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Jasmyn Morris (JM): It’s the StoryCorps podcast from NPR… I’m Jasmyn Morris…
Many people come to StoryCorps to have a conversation with someone who’s been meaningful in their lives… Sometimes, that’s two old friends sitting down together, reminiscing… other times, it’s parents and children asking each other questions they’ve never asked before…
Still, some of our favorite interview moments come from partners and spouses. For them, StoryCorps is like a time machine… a place where they can relive first dates, look back on relationship ups and downs, and often, fall in love all over again…
So in this week’s episode… and in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising… stories that remind us of love’s remarkable endurance… no matter who we are or who we love.
As you know by now, we’re collecting conversations from the LGBTQ community… especially untold stories from the generation that lived long before the beginning of the modern-gay rights movement…
…and one thing we’ve heard quite a bit… especially from older folks… who grew up gay or lesbian before Stonewall, is that love was often a bittersweet thing…
75-year-old Glenda Elliott grew up in Mayfield, Georgia. She first fell in love when she was in her 20s… and at StoryCorps she told her friend about a life-long love that never had the chance to blossom…
Glenda Elliott (GE): Lauree knew how to tease me without my being offended. And there was something about the way she would smile that, you know, I can still see very vividly. She was the first person I really, truly loved. But I grew up in the 40s in a small, rural community. There were certainly no role models of what it means to love someone of the same sex. So, I didn’t know how to understand that.
My high school sweetheart, he proposed to me, and I thought, at that time, that’s what a woman did; she got married. And it didn’t take me very long to realize that I’d made a mistake. So he and I decided to get a divorce.
During all of this time, Lauree and I had stayed in touch. I knew that I loved her deeply. She said, “Well, I have very strong feelings for you too but most of all I want to have children.” She met a man who had asked her to marry him. Then she got pregnant and she said, ”If it’s a little girl, I’m going to name her after you.” Well, it turned out it was a little boy and I was relieved. It really would have been excruciatingly painful if she had had a little girl named after me.
Somewhere along the way, she said, “If I outlive my husband and you don’t have a partner, perhaps we can grow old together.” And somehow that made it alright.
But then Lauree got cancer and she didn’t live very long. And I did not get to see her again. It didn’t hit me, so much, until I turned 60 and I began to really think about old age. And this was the time that Lauree and I were gonna have and it didn’t happen.
There are certain kinds of love that never die but I don’t regret at all our time together. It is where I learned that I could love, and I could be loved in that complete sense of the word.
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JM: That’s Glenda Elliott, speaking with her friend Angela Stowe at StoryCorps in Birmingham, Alabama.
Next, a love story that takes a different path…
It was the spring of 1981 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Liz Barnez was 16, and Lori Daigle, 17. Both played softball for their respective high schools. Despite the competition on the field… off the field… the pair felt an immediate spark…
At StoryCorps, Liz and Lori sat down to remember their whirlwind teenage romance….
Liz Barnez (LB): So we were growing up good Catholic girls and, uh, we played sports against each other. And a big group of us would go out and we’d all dance together and, I don’t know, there was just an attraction.
Lori Daigle (LD): Yes, I remember that too. I actually remember that first kiss. We drove out to the parking lot of Lake Pontchartrain and I remember never being so afraid and so excited in my entire life.
LB: And then we never talked about it with each other even. So you went off to college.
LD: Yeah, I went off to college.
LB: And I stayed in New Orleans. Went to UNO. We lost touch.
LD: Mmhm… I let my parents know at nineteen and that’s when, um, my father and mom decided that, uh, they didn’t want me to come back to the house. I knew what I wanted and I knew who I wanted to be but: How do I get back into my family? The answer to that was to get married to a man and have children and that’s what I did for 17 years.
I felt love and I felt companionship but that feeling that I had for you—that crazy, chaotic excitement—I just didn’t feel that.
LB: Yeah…
LD: I had been divorced for two weeks and I was just going to be single for the rest of my life and then you and I reconnected on Facebook. And all the old memories, all the old feelings, everything just came flooding back.
LB: So 28 years later, or longer than that, after the first kiss, you came out to Colorado to visit.
LD: And I just saw you and all I wanted to do was kiss you again.
LB: And that was even better. We had learned how to kiss over the years. [Laughs]
LD: Had a little more confidence.
Both: [Laughter]
LB: Yes and your parents came around.
LD: My mom got to see me being happy and me…
LB: …before she passed away.
LD: Yep… And last letter she ever wrote me was I am so happy that you are finally getting to be you.
JM: That’s Lori Daigle with her wife, Liz Barnez, at the StoryCorps MobileBooth in Fort Collins, Colorado…
Liz and Lori were married on July 26th, 2015… more than 30 years after that first kiss…. and about a month after the Supreme Court legalized marriage for same-sex couples in all 50 states.
Next… we’ll hear from a NASA engineer whose love story was… quite literally… written in the stars…
Stay with us…
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JM: Welcome back…
Joey Jefferson is a Missions Operations Engineer at NASA… he’s spent a lifetime learning about the stars… a passion which came in awfully handy on his first date with Wilford Lenov… who speaks first.
Wilford Lenov (WL): I remember you picking me up and I was so nervous. You asked, ”Where do you want to go?” I said, ”We should go somewhere you and I don’t even know.” We went to Hermosa Beach I remember, and it was beautiful.
Joey Jefferson (JJ): The stars were out…
WL: And we were just walking, and we saw that bench.
JJ: One of the people that were in the Challenger disaster, it was a dedication to him.
WL: And I can tell in that moment — you have this look on your face like, ”Oh, I got this.” You’re like ‘Look at the stars. Do you know what that is?”
JJ: I know exactly what I said. I said, ”You know, the nearest star is 4.2 light years away. It’s called Proxima Centauri. If you’re traveling at the speed of light, which is 186,000 miles per second, the distance you travel is a light year. So every single light went 50,000 years unobstructed to hit right into your eye.”
WL: I just remember looking at you and I was like, ”Oh, my God. This is it,” like, ”This is the guy.”
JJ: I was actually nervous because I wasn’t sure if I was, like, completely ready to be in a relationship with someone who I thought was so amazing, because I have issues with depression and it was very exciting but yet very scary.
WL: When I saw you broken—two months after we met—you would be like, ”You can leave.” And I was like, ”No, I’m not leaving.”
JJ: It was a life or death situation. At some points I didn’t want to tell you how dark it got. A lot of people would not deal with that.
WL: You were scared to talk about it with anybody and I’m very grateful that you put that trust in me. I feel like you just needed to have someone hug you and be like, ”It’s okay.”
JJ: Your insistence, your love, your everything—you just didn’t give up. And I will always forever be thankful to you for that, always.
WL: The closest thing that us humans have to magic is love, because with love it’s about faith, it’s about, you know, trusting one another, and… you’re my magic.
JJ: I love you so much.
WL: I love you too, baby.
JM: That’s Wilford Lenov speaking with his partner Joey Jefferson at StoryCorps in Los Angeles, California.
Our last story comes from a couple who proves it’s never too late to say ‘I do…’
Born in 1918… John Banvard, a World War II veteran… thought he’d seen and done it all. But then… he met Vietnam veteran Jerry Nadeau (nuh-DOE)… and the rest, as they say, was history…
Jerry Nadeau (JN): So I start with my name and all that stuff? Okay, we’ll see how it works. Hello! My name is Jerry Nadeau. I’m with John Banvard.
John Banvard (JB): And I was born in Brooklyn, New York…
JN: No, no, no, no… You’ve gotta say your name and everything. ’Hello, my name is…’
JB: Hello, my name is John Banvard. I am 100 years of age.
JN: When I first met you, John, you were 75 years old. What would it have been like if you didn’t meet me?
JB: I would’ve continued being lonely. I’d been absolutely lost.
JN: When we met, we were sort of in the closet.
JB: Yeah…
JN: And I never had a real relationship. Now we’ve been together almost 25 years. And when we moved into the veterans home, we moved in together. And a lot of people were wondering, ’I wonder what their relationship is?’
JB: Yes…
JN: Well, when we got married they knew what our relationship was. [Laughs]
JB: I was expecting we’d be ridiculed and there was very little of that.
JN: We got married at the veterans home and we said, ’If you came to see the bride, you’re out of luck.’ Do you remember that? [Laughs]
JB: Yes, of course.
JN: It was very informal.
JB: It was done simply, yes.
JN: We served hot dogs.
JB: Which is hardly wedding food…
JN: Remember, John, I was with you in the cafeteria and somebody came up and they were with their family and they said, ’Oh, this is Gerard Nadeau and this is his husband, John.’ I had never heard that before.
JB: Yeah… That was very nice.
JN: You’ve made my life complete.
JB: I could say the same thing to you. I think we’re probably as happy together as any two people you’re likely to meet.
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JM: That’s John Banvard with his husband, Jerry Nadeau, at StoryCorps in La Mesa, California… They moved into the Chula Vista veterans home in 2010… and were married three years later.
After hearing their story on the radio, a listener wrote:
Congratulations guys…I am a Navy Veteran and I have been with my partner for almost 30 years…I love him more every day…
And if you love John and Jerry as much as we do, check out an animated version of their story on the StoryCorps website.
That’s all for this week’s episode…
It was produced by Sylvie Lubow, Jud Esty-Kendall and me. Our engineer is Jarett Floyd. Our fact-checker is Natsumi Ajisaka. Special thanks to producers Danielle Roth, Nadia Reiman, Liyna Anwar… and StoryCorps Facilitators Jacqueline Van Meter, Carolina Escobar, and Christina Stanton.
To find out what music we used in this episode… and to see original artwork created for this season… go to StoryCorps.org
Also… before we go… just a quick reminder that if you want to help us preserve stories like John and Jerry’s… we’re asking you… our listeners… to pick up your mobile devices and record LGBTQ elders in YOUR community using the StoryCorps app. Head over to storycorps.org/outloud to learn more.
For the StoryCorps podcast… I’m Jasmyn Morris. Thanks for listening.
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