Joseph Brewer

I never had the honor of meeting Joe Brewer but isn't life odd that this evening I was thinking about him and decided to look him up? I was saddened to read of his passing. In 1990 when I read of Vito Russo's passing I wanted to get in touch with his mother. I remembered in a documentary Vito mentioned being in Hawaii with Joe Brewer when Vito's partner Jeffrey passed away. I called Joe's office and he was kind enough to put me in touch with Arnie Kantrowitz who then put me in touch with Ann...

I woke this morning - Jan. 13, 2020 - thinking about Joe and googled him only to discover his obituary online. I am so saddened by this news. We were good friends in San Francisco in the 1970s and into the 1990s, when life changes caused us to lose touch. We had many mutual friends in the gay and AIDS communities. After I moved to NYC to live with Vito Russo, I stayed at Joe's whenever I was back in SF. I remember well the last meal we shared on one of those visits. I admired Joe's ...

I lived with Joe in San Franc Isco in 1970 and 1971 and we remained close for many years, visiting each other in New York, where I moved, and In San Francisco, where he remained. About ten years ago we seemed to loose contact, but rarely has a day passed when I did not think of him. Ironically, he appears to have been living just a few miles from me in the desert.
I would dearly like to write to his sister and brother, whom I remember fondly and to shake the hand of Tyler, his husband...

Mark Greenberg

[email protected]

43893 Via Granada
Palm Desert CA 92211

Joe and I were lovers -- the term of art in those days -- in the early 1970s in San Francisco. We remained friends for many years after, he in San Francisco, I in New York. For no good reason we lost contact with each other some years ago.

It came, then, as a body blow to read of his death this morning in the Desert Sun, and worse, to discover that he'd been living so close to me here in the desert.

I would dearly like to write his sister and brother, both of whom I remember...

Joe was in my class at Decatur High . I think I knew even back then that Joe was gay. He was a friendly boy, and extremely smart. I never knew what happened to Joe after we all graduated, but that seems to be the way it always happens. People go their own way and live states away from where they grew up. I am glad that Joe was happy.

Carol Barnwell Cole
Class of 1962