From Ellen Maremont Silver

Ellen Maremont Silver
Sebastopol, CA

My partner Robyn and I had lived in Sonoma County, CA about a year when I got a call from Digital Queers, a high tech association. Someone needed help with his computer. I wasn't all that technically adept, but I was able to help Roy Aarons, and, much to our mutual delight, we both had a new friendship: another queer Jew, right in our town of Sebastopol!

In the past 10 years, my relationship with Roy has been as much professional as personal. Once he recruited me to be on the Board of We the People--and oh, Roy was a masterful recruiter to any cause he chose--we worked closely together for the next three years. There are so many ups and downs with LGBT publications: not enough money, not enough staff, too many drama queens and too many hats for each person to wear. But Roy didn't dwell on obstacles. He saw them clearly, and then charged through. His was a strategy of a survivor, and it served him and all of us very well.

I also wrote for We the People. It¹s the kind of paper with lots of reviewers and columnists, and not nearly enough reporters, most of us with little or no formal journalism training. One night several of us gathered in the kitchen at the Aarons/Boneh home while Roy taught a 2-hour Journalism 101. He helped us with the basics because he had great vision for the paper, always pushing everyone involved to improve. We were so very fortunate to have this national talent drop into the middle of our rural county. My sense was that he took We the People as seriously as all the great papers he worked on.

Roy had great vision for all of life. What I experienced was his tireless passion for making the world a better place through pursuit of his personal interests: journalism, politics, LGBT rights, his Jewish heritage, music, travel, and always, his love for his partner Joshua.