Out Of The Shadows II

Forging a family
Published: October 9, 2007

By DEE MOORE
Of the News-Register



In an interview conducted shortly before her December death, Eloise "Lou" Hickey displayed a cantankerous bent. 
She grumbled, griped and complained, and was totally unrepentant about it. She sprinkled her talk with self-deprecating jokes, displaying a humor that was barbed, pointed and as dry as the desert.

Her surface demeanor seemed to shout, "Take me or leave me. It's the way I am." 
But behind the facade emerged a generous, loving and engaging personality. 
A network engineer who served a tour in the Marine Corps, Hickey began to harbor romantic thoughts about others of her gender clear back in her early grade school days. 


"I knew in the second grade something was different, because I had a real crush on my second-grade teacher," she said. "I was a closet lesbian until I was 13." 


Hickey's partner - Martha VanCleave, chair of the math department at Linfield College - just smiled and shook her head. After 15 years, she knew every gesture and look Hickey could manage. 


Hickey experienced prejudice at almost every turn growing up. 
It forced her to abandon college for the Marines. But the Corps didn't prove a safe haven either. 


"They dismissed me with a general discharge under honorable conditions," she said. "I was so angry I was outed in the Marine Corps. I was gay and was out." 


Back home, she faced discrimination. 
This time, she was booted from the family church. The minister said she wasn't "fit" to attend. 
But Hickey didn't let it harden her, at least not inwardly. She said it gave her a deeper understanding of hardship and greater compassion for those suffering it. 
It was those qualities that drew VanCleave to her.

"Lou cared for me in a way that I had never been cared for in my life," VanCleave said. 


The rustic home they shared prior to her death of heart failure at 61 looks out over water. They often sat together on the front porch, sipping cups of steaming coffee while watching the sun rise or set. 
VanCleave brought children to the relationship from an earlier marriage. It was a perfect spot to raise them, she felt. 


"We were always extremely open with our children and formed a groundwork around a loving relationship," she said. "Our relationship helped them to learn a respect for diversity. 
"They are very strong advocates for the gay community. They are proud of their mom." 


VanCleave came to her realization that she was gay later in life. Throughout her marriage, she felt lost and adrift, as if something was missing. 


"I was programmed to be a mom," she said. "My maternal instinct was so strong." 


That propelled her into a marriage that produced two children, she said. 
The couple met at Linfield, where VanCleave was the instructor and Hickey the student. They carpooled together to a workshop in Salem and became better acquainted over dessert. 
In spring semester the following year, Hickey returned to school on a full-time basis. 


"She enrolled in Linfield in the spring of '88," VanCleave recalled. "I had left my husband that summer. By spring, I had decided to begin a permanent relationship." 
They didn't begin to date until Lou became acquainted with her children, she said. That was important to her.

"It was difficult for them to have two mothers, so Lou tried to be a friend, but not a parent," VanCleave said.

She said issues arose, but they dealt with them successfully. 
Both women had a deep spirituality, expressed in different ways. 
Hickey was an adherent of the Buddhist faith. VanCleave had been ordained as an elder in the Presbyterian Church, but was no longer welcome when she came out as a lesbian. 


"I was really not wanted in that community," she said. And it hurt. 
She began to attend McMinnville's First Baptist Church, which put out a welcome mat for gays and lesbians more than two decades ago. And the whole family - Hickey, VanCleave and VanCleave's children - began to get involved in the church's gay and lesbian support group, Together Works. 


Though still mourning the loss of her life partner, VanCleave is now serving as a pastoral assistant at the church. She regularly assists the Rev. Kent Harrop with services and communion. 
Hickey and VanCleave seemed striking opposites on the surface, but complemented each other like salt and pepper. Now the salt is faced with the task of carrying on without the pepper.

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