Sep 25th, 2006
Peaceful journey, Aleta.
I’m very sad to hear that Aleta Fenceroy has died.
Fenceberry was critical to my development as an activist. My dad had an email account for a couple years before I did, so he would regularly print out articles from this mysterious place he called “Fenceberry.” Later, I got an email account, and signed myself on to the mountain of articles they unearthed. Without Fenceberry, who knows how long it would have taken for me to connect my cement-pounding, flier-taping, cold-calling outreach work to a national vision of equality.
My thoughts are with her children, Michelle and J.J., and with Aleta’s partner, Jean Mayberry.
From The Advocate, June 17, 1999:
Better known as Fenceberry, Aleta Fenceroy and Jean Mayberry have become an indispensable part of gay politics without ever having left their living room in Omaha, Neb. For the past three years, the couple have E-mailed gay-related news to other activists as well as to journalists, alerting them to stories of which they might never have otherwise known. “Activists lived in New York City,” Mayberry says. “I never thought I was important enough or powerful enough to be an activist. I just felt I should do something.” That urge has broadened the knowledge of hundreds of people who get Fenceberry’s messages. “There are so many exciting things happening in small towns and cities all over the country, and we wouldn’t have any way of knowing about them if it weren’t for the Internet,” Fenceroy says, “Now we can read about them as soon as they happen.”
Related link: “Fenceberry logs off,” Washington Blade, August 20, 2004.
I can’t remember when I first began to receive the Fenceberry articles. It became such a part of my daily life that I thought it was always there. It gave a gay news junkie like myself all I needed in order to be informed as well as the tools to fight back.
And while we never met personally, I would send a note of thanks periodically to Aleta and Jean. The hard work of an unpaid volunteer is rarely thanked. Surprisingly, I would get a note back. I felt like part of the Fenceberry family. That led to holiday greetings and other notes, updating each other on our lives. I understood why the Fenceberry articles needed to stop. What didn’t stop was the periodic notes and the bond of friendship.
My heart aches upon learning of Aleta’s death. She is at peace, smiling down upon us. She did so much for so many. She will be sorely missed by uncountable numbers around the world. Think of her when you see a rainbow in the sky. Her legacy will live on.
“To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die.” [Thomas Campbell]
Wayne Steinman
Staten Island, NY