Blog

My Great Uncle Alvie was Grandpa Ingalls brother. I did see him a few times while I was growing up but did not spend that much time with him and that may have been by design. When I was in my 30s both my Mother and Father told me stories about Uncle Alvie and their experience with him. By this time I was fully out of the closet and on my second long-term boyfriend, and it began with Mom telling me about the whispers when Uncle Alvie would come to an event and bring his boyfriend. She said it was not common or very acceptable for a man to bring another man as a guest at a family function, but Uncle Alvie was not one to shy away from controversy and he was comfortable with who he was. He was a man far ahead of his time as Mom explained it. She also said back in those days gay men were called bachelors and lesbians were called old maids. After finding this out I talked to my Dad about it and he said yes it was true, Uncle Alvie was gay and had a longtime boyfriend by the name of Will Smith. Uncle Alvie was a schoolteacher at a time a gay man had to hide this, or they would be fired and run out of town. Will was the custodian at the school. They lived together on a working farm in MT. When I found this out it completely changed my thoughts on how people became gay. Prior to this I thought I was the only one in our family, but now I know there were others and Uncle Alvie was not the only one. I realized this is a trait that is passed on from your family and I was the fortunate one that got it in my part of the family. I wanted to talk about this mostly because if you look at the Ancestry websites they all list the spouses of everyone, but as in Uncle Alvie’s case no one is listed and it is time to change that. He did have a life partner named Will Smith, and that should be mentioned whenever Uncle Alvie’s life is discussed. For the most part we are all two generations away from completely disappearing into history and outside of our names no one will know much about us. If you are gay it is worse. Not only will you be forgotten, but there are some that will try to rewrite your history. I would like to see this change.