Robert Jamroz:  

Life During graduate school in the early 1970s, my academic mentor, Dr. Manoel Cardozo, helped me in 'coming out' to my family and equally important introduced me to the gay professional, academic, political, legislative, and clerical circles within the Metro Baltimore-Richmond-DC areas. Dr. Cardozo had such a important and positive impact upon my life that, in his honor, a substantial bequest is made to The Catholic University of America in his honor. Accompaning Dr. Cardozo to a cocktail reception given by His Eminence William Cardinal Baum in the Spring of 1967, I met my first lover/partner who was also a graduate student transferring from the University of Maryland to Catholic University after having taken his A.B. at the University of Dallas and his M.A. at Southern Methodist University; David and I were together for ten years: we helped each other through graduate school, the comprehensive exams, finishing the dissertation, and mounting the defense. David's father, a prime investor in the Burris Flour Mills Corporation in Dallas, was quite open minded for the time ((his older son Doug was openly gay and had interests in properties in Las Vegas), graciously purchased us a home in the Foxhall Road section of DC for our period in graduate school - our neighbors were the-then Secretary of Commerce, the then Secretary of Defense, the-then Undersecretary of State, the-then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the-then Apostolic Delegate (ambassador) of the Vatican, and the-then President of Georgetown University. Our next door neighbor , Henry Bradford (of the Massachusetts Bradfords) [read the Mayflower]) was particularly friendly and often had us join he and his family at their estate on Cape Cod .After we took our Ph.D.s we both began teaching at local colleges - David at Anne Arundel College and I joined the faculty of American University- , and we adopted an 18 year old son - John - who was ejected from his family because he was homosexual; we subsequently provided John with both an undergraduate and law school education; he is currently practicing law in Dallas with his lover/partner, Duane, whom he met in law school; they have an adopted son, William, who is also gay and a graduate student at the University of Chicago where we took his Ph.D. in 2011; William and his lover/partner spent 2 years at Oxford University (United Kingdom) on Fellowship. In early 2013 William took up his professorship at Loyola of Chicago while his husband George returned to his law firm specializing in business tax law.. During our graduate school years David and I invested in beach property in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware; began restoring townhouses on Capitol Hill; obtained brokers licences and opened our own real estate firm. After we began teaching and, equally important, obtained tenure, we opened a gourmet food emporium in the-then-new suburb of Lake Ridge in Occoquan, Virginia, and owned and operated, The Fireplace, a gay dance bar in the Dupont Circle neighborhood. We were also charter members of Gamma Mu, a gay social club that innovated the weekend fly-in concept of entertaining. Gamma Mu, based upon a group of young professional gay men in Dallas who, beginning in 1970, flew each weekend to NYC for metropolitan opera performances, also operates a foundation that provides rural gay youth with support. David and I remained closely involved in business ventures until his tragic death from brain cancer in 2005. Over the past 46 years, I have had the joy of David's continued close friendship and the unquestioning love and loyalty of my lover/partner/husband, Jordan. We legally married in September 2011 and our marriage was blessed by Monsignor Francis Kazista and HIs Eminence Theodore Cardinal McCarrick - two very close friends - during a private Celebratory Solemn Mass at St Patrick's Church in DC.. We are founding members of the fund raising arm of the Gay Mens Chorus of Washington; members of the DC Chapter of the International Black Tie Club (of which I am the current President), a gay mens club of professionals; founding members of Equality Virginia which is dedicated to obtaining equal rights for gays and lesbians; we also support and subscribe to the Bach Consort, The Chantry Chorus, the National Symphony and the Washington Opera. Jordan and I live a very rich, full, socially active, and fortunate life. We visit our son John and his husband Duane in Dallas often; we visit Jordan's family in Chicago as well as my grandson William and his husband George often as well; we attend four or five Black Tie events across the United States and Canada; we spend just about a month each year in Europe visiting quiet, un-noticed places; and we enjoy raising our yorkshire terriers. En fin, I am and have been quite fortunate; loving and supportive parents; an academic mentor who early on saw that I was both highly intelligent and gay, and equally important, decided to guide me; a first lover/partner who became like a brother to me; and my current lover/partner/husband without whom my life would be simply empty. College Undergraduate school was an explosion of appetites, primarily but not exclusively academic. My personal life and experiences were expanded in joining the editorial staff of THE TOWER newspaper, the Fine Arts Council, Phi Alpha Theta fraternity, a treasured honorary member...Expand for more