Sewn In Memory
Sewn in Memory: AIDS Quilt Panels from Central Illinois was a 2022 exhibit at the Spurlock Museum of World Cultures. It featured over one dozen quilt panels originally made in the 1980s and early 1990s for the AIDS Memorial Quilt, in Washington, DC. Each of the panels commemorates a person who died of AIDS, or of an AIDS-related ailment. Illinois Public Media, the Department of Journalism at the University of Illinois and students from the College of Media at Illinois worked together in the fall of 2021 to create video vignettes on the lives and legacies of these individuals.
Sewn in Memory: Ruben
Ruben loved music, writing songs and dressing in dresses. He died of AIDS in 1990. He is remembered by friends in Champaign, Illinois who made his quilt panel.
Sewn in Memory: Greg Downey
Greg Downey from Monticello, Illinois died of AIDS at home surrounded by his mother's love. She talks about Greg, his sexuality and AIDS diagnosis and her promise to him before he died in 1990.
Sewn in Memory: Paul “Paco” Arbogast
Paul "Paco" Arbogast was unabashedly gay and loving to all who knew him. He died of AIDS in St. Joseph, Illinois in 1986. Paco’s sister and one of Paco’s lovers…
Sewn in Memory: Merrill Eskew
Merrill Eskew co-owned The Little Professor Book Center in Urbana, Illinois. He died of AIDS in 1992. Merrill's partner and his daughter remember him.
Sewn in Memory: Donald “Devin” Carrington
Donald "Devin" Carrington was a cosmetologist and bartender from central Illinois who died of AIDS in 1990. In this video, Devin's mother remembers her son.
Sewn in Memory: Scott Ford
Scott Ford, formerly of Chicago, was a bit of a "bad boy," according to a long-time friend who remembers what a remarkable person Scott was. Scott died of AIDS in 1988.
Sewn in Memory: Ronald Steinhoff
Ronald Steinhoff-Thornton was an out gay man at the University of Illinois in the Medical Scholars program. He died of AIDS in 1996. He is remembered as a role model by one of his classmates.
Sewn in Memory: Patrick Danen and Robert (Bobby) Rodgers
Patrick Danen and Robert Rodgers were lovers and partners in Ivesdale, Illinois until both men died of AIDS witin months of each other in the 1980s. They are remembered by friends.
Sewn in Memory: Stephen Gallagher
Stephen Gallagher was an out gay man and adminstrative assistant for the Gay Community AIDS Project in Champaign, Illinois. He died of AIDS in 1991. Close friends of Stephen remember him.