Local

A service to celebrate the life of Sun Bell, who passed away in her Sebastopol home December 5, will be held on January 10, 2014, at 11a.m. at the Center of Spiritual Living in Santa Rosa, with Reverend Jeffery Anderson officiating.

Sun was born in Steubenville, Ohio, on November 20, 1949. Sun graduated with a degree in the Arts from Cosumnes River College in 1990. Sun was joined with June Dancingtree on May 12, 2010, as Domestic Partners. They were together for six years. Music was the soul and core of Sun’s life.

At three years old Sun was singing on stage at a gathering with her grandparents. She continued to sing, play music, write songs and perform throughout her life. At eighteen she traveled to California and began to write award winning songs and build a repertoire. This prepared her for live performances and she began to travel wherever music opportunities led her, including all over the USA, Mexico, Toronto, and London.

Sun was also drawn to visual and literary arts, and became a published poet, short story and feature writer. She opened a photography studio in San Rafael with her photography and videography becoming integral to music promotion. Her college diploma in this field landed her a “dream job” as Videographer/Producer/Photographer for California State Parks. Sun flourished in Sacramento for five years with the state parks, until a serious injury forced her into early retirement.

With more time for music, Sun set out to find likeminded musicians to share in her creativity. At a music festival, she met Jan Emerson, a pianist/singer longing to work with an original songwriter/musician. Becoming fast friends, they started crafting Sun’s compositions, and had enough music to name their duo “Bell the Cat”. Sun had many connections in local radio and TV, having worked in broadcasting in both production and on-air talent. Sun was well-respected and well-liked; her pro-community philanthropy was her best calling card.

The duo as well as the larger versions of “bell the cat” made appearances on local TV shows, played and sang live on local radio programs. They then progressed to recording their first CD “Songs from the Wild”, through which Sun won awards for several songs. Sun’s powerful voice was an asset to the “One Heart Choir” at the Center for Spiritual Living in Santa Rosa. Always creating in various ways, Sun was in the process of writing her memoirs to be published in the future.

Sun is survived by her domestic partner June Dancingtree; her siblings Timothy, Sally, Suzanne, and Elizabeth; her step children Wendy, Christopher, and Michael, step grandchildren and numerous friends.

In lieu of flowers the family would appreciate donations to offset funeral expenses. Donations may be sent to 438 Ragle Road in Sebastopol.

Filling a long-overdue need to provide the LGBT community more retirement options, Fountaingrove Lodge the nationâs first full-service LGBT retirement community to offer luxury living and continuing care services, will officially opened Wednesday, November 20. Regional elected officials and LGBT leaders joined award-winning developer Oakmont Senior Living to celebrate the grand opening of the 10-acre retirement campus located in Santa Rosa.

Seniors are the largest and fastest growing population in America, and currently the LGBT community accounts for 1.5 million of those seniors. In the next 20 years, the number of LGBT seniors is expected to double. Providing quality care options to this aging population is vital to helping them lead rich and full lives as they age. Fountaingrove Lodge is the first of its kind to give the growing number of LGBT seniors a place to enjoy a meaningful retirement in a community of friends. The community is currently 65 percent occupied with LGBT seniors from as far away as Florida, Maryland and London.

Fountaingrove Lodge features craftsman-style architecture to reflect the natural beauty of the surrounding landscape. The community offers independent and assisted-living options for its 70 apartments and bungalows that are available in nine different floor plans ranging from 830 to 2,000 square feet. Fountaingrove Lodge will also feature an on-site memory care center offering specialized services to individuals diagnosed with Alzheimerâs and other forms of dementia.

As a full-service retirement campus, Fountaingrove Lodge provides a wide range of resort amenities and services that offer the very best in retired living. From gourmet meals prepared by a world-class chef to enjoying a stroll through the orchard of native oaks, or a glass of wine in the wine cave, Oakmont Senior Living has taken great care to create not just a community, but a comfortable lifestyle. Fountaingrove Lodge is adjacent to a championship golf course and features a fully equipped fitness center with daily fitness instruction, hiking trails and an outdoor pool. Other common areas include a library, business center, great hall for special events, pet park, movie theatre and activity rooms. Chauffeured transportation, valet and concierge services are also available.

As the only LGBT retirement community to provide continuing care, Fountaingrove Lodge offers residents the medical support and attention they may need as they age in the privacy of their own homes. Services are customized and include emergency response systems, personal health assessments and screenings, medication reminders, housekeeping, flu shots, dietary guidance and temporary in-home care for those recuperating from an illness or injury. A full staff of licensed vocational nurses, care managers, medical technicians, maintenance technicians and administrative workers are available 24 hours a day to provide individualized care tailored to the needs of each resident.

For more information visit http://fountaingrovelodge.com.

My lawfully wedded spouse.

Those four words resounded conspicuously Monday during each exchange of vows at the Sonoma County Clerk’s Office as same-sex couples, many fully partnered for decades, exercised their newly legal right to marry.

In a scene that was alternately solemn and joyous and celebratory, more than a dozen gay and lesbian pairs rushed to be among the first in line as Sonoma County resumed issuing marriage licenses and performing weddings for couples of the same gender.

ãWe’ve been together 21 years; we’re ready,ä said Vicki Basehart, 65, of Glen Ellen, who was so ready, she and partner Sharon Church, 56, were waiting two hours before the start of business to get a license for their wedding later in the week.

ãI never thought I would live to see the day,ä 91-year-old Don Nicholson said as he and his partner of nearly 49 years, Phillip Johnson, 72, shared their first moments as newlyweds.

More than 30 people were crowded into the hallway outside the County Clerk’s Office when the doors opened at 8 a.m., including more than a half-dozen couples ringed by well-wishers and visibly excited by the prospect of acquiring the rights and recognition newly available to them.

By mid-day, 15 weddings, most of same-sex couples, had been performed, and marriage licenses had been issued to 29 couples, Sonoma County Clerk Bill Rousseau said. County personnel expected to conduct about 20 ceremonies by the close of business, he said.

The shared emotion and common bond of those previously denied the right to wed, save for a brief window in 2008, made for an exceptional camaraderie, even intimacy, among strangers, who applauded, for instance, when the first couple to the altar, Katie and Amy Evans-Reber of Petaluma, exited, beaming, from the chapel room off the clerk’s office.

A friend of theirs, Erin Nelson of Rohnert Park, had arrived with three-dozen long-stemmed roses and stationed herself in the hallway with her infant son, Declan, 9 months, and daughter, Scout, 3, who distributed the pink and red flowers to newly married men and women.

ãWe wanted to be part of it,ä Nelson said, then eyed her children. ãThey don’t understand what’s going on. But they understand love, and that’s what this is all about.ä

Nicholson and Johnson, Oakmont residents, had been registered domestic partners for 14 years when the U.S. Supreme Court paved the way last week for restoration of equal marriage rights in California. And as soon as it was clear licenses would be available beginning Monday, they knew they didn’t want to wait.

ãWe didn’t want to take any chances,ä Nicholson said with a grin.

The official witnesses to their wedding in the courtyard outside the clerk’s office were Hannah Hawkins, 35, and Heidi Hawkins, 32, two young women they’d met a short time earlier in the marriage license line. The Santa Rosa women, who had exchanged their own vows 10 or 15 minutes beforehand, snapped pictures and congratulated the two gents after they sealed their vows with a kiss.

Susan Vachon and Carol Connolly of Santa Rosa, partners for 24 years, got swept up in the day’s emotion after coming to serve as witnesses for dear friends Cate Swan, 60, and Sheryl Bechtel-
heimer, now Swan, 54, of Monte Rio.

After back-to-back weddings, they embraced and then clung to each other in a prolonged group hug.

A shotgun wedding was in store for Michelle Mertz, 36, and Julie Drogin, 44, who was due to give birth Wednesday, though she looked beyond relaxed about it as the pair waited to obtain a license.

Mertz said they gave friends less than 24 hours notice but had at least 50 people planning to attend the western-themed wedding at Goat Rock State Beach on Monday night, where cowboy boots and hats were deemed appropriate attire.

Ed Mason, 69, and Barry Hong, 63, recalled a haunting day three years ago during which they waited unsuccessfully at the county building amid a flurry of legal actions to hear whether there might be an opening for same-sex partners to wed.

But Monday, with Mason back in his smiley-face ãgood luckä tie, they left as legally wedded spouses.

ãIt’s wonderful,ä Hong said. ãWe’ve been waiting a long time.ä

Peter Ehlert and Irma Renteria, who reside in Mexico but wanted to obtain a California marriage certificate while in town for a family reunion, were among just two or three mixed-gender couples availing themselves of civil ceremonies Monday.

But rather than feel slighted in any way by the day’s significance for the gay and lesbian community, Ehlert said it actually ãmade it kind of special for us.ä
ãIt’s great,ä he said. ãIt’s awesome. It’s about time that people got treated like people.ä

In the day’s first wedding, Katie Evans-Reber and Amy Evans-Reber, their 1-year-old son, Cash, wriggling in Amy’s arms, wore flowered wreaths that ringed their heads as they tearfully pledged their love and devotion, promising to care for each other through life’s joys and sorrows.

Janice Wigman and Toni Cataldi, a couple themselves for 30-plus years and cousins of Katie Evans-Reber, 33, flew in from Philadelphia last Wednesday for what they thought would just be Cash’s birthday. Their plane was boarding when airport TVs flashed word that the nation’s Supreme Court had struck down a federal law denying federal benefits to same-sex spouses and then let stand a lower federal court ruling that found California’s ban on same-sex marriages unconstitutional.

Watching their younger relative share in the joy of marriage, they referenced her difficult years at Sonoma Valley High, where, as an openly gay student, she endured harassment, name-calling and physical assaults.

Though unable themselves to marry in Pennsylvania, they reveled in the sight of the younger couple exchanging vows, and of Katie ãall aglow.ä

ãTo see that she’s a mom and a bride,ä Wigman said. ãIt’s joyous. It’s just joyous.ä

ãThe town that I grew up in,ä Katie Evans-Reber said later, ãand that was so hard to grow up in, has given me the greatest gift now. I just wish my cousins could get married, too.

ãIt’s a humongous triumph, and it’s a great victory for all of us in California. But every day in Philadelphia, they’re still waiting.ä

PFLAG North Bay Chapter announced late last month that it would dissolve because it found itself unable to maintain a membership base of sufficient size to provide the financial sustainability the organizationâs board of directors feels is required. Since 1996 PFLAG North Bay Chapter has served parents, families, and friends of the LGBT Community by hosting support groups in Marin, Mendocino, Napa, and Sonoma counties. The group also came to the conclusion that they were unable to provide the optimal administrative and program services such a large geographic area demands. PFLAG North Bay Chapter shall dissolve effectively at the end on the month.

Mark Andersen and Paul Boisvert, who currently serve as the chapterâs co-presidents wrote in a letter to their members: ãWe are encouraging the creation of local chapters in each of the counties that were affiliated with PFLAG North Bay Chapter and will equally distribute any remaining PFLAG North Bay Chapter funds (approximately $4,000.00) to the chapters that have been officially recognized by PFLAG National at time of our dissolution.ä

Here in Sonoma County, current board member, Lin Campbell has already started a local chapter. PFLAG Sonoma County will meet the forth Monday of every month at Knox Pryspetarian Church, 1650 West third Street in Santa Rosa. Ms. Campbell selected Knox because it is welcoming of all, including those who Identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. This monthâs meeting will happen Monday, December 17 because the forth Monday is Christmas Eve. For more information email Lin at baddsmom@aol.com.

ãI joined PFLAG many years ago when my son came out to me because I was worried about what kind of life he would have as a gay man. PFLAG was such a huge help to me at a time when there was little information available,ä Ms. Campbell said: ãToday my son is legally married and has three children who he is raising in the San Francisco house he bought from his grandparents. Today, their may be more support is available to parents, but I think there is still a need for information. This is what led me to start PFLAG Sonoma County.ä

Three other affiliates are starting chapters in the remaining counties ounce served by PFLAG North Bay Chapter. In Marin County, Jane Hills can be reached at hillsjc@att.net. In Mendocino, Delynne Rogers, who served as PFLAG North Bay Chapterâs board president for six years, is forming a chapter. Reach her at johndelynne@sbcglobal,net. In Napa, the contact person is Jeannine Scott at jneen@napanet.net.

The Rykken and Scull Charitable Trust that PFLAG North Bay has managed for several years will become the Rykken and Scull LGBT Memorial Fund at the Sonoma Community Foundation. This will be a ãCommunity Advised Fundä and at least four of the current PFLAG North Bay board members will become the advisory committee to oversee the future disbursement of funds. PFLAG North Bay Chapter has given away $135,000 in scholarships and grants since being bestowed the funds by the estate of a local gay judge, Walter Richard Rykken. The trust is also named for Judge Rykkenâs partner, Robert Scull.

PFLAG was founded 40 years ago by Jeanne Manford at a time when the LGBT Community had few allies and no legal protections. Ms. Manford and her activist son decided to form a group to provide support and information to others with LGBT children. PFLAGâs mission is to promote the health and well-being of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersexed persons, their families and friends through support, education and advocacy; to end discrimination and secure equal civil and human rights. The non-profit organization has over 200,000 members and supporters in more than 350 affiliations in the United States.