Farm Boys Copyrighted Material Copyrighted Material FARMBOYS Lives of Gay Men from the Rural Midwest Collected and edited by Will Fellows THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS Copyrighted Material The University of Wisconsin Press 1930 Monroe Street Madison, Wisconsin 53711 3 Henrietta Street London WC2E 8LU, England Copyright © 1996, 1998 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System All rights reserved 9 8 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fellows, Will. Farm boys: lives of gay men from the rural Midwest / Will Fellows. 352 pp. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-299-15080-1 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN 0-299-15084-4 (paper: alk. paper) 1. Gay men-Middle West-Case studies. 2. Farmers Middle West-Case studies. 1. Title. HQ76.2.U52M534 1996 305.38'9664-dc20 96-6058 Copyrighted Material Whatever actually happens to a man is wonderfully trivial and insignificant, -even to death itself, I imagine. -Henry David Thoreau Copyrighted Material Copyrighted Material CONTENTS Preface IX Acknowledgments Xlll How These Stories Were Discovered xv Farming Glossary xxvii Introduction 3 PART 1: Coming ofA ge Before the Mid-1960s Introduction 31 Cornelius Utz, Missouri 34 Robert Peters, Wisconsin 47 Henry Bauer, Minnesota 59 Harry Beckner, Nebraska 68 Jim Cross, Iowa 76 Dennis Lindholm, Iowa 84 James Heckman, Indiana 93 John Beutel, Wisconsin 103 Myron Turk, Wisconsin 112 Norm Reed, Ohio 115 Ronald Schoen, Minnesota 124 PART 2: Coming ofA ge Between the Mid-1960s and Mid-1970s Introduction 129 David Foster, Wisconsin 132 Doug Edwards, Indiana 143 Bill Troxell, Indiana 154 Larry Ebmeier, Nebraska 156 Vll Copyrighted Material Vlll Contents Martin Scherz, Nebraska 160 Richard Kilmer, Wisconsin 170 Heinz Koenig, Wisconsin 180 Tom Rygh, Wisconsin 182 Dale Hesterman, Ohio 191 Frank Morse, Wisconsin 199 Mark Vanderbeek, Nebraska 202 Everett Cooper, Indiana 206 John Berg, Minnesota 215 PART 3: Coming of Age Between the Mid-1970s and Mid-1980s Introduction 221 David Campbell, Ohio 224 Jahred Boyd, Minnesota 228 Steve Gay, Wisconsin 231 Rick Noss, Iowa 234 Richard Hopkins, Indiana 243 Lon Mickelsen, Minnesota 251 Steven Preston, Wisconsin 260 Connie Sanders, Illinois 269 Randy Fleer, Nebraska 281 Ken Yliniemi, Minnesota 284 Clark Williams, Wisconsin 292 Joe Shulka, Wisconsin 294 Todd Ruhter, Nebraska 304 Afterword 311 Postscript 317 Copyrighted Material PREFACE This work is about the lives of gay men who grew up on farms in the mid western United States during the twentieth century. I have done this work in the interest of promoting a fuller appreciation of the varied ori gins of, and perspectives within, the population of gay men in the U.S. I hope that the reader will find these plain-spoken narratives to be engag ing and illuminating in their candor, insight, and sense of humor. It is also my hope that this work will be of value to individuals who are exploring issues related to sexual and gender identity. These men describe how they perceived and responded to a variety of conditions that existed in many of the farm communities and families of their boyhoods: rigid gender roles, social isolation, ethnic homogeneity, suspicion of the unfamiliar, racism, religious conservatism, sexual prud ishness, and limited access to information. While none of these conditions is unique to farm culture, they operate in a distinctive synergy in that set ting. They also have a lasting impact. More than just boyhood memories, these stories describe the long-term influences that many of these men believe their upbringings have had on the course and character of their lives. How has their farming heritage influenced their choices and identi ties as gay men? How do they see themselves in relation to gay men from urban or suburban backgrounds? How do they fit into their local gay communities? Inherent in these stories are the very different experiences and perspectives of men who came of age in earlier decades of this cen tury and those who came of age in more recent decades-especially in the 1970s and 1980s. In preparing these narratives from interviews, I have seen myself as something of a midwife, listening to men who had something to say and delivering their experiences and perspectives to the reader in their own distinct voices. If! had believed that soliciting contributions from profes sional writers would have yielded as diverse a cross-section of gay "farm IX Copyrighted Material