Epilogue
I met Jack Strouss on September 19, 2007 and heard some of the stories from his oral history first hand. Jack also showed me some things he still owned that were given to him by Bill, including some books and many of the letters that have now been transferred to the Atlanta History Center. He played a version of his composition of Bill’s poem Tender Years on his piano for me.
Jack had feared something terrible had happened to Bill soon after their correspondence was interrupted, however, I found evidence of Bill first in the Agnes Moorehead Papers at the Wisconsin Historical Society. He had written a script for her and mailed it to her directly. This letter was dated April 29, 1959, almost four years after his last letter to Jack. The script is titled The Stone Woman.
I later discovered his panel on the AIDS Memorial Quilt. William Deveaux Wilson died May 8, 1991. Thursday, October 16, 2008, Jack Strouss and I visited the NAMES Foundation in Atlanta where the Quilt is now housed. The staff had the portion of the quilt with Bill’s panel on display for us when we arrived. We spent some time looking it over, and I read to Jack the letter composed by Bill’s partner, which told about how he made the quilt and gave some details about their lives together.
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