Category Archives: Family and Heriage

Remembering Ken

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Ken White 2022

Ken White

Ken M. White (Brattleboro, VT), who counseled gay men to visualize themselves in the palm of a smiling God’s hand, now rests securely in that Divine hand. Ken died from prostate cancer at home on Saturday, January 4, 2025, attended by his partner of 41 years (and husband of 10), John Linscheid, and his little terrier, Chessie. A spirited gay man, Ken was a passionate lover of men, faerie godparent to a queer multitude, stander of stones, profligate gardener, a metal sculptor, mental-health advocate, weaver of queer ritual, and conversational explorer of soul and spirit. He was 73 years old.

Born in Leavenworth, KS, to Dorothy Dean (Chamberlain) White and John Ellis White, Ken spent his youth in Kansas, Wyoming, and Montana, graduating high school from Cut Bank, MT (1969). He earned his Bachelor of Arts from Rocky Mountain College, Billings, MT (1973), and his Master of Arts from United Theological Seminary, Dayton, OH (1977). He met the love of his life, John Linscheid, in Kansas in 1983, and their life together spanned Topeka, KS, Philadelphia, PA, and finally, Brattleboro, VT.

Together with John he led workshops on gay-male spirituality at Kirkridge Retreat Center, Bangor, PA, and fashioned a ritual to recognize the spiritual wisdom of gay elders including former priest John McNeill. He was a thirty-year member of Germantown Mennonite Church, Philadelphia, PA, where he supported and helped lead its journey to become a fully LGBTQ-inclusive congregation. Over the years, he was also active in the Brethren Mennonite Council for LGBT Interests

Vermont had a special place in Ken’s heart, starting with camping trips with John, continuing with rehabbing a bright red cottage near Newfane, and culminating in the purchase of a home in Brattleboro in 2017. There his retirement pursuits included gardening, jewelry-making, metal sculpting, and the quest to explore in conversation with others the depths of gay-male, queer, and even straight spirituality. A lover of people, Ken was always one to bring folks together, whether at Temple University, in his Philadelphia home, his church community, or his Brattleboro neighborhood on Chestnut Hill.

Ken had a multi-faceted professional history. He was a foster parent in San Francisco, CA. He was Director of Breakthrough House in Topeka, KS, a multi program agency serving people with serious mental illness. He ministered as student pastor at Topeka’s Metropolitan Community Church. He served as Division Director of Mental Health for COMHAR, Inc. Philadelphia. PA. He served at Temple University School of Social Administration as Director of the Case Management Institute, Director of Continuing Education and Training, and Coordinator of BSW Admissions and Advising. Ken briefly raised Christmas trees on ten acres of family ground in Kansas. He also was a landlord in the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia, PA, for twenty years.

Ken’s love for his family, parents, brothers, cousins, and extended relatives gained expression in his research into family history and genealogy. In addition to his husband, Ken is survived by a brother, John Charles White of Topeka, KS; brother-in-law David Linscheid and wife Cynthia of North Newton, KS; brother-in-law Steven Linscheid and partner Anne Crichton of Washington Grove, MD; nephew Aaron Linscheid and wife Caitlin of Fairway, KS; nephew Joel Linscheid and wife Kim Schmidt of Davenport, IA, great-nephews Adam and Coen Linscheid of Fairway, KS; beloved cousins in Kansas, Missouri and Michigan; and many, many chosen family members he touched on life’s journey. Ken was preceded in death by both his parents, a brother Phillip White and his parents-in-law Ruth and J. Willard Linscheid.

Ken chose to be cremated, and a Memorial Gathering was held on Saturday, April 12, 2025, 12:00-2:00 pm, at 118 Elliott Street in Brattleboro, Vermont, where Ken had shown his work.

His body has died. His spirit journeys with us.

Trudging Home

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dimly lit road at nightI step off the train into Brattleboro’s darkness. It is 5:00 o’clock, but the sun had set before we reached Greenfield. I cross the road and head up Main Street. My briefcase hangs on a strap around my neck. I lift the bag of lunches (food for more than two) packed by Ruth and Beth. And I pull my suitcase behind me. What little traffic has backed up on Main disappears quickly once the train clears the crossing. I am left alone, trudging up the steep sidewalk. Dark store windows follow my progress. Even the restaurants have closed for Thanksgiving.

For reasons too tedious to enumerate, my Gay Old Soulmate and I headed different directions at Thanksgiving this year. I, back to our new home here in Brattleboro. But since I’ve only lived here a week, it doesn’t feel quite like coming home.

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No One to Call

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phone dialWe are home, my Gay Old Soulmate and I.  And there is no one to call.  No number to dial.  No one to pick up the phone at the other end and hear my report, “we’re back home in Philadelphia” (really meaning, “we’re safely home”). Mom is dead.

We three sons were with her when she died.  Although she suffered little pain, the cancer that killed her made much of her last months miserable.  She had complained several times that she didn’t understand why dying had to take so long.  She was ready.  And we readily released her.  Hers had been a good life, a full life. I won’t say it was a good ending—but it wasn’t a bad one.  And now she no longer lives there, back home, in Kansas.  I find it hard to wrap my head around the absence, much less my heart.

My father died in 1992 after a long, pain-filled struggle with prostate cancer.  About three months later, my Gay Old Soulmate and I were awakened by a call informing us that my uncle had also died—unexpectedly of a heart attack.  Since he and his family lived about an hour’s drive from us, Mom (still grieving my father’s death) flew out immediately to Philadelphia to spend time with my aunt.  My Gay Old Soulmate and I had also rushed to my aunt’s house when we heard the news. So when Mom arrived to stay in our guest room, I apologized that we had not properly cleaned the house in preparation.

“My house is always clean,” she replied.  “No one lives there anymore.”

That quiet sentence, a vessel of bottomless absence, pierced my heart then.  It has forever since, each time I recall the words.  And now, it comes back to me more achingly deep than ever, because, we have made it home, and there is no one to call.

A Holy Picture on My Wall

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barn


I dream a dusty path
where cattle obliterate the grass,
making their routine pilgrimages
past a looming red barn
through weedy green pastures
to a creek’s still waters.

 

I never lived here,
a generation removed
from where I grew up
playing town-kid games,
seeing fields and pastures
only as a wilderness for imagination.

Fence posts mark a corner
where a barbed-wire crown dangles
half-wrapped back upon itself,
and dense hedge trees with their own barbs
grow lime-green apples
as rough as a farmer’s hands.

Distant from the farm
as from the gardens
that bracket my salvation,
I dream it as a sacred painting
an idealized icon
shining on my path.

I frame that glistening dream
now foreign to my life
and hang it as a blessing
to grace my older days,
like Jesus in the garden
or knocking at the door.

Leaving Dorothy’s House*

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shelf with missing itemsFor three days following her funeral
I have been desperate to be home
overanxious to putter in my own kitchen
to doze off in my own bed

Now the day to leave has come
My back clings to this mattress
stretching out the minutes
If we don’t rise, we won’t have to go

Her reflection fades already
in the transformation of this place
as we sort her things
deciding their fate

This house will not be hers again
nor frame her presence for us
Departing requires that someday
we come back to her absence

 

*My Gay Old Soulmate’s mother (my mother-in-law) died in mid-March. We had been gone from our home for a month and a half on various aspects of family business when she died.  An amazing woman, she had prepared us well and she was ready to make the transition from life and flesh. In multiple respects, we were ready to go.  But the reality that she is no longer there will come home to us for a long time.  I wrote the words above on the day we left her home in Kansas to return to ours in Philadelphia.

For My Gay Old Soulmate on Our 31st Anniversary

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(two months and twelve days after legal marriage)

male coupleLove of my life,
how redundant it felt
to make vows of marriage
having traveled
a thirty-one year road.

Did we not take vows the night we
set out on this journey:
anointed by coffee at Perkins
sanctified on a sofabed alter?

Neither of us anticipated then
that a day would come
when force of law would bind us.
But court rulings do not define the heart.

On our thirty-first anniversary of love,
I undertake this vow:

No “I do” shall supersede
our queer covenant:

to be friends and lovers first
and married second

to value spiritual growth
above conventional relationship
and create “family”
intentionally

to dance across the lines
of social respectability
and seek justice
promiscuously

to celebrate sexuality
spiritually
and sex
playfully

to risk adventure
flagrantly
and seek joy
recklessly

So that whatever life may throw in our path,
our world may be renewed
just by our traveling
together.

A Comfortable Company

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Men on a sofaMy Gay Old Soulmate and I settle in to the company of older gay men, joined by younger companions. Why do I relax so readily in the sofa, unguarded? We are, in fact, just getting familiar with thse men. But though we come, in some respects, from divergent backgrounds, in others, we share a history.

The unfolding conversation confirms it. One man knows of the Rock River, up to its nude, gay, swimming holes. Another mentions a bath house, and we all remember the unfearful sex of the seventies. Then, a word or two turns us to more sober times, when the angel of death lived even more closely among us than it does today (or so we imagine). The musings and the stories–always the stories–continue.

This is more than aging veterans tiresomely repeating old battle tales.  Continue reading →

Empty Pillow

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pilloeAn introvert, I used to relish my Gay Old Soulmate’s trips away. Time alone. Quiet space lacking even the silent demand of an unspeaking partner, sitting at desks, back to back.  My introverted personality magnifies my vigilance. I sit, consciously and unconsciously aware of what I imagine the other wants or needs (while quite probably oblivious to his or her real need).  Time alone–a little gift from the circumstances to enjoy.

No longer.  I lie painfully aware of the emptiness beside me.  All the writing, computer work, and organizing I dreamed I would accomplish in his absence is not getting done. I want him in the other room.  Watching some annoying TV program.  I miss his presence upstairs.  I even push bed time back with distractions.  He will be home soon enough, and I’ll imagine I would get more done if he weren’t here.  But I am fooling myself.

I used to believe that I would never be one of those men who dies six months after his soulmate.  Now I’m not so sure.

Queer Brother to a Prodigal Son

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(compare Luke 15:11-32)

Lone tree with personGrowing up,
I was the good one:
choir, Torah study, youth group, prayers;
more confident in righteousness
than Paul in the flesh.

At home, too.
Chores:
did I ever complain?
Hated farming and dutifully trudged
to the south forty.

He skipped off to the creek;
thought Dad couldn’t smell
bottles buried under
camouflaging newspaper
in the trash.

Mostly, he was a real man;
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