Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - November 22, 1987, Winnipeg, Manitoba Pay your Bills using the Telephone 9479300 Adl vision of Conche services limited 298 Garry r3c1h3 Winnipeg free press november pages 1324 sunday by Doreen Martens Bill Lewis stood with a Friend outside a room in the University of Manitoba Stu Dent Union building one night in his Knees trying to make up his mind to go he had done this a couple of times each time turning his Back on the door and hurrying but that night the clean shaven student mustered the Cour age to choosing to sit Cross legged on the floor at the Back of the room packed with Gay men to avoid having to be seen walking to the by the end of the meeting his nerves were his Muscles so stiff he could hardly get his legs but what mattered was that until then a closet to had come there would be no turning when Lewis died of aids in to Ronto on he was mourned by Gay activists in both Winnipeg and Toronto and by others who regardless of their feelings about his lifestyle knew him As a Brilliant student and research funds he will be remembered especially for one poignant fact that after three years of fighting for a share of scarce research he was on the Brink of turning his formidable gifts As a microbiologist to studying the very syndrome that felled in sure Bill would have made Good Progress in that area if he had says Jim a univer sity of Manitoba professor of Micro biology who supervised Lewiss doctoral work Here in the he was extremely to hardworking and made significant contributions to science during his Short the real tragedy is that he died just when i think he was starting to reach his who Learned a year ago that he carried the aids had finally received word of a aids research Grant from health and welfare Canada in he was Busy getting a lab set up when he had his first and unexpectedly final bout with pneuma Cystis Carinio a typical com plication of the aids he was add often wary of the spotlight yet wholly committed to Gay he was a curious mix Ture of sober scientist and Radical in the 70s though you didst hear his name much helped shape Winnipeg nascent Gay movement in his of time while put Ting years into research that would have an Impact in labs born William Harry Lewis in Ottawa on March hed grown up an armed forces migrating from one base to another around Eastern Canada and France with parents Edwin and Margaret de and Peggy to and Brothers Dan and excelled As student the family finally came to Roost in Winnipeg in settling into a House on the we twin base at 56 Leicester Bill excelled As a student at Sil ver Heights pulling Marks in the upper 80s and Glen who still teaches at the James remembers Bill As a keen student who used to come in to help set up chemistry experiments and who returned after graduation to help judge Sci ence fair by then his parents had retired to Vancouver and Lewis had stayed on to study in he hooked up with who was studying drug resistant mutant cells to understand Why cancer patients be come resistant to Bill Lewis died of aids in Toronto on september microbe oboist felled by killer he was to Battle in the Laboratory Wright remembers him As one of his Best a quiet Guy who got on Well with Lewis became More vocal about Gay rights issues As the Campus Gay once basically a social evolved into an advocacy group now called Gays for naive in those Days he never mixed the two in his so i want involved in too Many discussions about that Side of his says All of us were somewhat naive about Gay issues in those including myself and my but i think out of respect for Bill and his abilities As a and from our firsthand knowledge of what kind of an individual he it was no problem for any of perhaps he educated us at that time without us even realizing Lewiss study of a particular Type of resistant cell and the regulation of an important enzyme involved in Dan synthesis eventually led to refinements in methodology that be came internationally useful to scientists working in related the same sense of discipline that often kept him at the lab into the wee hours marked Lewiss style in dealing with Gay when he knew something was he was grimly determined to carry it even though he didst have an endless amount of self con remembers Chris still Gay activist he want a leftist of the sort that we had a lot of in those who sat around and endlessly Analysed he Seldom lyse anything knew in a straightforward Way what needed to be and he just went ahead and did he went out the door and Down the Street into whoever of fice it was and confronted As a Winnipeg a place that was supposed to be in the Boondocks was then and in Many respects remains far ahead of other places in the country As far As the Gay movement is without who organized the first National Gay rights Confer ence Here in the group might have degenerated into some of the other less constructive Behaviours that groups like that being argumentative or factional or ideological or says the group started a controversial tap message hotline that for a while rang in Lewiss apartment in an old redbrick Block on the Corner of Stafford and strangely impractical at he kept the answering machine swathed in Pil lows until somebody explained lie could turn the ringing mechanism though soft spoken and not the Type to Lewis often brought Contro Versy on risking Wrath at a time when there was Little tolerance for openly homosexual Phil a Friend from those says it seemed Lewis Felt so relieved to discover coming out want As big a Deal As he had that he wanted to share his Relief with other at one Point he designed an illustrated pamphlet called live and let which he then distributed not Only at Public events but to desks in his own lab it was his Way of dealing with the invisibility he Felt resided at the Root of society prejudice against save u but it was especially to he was extremely hard Lewis during research Days at the u of w in cause the pamphlet contained Pic Tures that had what everyone in sure would have taken to be pretty horrifying says they we rent at All inde but they were pretty straight on Lewis was one of several Gay men beaten up in win Nipges first recorded Gay bashing incident while leaving a University Gays for Equality the final event of Winnipeg first Gay Pride Toronto lawyer Harvey Ham another victim of the remembers Lewis later tacking a Manitoban Story about the incident up on Board in his depart ment to try to Force people to Deal with the several times others removed the and Lewis undaunted As always put it up he had a Lover for a but Toronto seemed to hold the Promise of a fresh Start in that depart Lewis had turned Down a postdoc toral position at Bostons famed Massachusetts Institute of technology because of the schools dog eat dog he went to the University of Toronto and Lou Sirni Novitch lab to do re search on will mss a child Hood form of kidney i remember him saying when he was this is it he was going to he was going to get himself in shape physically and he was going to go out there and find says its adds that Lewiss determination to have a full Persona life and not be cheated out of things by the circumstances of society May have led to the sexual whatever it that caused him to catch Odd soon Lewis got to know Michael an English professor who had once written a profile of Lewis for the body poli lovers for four they remained Good friends after Lewis had gone on to two other relation bought Home four years Lewis and Lynch bought a victorian gently close to the University and renovated it into two though living they still talked for an hour or every Day Over a morning cup of Coffee or a lat night Glass of i Haven Ever met anyone who was so alive with what he was doing at the says who re members Lewis often excitedly sharing is latest Bright idea with no scientist his enthusiasm was part of what made Lewis the absolutely Brilliant teacher remembered by Rose associate Dean of who told 250 mourn ers at a memorial service in one of the University gothic Halls that Lewis had an instinct for where the cutting Edge of a science would strike but it was the aids crisis that finally connected his two great Pas Gay politics and Lewis helped found a counselling the aids committee of to when the syndrome was still commonly labelled Gay hysteria warning in thoughtful articles in the body he took a moderate position warning against infuriating other activists who at the time wanted a Public juror to get a Lewis connected with a group of researchers already working in the Field together with doctors Stanley read and Mary fanning who would form the clinical Arm of the team for a slice of what was then a very Small pie in terms of government funds Lor aids his plans to do molecular genetic analysis of his virus Iso lants might have led ultimately to development of a vaccine against says who believes it May be impossible to replace pneumonia hit he and Lynch were both scheduled to begin taking the antiviral when the pneumonia including the gang of friends who gathered under his Toronto general Hospital win Dow one Day to shout their assumed it would Only mean a stay of a few since most aids patients dont Suc Cumb to the first but As the pneumonia got out of Lynch called de and Peggy As with Many Gay Lewiss relationship with is Middle class parents had been though he tried harder than Many might have to help them feel comfortable with his tilings had Wanned during the past few and when the end they were extra or says Lynch Ive been around too Many friends who have died and whose parents have come in and ignored the friends and taken Bills parents embraced me and Bills Lover Sean who had come Over from England and treated us As by they would say to the Hospital doctors and nurses when the question of the term immediate family came these Are Bills immediate family and Point to Charleswood 4910 Roblin River Heights 580 Academy downtown Winnipeg Square East Kildonan 969 Henderson Garden City 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