My Roommate and Old Friend, by Liz Hottel Barrett, 4/3/2020
What a surprise for all of us on the chat group to hear from Bunny Richards. She was my sophomore roommate, and we had some good times way back when. Lord, it has been about 50 years since we’d been in contact. I found that she is living in a retirement community in Massachusetts, so I called and was so happy to hear her voice.
In those early days after graduation, she was working (house construction) in Boston where I lived, and we saw each other a couple of times; but we lost touch, and I tried to reach her several times over the past 50 years or so. No luck. I knew she was living in Maine, and I have a house on an island in Maine. In fact, when I co-chaired our reunion (our 40th I think), the reunion committee chairs met on our island, and so I tried to get Bunny to join us; but I never got through to her. I knew she was living with a woman named Gretchen who always answered and with whom I’d leave a message. Not being able to reach Bunny was a sadness for me.
I had a special reason for wanting to see her and talk to her and relive some of the silly things we did. Bunny and I had so much fun together freshman and sophomore year that I assumed it was fun for her, too. Those of you who were in Mead and then North Mandel must remember some of our hilarious Bunny/Liz stuff. After sophomore year, we went our separate ways and had very little contact during the next two years, but I assumed we’d remain friends. I now realize that for Bunny, it was probably not much fun to be at Mount Holyoke. When we were in college, I knew nothing about homosexuality. I don’t think I knew the word lesbian. I never considered it a problem or even a topic of conversation, but then I think many of us were pretty clueless and naïve about much of life and social relationships. I’ve always wanted to apologize to Bunny.
I was married in 1962 and had three boys. After almost 20 years, my husband and I divorced, my older two went off to college, and then my youngest and I had a few wonderful years together. Seven years younger than his siblings, Andrew was diagnosed with a rare and fatal blood disease at age 12 — learning that he would not live a long and happy life. During those few years he was my best friend and amazingly artistic, handsome, and personable. Everyone loved Andrew. We did musical theater together, our first when Andrew was a little VonTrapp kid and I a nun – with many more to follow. I have such wonderful memories of our fun together. After Bryan and I got married, Andrew came out to me. He was a beautiful sensitive gay guy. There were many tears. Through the UU Church, Bryan and I went to workshops on homosexuality, and Andrew was very proud of us and our activism with PFLAG. We three enjoyed many musicals and dramas, always in Christmas Carol together. As I am writing, I realize that I could write about Andrew forever.
Andrew died in 1998. We moved to San Diego for a couple of years where Bryan and I marched together at the Gay Pride parade in 1999. My son John, wife Bambi, and two-year-old Tucker lived in San Diego at the same time. What fun for us to be together. The following year John, age 33, came to terms with his “suppressed homosexuality”. This was a very difficult time for him and Bambi while they were readying for two years in Sri Lanka for Bambi’s doctoral research. (Many of you remember John’s emails from Sri Lanka.) Something that still makes me sad is that John and Andrew never knew that each were gay. John didn’t know about himself until after Andrew died – they could have been so much comfort to each other. What a shame.
Our last year in San Diego, I was Co-Chair with Rocki for our 40th MHC Reunion. Working in San Diego and helping Rocki get used to how to use email and her computer (such hilarious memories of that), we started putting together activities for the weekend. I felt sure that there were 1961 classmates who might look forward to support from other parents of homosexual kids. So Bryan and I used PFLAG materials and offered a support group for classmates with homosexual kids or other people in the family. Our workshop was a wonderful success. We gave support to a classmate who made me feel very good about our entire reunion.
And so I hoped that Bunny would come – over and over I hoped that, year after year. I wanted to be given the chance to show her and other lesbian classmates that we have come a long way and to apologize for our ignorance. We are all very different people now, and none of us want to feel that we hurt any classmate during those four years.
That reunion was 20 years ago. I hope it’s not too late. I still hope Bunny will come to our next reunion.
(Editor comment: Bunny joined the chat group 1/28/2022 — hooray!)
