot to their families. "They've always been good to me," Noriega said of Cardona's family, most of whom are Catholic. "After we got the domestic partner registry, they'd say to me, `We think you're family.'" Noriega said that, if she could do so legally, "I would get married in a heartbeat." Cardona said she'd never perceived marriage as for her, but that now the possibility is exciting. "I don't want the white gowns and church ceremonies. But I do want to get married and live my life with Mona for the rest of our lives." Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune |
