Pod Insights Personally Resurrection, Episode 3: Kansas (Part One) About this episode In this episode, we go to Kansas.
The creation of this podcast was made possible thanks to the financial support of the Conseildes arts de Montréal, le Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Transcript 5,212 words · 14 speakers
0:00 Speaker 00 Hi, I just had to tell you that I think your podcast has changed my life.
0:06 Speaker 01 Season one of Sold a Story hit a nerve. It was about teaching kids to read. We have gotten this wrong in New York and all across the nation. Now we're back with a new season. This time, we go beyond reading.
0:19 Speaker 00 I've literally been told by my district that I should not be teaching math. I should be facilitating math.
0:26 Speaker 01 I'm Emily Hanford. Go to your podcast app and follow Sold a Story.
0:31 Speaker 02 This is a CBC Podcast.
0:34 Speaker 03 Welcome back. Everything you're about to hear, this whole episode, is from a trip I took way back in November of 2019. So put your tray tables up and fasten your seatbelts, folks. It's time for takeoff.
0:49 Speaker 04 Ladies and gentlemen, we will be departing soon. Before closing the boarding door, federal regulations require all carry-on items are stowed completely underneath the seat in front of the boarding and overhead bin.
1:01 Speaker 03 This is Resurrection, a podcast that tells the stories of ordinary queer people who were lost to HIV.
1:08 Speaker 01 Merge onto US 69 South.
1:10 Speaker 03 Oh, my God, are you recording this? You're recording me merging onto a highway? Literally my greatest fear in the entire world. Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God.
1:22 Speaker 03 After spending two years reading through Daryl's handwritten letters, poring over his scripts, and interviewing his ex-lover, Dan, we're on our way to his childhood home. I'm so stressful. Hello, we're in Kansas. Welcome to Kansas. How's it feel to be in Kansas? That's Matt, my producer. He's on this road trip with me. I was thinking about this on the plane, actually. I was thinking about how it feels like this project has been about the idea of Daryl in a certain sense, and it's always kept him relatively abstract. And I think just coming to this place, coming to where he was from, seeing his, like, the
2:06 Speaker 03 house he grew up in, these other places that are super meaningful to him, and like, his surviving family members actually meeting with him and talking to him, I'm thinking that it's going to take the project out of the abstract for the, maybe for the first time. So, I don't know, but maybe I'm setting the expectations too high. Maybe it's all gonna be a bust.
2:33 Speaker 05 Before we get deep into Kansas, let's review what we know going into this trip. First, by reading a huge stash of love letters from Daryl, written to his partner Dan in the 1970s and 80s, we learned that his mother lived in a town called Cherryvale. In fact, Daryl even sent Dan the address while he was staying with her back in the 80s.
2:53 Speaker 06 My mom's address and telephone number are 908 Cherryvale, Kansas, 67335.
3:00 Speaker 05 And Cherryvale seemed like an important place for Daryl. He spent a few months there every so often, helping his mom out. After all, she was in her 90s.
3:07 Speaker 06 If I hadn't have been here this winter, Mom would have been shut in by the weather up until last week, so I am glad I could do it. But it has been the hardest stay in Kansas I've had.
3:21 Speaker 05 Daryl even invited Dan, who was in Montreal, to come down to an Allen family reunion in the 1980s.
3:29 Speaker 06 Listen, you guys, you are invited to Cherryvale next summer. When I was here before writing you, we talked about having a family reunion. Anyway, a nephew and I are setting it up. I insisted that with modern lifestyles, we needed to ensure everyone that extended family members would be welcome also.
3:46 Speaker 05 Obviously, Cherryvale was important to Daryl, so we add his mom's old address to the list of places we need to visit. We were also able to find a record online for the location of Daryl's gravestone. Although he died in Boston, apparently he was buried in a cemetery just a short drive from Cherryvale. We add it to the list. Next, we track down a few of his surviving relatives. By now, all eight of his siblings have died, but you'll remember from last episode, we tracked down his niece.
4:17 Speaker 07 Dane, this is Debbie Eastman, and yes, I am Daryl Allen's niece.
4:22 Speaker 05 Debbie is the daughter of Daryl's brother, Richard, and she had a sister named Cindy and two cousins named Ellen and Dorothy. All four of them are down to talk to us. So, that's our plan for Kansas: an old address in Cherryvale, a cemetery, and four nieces. But there's one more person I have to introduce you to at this point in the story, because he's pretty important. That's my good friend turned producer, Matthew Karyatzmeri. Matt.
4:51 Speaker 08 Hello, hello.
4:52 Speaker 05 Who came along with me on this trip. He's the one who was asking me questions in the car earlier.
4:57 Speaker 08 What would it look like or feel like for you to
5:03 Speaker 08 transform Daryl from an idea to something more tangible?
5:09 Speaker 05 Matt was essential to us pulling this trip off. And honestly, it's no wonder why. He's got tons of great qualities. For example, he's really good at being supportive when I get stressed out about driving. Oh my god.
5:22 Speaker 08 Are you merging?
5:23 Speaker 05 No.
5:25 Speaker 08 Are you merging with that looking?
5:27 Speaker 05 He asks really insightful interview questions.
5:29 Speaker 08 What do you think of the weather here?
5:32 Speaker 05 And he did a lot of keen research into local wildlife before we departed for Kansas.
5:38 Speaker 03 What's a possum?
5:41 Speaker 08 A big rodent with like a curly tail, like a naked tail, kind of like a big rat.
5:48 Speaker 03 Do those live here?
5:50 Speaker 08 Let's go with yes.
5:52 Speaker 03 Then I think I saw one of them.
5:55 Speaker 08 Let the record show that the dead possum tally is standing at one.
6:01 Speaker 03 No one's ever gonna pick up this podcast.
6:04 Speaker 08 I'm okay with that.
6:06 Speaker 05 In all seriousness, this podcast wouldn't have happened without Matt. He's been here for every step of the process. For years, we poured all our free time into this project. Evenings and weekends, after our normal people jobs. All on some hope and some trust that this story's worth sharing. Matt didn't have to help, but he did. And I'm glad that you get to meet him.
6:29 Speaker 08 Where are we?
6:30 Speaker 05 We are just driving into Independence, Kansas.
6:33 Speaker 03 Oh, oh, oh. I thought there was an exit here. There's not.
6:37 Speaker 05 Matt and I decided to make our home base in a town of about 9,000 people called Independence. It's central, about 10 minutes from Cherryvale and from the cemetery. Plus, a couple of Daryl's nieces live here.
6:50 Speaker 08 Can you describe your first impressions of Independence?
6:54 Speaker 03 I mean, I think Kansas, so far, I would describe it as somewhat dustier than places that I'm used to.
6:59 Speaker 05 We were in Kansas in November, and it had this golden hue to it. The sunlight eased down onto the fields and roads and houses.
7:09 Speaker 03 It reminds me of just like that main strip that you'd see in like a western film, just these like shop fronts. But a bit more like Midwest America. Midwest rural America, like all American town, like gold and silver shop. A flea market.
7:29 Speaker 05 Everything in Kansas felt slower. It felt preserved in gold dust, suspended in time. It was the perfect place to hunt a ghost. First thing to do was check in at our Airbnb and then plan our next move.
7:45 Speaker 03 Yeah, this is going to be an experience. Peace out.
7:50 Speaker 05 Now, as much as I was excited about uncovering more of Daryl's life, a part of me was nervous. I was a little scared coming into a small town in rural, conservative America and going around asking about a bisexual man. And you might be thinking that seems a little overblown, but that's because there's something I haven't told you yet. Earlier, I said that all of Daryl's siblings have passed away. And that is true as of right now, but it wasn't true when we were in Kansas. At that point, one of Daryl's brothers was still alive. And I managed to get him on the phone before we went to Kansas.
8:32 Speaker 05 Hello? Uh, hi, is this [BLEEP] Alan? Who are you? My name is Dane Stewart. I'm an artist and a radio producer based in Montreal in Canada. And I've actually been working on a project for the last year or so about a man named Daryl, Alan, who I believe is your brother. And I was hoping to ask you a couple of questions about him. Wait, is this a good time for you to speak for a few minutes?
9:07 Speaker 09 No, I'm very busy. Thank you.
9:10 Speaker 05 Oh, would there be another time that I might be able to? It didn't go well, but I persisted. And eventually, I did get him to agree to a phone interview where he did not hang up on me. For the most part, he seemed like a relatively nice, albeit a curmudgeonly man in his 90s. Until I asked, "Did you...
9:37 Speaker 05 Did you ever have a chance to meet any of his partners? I know he dated a couple of men in the 80s."
9:46 Speaker 09 No, I never dated any of his AIDS buddies.
9:53 Speaker 05 Okay.
9:54 Speaker 09 And I didn't approve of him either. If I had, I met him.
9:58 Speaker 05 If you missed that, he said he never met any of Daryl's AIDS buddies. I've talked before about the darkness that grew inside me when I realized I was gay. This is the sort of shit that darkness thrives on.
10:14 Speaker 05 I remember my heart thumping in my throat during that phone call. And this, this is why I was nervous coming to Kansas.
10:23 Speaker 05 But despite the fear, we hit a pretty lucky break within just a few minutes of checking into our Airbnb.
10:29 Speaker 08 Okay, Dane, can you summarize what we just experienced?
10:36 Speaker 05 It's, uh, difficult to summarize. So, we...
10:43 Speaker 05 When we arrived in Independence, we checked into our Airbnb, hosted by a wonderful woman named Jenny and her husband. And I had mentioned that I was writing a play about a gay man, and she mentioned that there was an LGBT meetup at a local bar in Independence called Uncle Jack's.
11:08 Speaker 03 So we uh put our stuff away, got ready and went out to this LGBT meetup at Uncle Jack's. It was overwhelming, in a good way, in a positive way. Um, we got to the bar and we saw this table of a couple, uh, about five or six, uh, mostly younger people who we thought aesthetically looked like they might be a little bit queer. So we checked in with them and it turned out that they they were the meetup. Uh, so we started chatting with them.
11:49 Speaker 03 Uh, we had a wonderful man from another table, uh, come over named Todd, who seems like he's one of the resident gays of Independence, uh, if not one of the the queen gays of Independence. It was just overwhelming the amount of, uh, sort of support and inclusivity and interest that, uh, that we received just immediately upon arriving. Like, we've been here for maybe two hours and, uh, like, I feel like we've met so many of the people from the queer community in Independence, which honestly, when we came here, I was like, is there gonna be a queer community in Independence?
12:32 Speaker 03 And as it turns out, there is one, so I'm really...
12:36 Speaker 05 Todd agrees to sit down with us for an interview in a couple of days. We take down his number and the evening's been a success so far. We feel lit up inside, uh, burning like a big ol' gay flame in our hearts that keeps the darkness at bay. So we decide to head somewhere else.
12:56 Speaker 03 Where are we? We've just pulled up to the Liberty Cemetery. Uh, it's nine twenty-four PM and we are going to see if we can find, uh, where Daryl is buried.
13:17 Speaker 03 You have to turn the lights off? I think.
13:22 Speaker 10 Look at the stars.
13:25 Speaker 03 Holy shit, yeah. Should we have some sort of strategy?
13:30 Speaker 05 As it turns out, yes. We absolutely should have had some kind of strategy. It was a massive cemetery and we had no idea where Daryl's grave was. We had nothing to go off of, aside from Matt's intellect.
13:44 Speaker 10 So it's a flat gray stone?
13:50 Speaker 10 Did I just describe every grave ever?
13:54 Speaker 03 Yes.
13:55 Speaker 05 Matt and I divide and conquer, and we search. Five minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes. We even find some relatives.
14:04 Speaker 10 This is his brother?
14:05 Speaker 03 So.
14:08 Speaker 10 Kenley Allen?
14:11 Speaker 05 But we can't find Daryl. And it doesn't help that it's freezing outside.
14:17 Speaker 03 It's got a touch of chili.
14:19 Speaker 10 Impetit purr. Yeah, my fingers are about to freeze off.
14:24 Speaker 05 And then, we realize that we're not entirely alone.
14:35 Speaker 10 I think those are coyotes in the distance. Or dogs.
14:39 Speaker 03 They could be dogs.
14:41 Speaker 10 Dane?
14:42 Speaker 05 We search in the cold for more than 30 minutes.
14:46 Speaker 10 Why don't we go back through this way towards the car? And if we can't see anything, maybe we warm up for a bit.
14:54 Speaker 10 Also, do you think those are coyotes in the distance? What do you think those are?
14:58 Speaker 03 Dogs.
15:00 Speaker 10 Maybe. I have no idea.
15:03 Speaker 05 Matt is ready to bail. He's let the fear get to him.
15:07 Speaker 10 Did you hear that stick crack? Was that you with that stick crack?
15:13 Speaker 03 It was.
15:14 Speaker 10 It scared me. I just want you to know that.
15:17 Speaker 05 Me, on the other hand, I have no fears. Well, almost.
15:27 Speaker 03 You didn't think about it?
15:35 Speaker 03 I think we should regroup in the car. Dane?
15:41 Speaker 03 Dane? Dane's running around.
15:46 Speaker 03 He's doing a last-ditched effort. I appreciate it.
15:50 Speaker 05 We're nearly ready to give up. When it dawned on me that this whole time, we were looking for stones with the last name Allen.
15:59 Speaker 03 It was just in the car where I realized that these maiden names Riordan, which seem to be a bunch of these ones.
16:08 Speaker 05 Could this be the key? Could Daryl be buried amongst the Riordan's? His mom's family?
16:15 Speaker 03 Here's Riordan. Chester and Mary.
16:21 Speaker 03 Oh, here, Minnie. Whoa.
16:25 Speaker 03 It's this one.
16:26 Speaker 05 We found it. We found Daryl's grave.
16:31 Speaker 05 The gravestone had weeds and plants growing over it. We had to scrape them away to read it.
16:38 Speaker 03 Daryl D. Allen. November 29th, 1938. October 16th, 1991.
16:48 Speaker 03 You found it.
17:05 Speaker 03 I don't know what to say. It's one of those moments when you look down and see a gravestone.
17:13 Speaker 03 And then you look up and see just a sky full of stars and you...
17:21 Speaker 03 I just overcome with the smallness and the vastness of it all at the same time and you don't know what to say.
17:32 Speaker 05 I think about how we all end up like this someday. Held fast to the ground, under thousands and thousands of stars. With nothing to do but watch the vast cogs of the universe working away. Same cogs that, through whatever fluke, or fate, or chance, somehow brings each of us into existence. And the same cogs that brought me to Daryl.
17:56 Speaker 03 This is where he is, in this crooked little gravestone, in a tiny little cemetery in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere.
18:09 Speaker 05 But it was somewhere to Daryl. I look at the crooked little gravestone tucked in next to his mom's, covered in weeds. And I wonder who came to see him buried. I wonder if his brother, who decried Daryl's lifestyle, was there. I wonder if the nieces we're going to meet had come. I wonder if they cried.
18:35 Speaker 03 It's very quiet and very peaceful, but very quiet.
18:42 Speaker 05 And with that, Matt and I decide to call it a night. First day in Kansas, complete.
18:55 Speaker 05 We'll be back, onto our second day in Kansas, right after this break.
19:10 Speaker 00 Hi, I just had to tell you that I think your podcast has changed my life.
19:16 Speaker 01 Season one of Sold a Story hit a nerve. It was about teaching kids to read. We have gotten this wrong in New York and all across the nation. Now we're back with a new season. This time, we go beyond reading.
19:29 Speaker 00 I've literally been told by my district that I should not be teaching math. I should be facilitating math.
19:36 Speaker 01 I'm Emily Hanford. Go to your podcast app and follow Sold a Story.
19:42 Speaker 03 Here we are. Dan is speeding through a construction site, deliberately ignoring the signs to give him a break.
19:52 Speaker 05 Sorry, I was talking to myself. Reminding myself that this stop sign means I have to stop. And now I have.
20:01 Speaker 05 Great. It's the next day.
20:12 Speaker 03 Can you give us an update on where we are and where we're going? We are now driving up the highway north to Cherryvale, where we haven't been before. But Cherryvale is where Daryl's mom was living through the 80s, when he kept coming back.
20:31 Speaker 05 I don't know what to expect in Cherryvale. It's a tiny town with less than 3,000 people. But I have images in my head of Daryl sitting with his mom.
20:42 Speaker 05 Maybe she's knitting, or cooking, or watching TV. And he's writing. Letters to Dan, revisions of his play Mustang 01. I picture a cozy house, a farmhouse, big enough for a family of 11 and all their Midwestern charm. What I wasn't expecting was this.
21:02 Speaker 03 What's the address we're looking for?
21:03 Speaker 05 902, 908?
21:04 Speaker 03 908. Confession, I think the building isn't there anymore, but...
21:09 Speaker 05 We go to the address from Daryl's letters, and there's nothing.
21:14 Speaker 03 Oh, okay, let's go back. I mean, I guess this was 30 years ago. It was. It was more than 30 years ago. It's possible the building's not there anymore.
21:25 Speaker 05 There are houses on either side, but right where Daryl should be, there's just a gap, an empty lawn of green grass.
21:32 Speaker 03 Okay, so you want to circle around and try to talk to the neighbors?
21:35 Speaker 05 We talk to one of the neighbors living next to the lot. She didn't want to be recorded. But she does tell us that she knew Bea Allen, and that there was never a house there. No house. But for many years, there was a trailer. Now, don't get me wrong. I am not hating on trailers. And I can even shift the images in my head.
21:59 Speaker 05 Daryl and his mom curled up in the trailer in December. A hot mug of tea and pages upon pages of writing taking up a crammed little dining room table. But there's no way that mom and pop Alan raised nine children in a trailer. Plus, what about the Alan family farm? My heart was set on visiting this farm, on seeing where it was that Daryl had spent his childhood. This was the first major roadblock we'd hit in Kansas. Thankfully, we still had another lead to pursue.
22:31 Speaker 03 We know that the Alan family at one point was living on a farm and we're hoping to get that information, that address, when we talk to some of Daryl's nieces later on today.
22:42 Speaker 05 In just a few hours' time, we have our first meeting with two of Daryl's nieces. The two we're meeting, Ellen and Dorothy, sisters, we've never spoken with before. Aside from quick emails and voicemails back and forth, both Ellen and Dorothy seem to prefer to wait until we met in person to get into anything. Now, this reminded me a bit of my small-town life in Atlantic Canada. You know, why bother scheduling things weeks in advance? Just call me when you're in town and I'll put on the kettle. But it made me a little nervous, too. This was the first time I'd be speaking with any of Daryl's relatives about his sexuality. Well, the first time since talking to his brother. And I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know their views. I didn't even know how much they knew.
23:27 Speaker 05 Was I about to posthumously out Daryl to his nieces? Was I about to reveal he had AIDS to people who never had a clue? And what right did I have, really, to be doing any of this? Good thing Matt's with me, to give me some emotional support and help me focus on what's important in the day ahead.
23:47 Speaker 08 Dear listener, there's a growing tension in this car between Matt and Dane's driving. Tune in to find out whether Matt ends up rolling out of the car as a demonstration of his frustration.
24:02 Speaker 05 Well, maybe I'll just get to the interview.
24:05 Speaker 03 State your full name, and then tell me just a little bit about yourself.
24:10 Speaker 11 Dorothy Whitaker. I used to live in Cherryvale, but I live here in Independence now. And I have two sons and three grandchildren. I worked at a factory here in Independence. Standard Motors is what it's called now. I worked there 37 years and retired six and a half years ago.
24:30 Speaker 12 And I'm Ellen Sewell and I live in Coffeyville. And I worked the same place she did. And I retired, what, five years ago? I have two sons and three grandchildren. And I've been married 48 years to the same man. And we're very happy sometimes. Anyway.
24:57 Speaker 05 Ellen and Dorothy are sweet. They give off strong mom energy. They're both in their 60s.
25:04 Speaker 03 How did you feel about that when you found out that I was digging around for information about Daryl?
25:08 Speaker 11 I said, "Well, what is this all about?" You know? And she said, "Oh, he just wants to think about Uncle Daryl." And I said, "Okay."
25:17 Speaker 05 They seem a little guarded, though. Again, I wonder if I'm throwing myself unwanted into another family's secrets. But maybe they're just nervous about the interview. We ease into it. I asked them what it's like living in Independence.
25:32 Speaker 12 Well, my granddaughter loves swimming over here at the park. They have a zoo out there, too.
25:38 Speaker 03 Can you tell me a bit more about your mom, about living here?
25:42 Speaker 12 She loved her brother. Oh, my gosh, she loved Daryl.
25:46 Speaker 05 And at this point, I feel ready to hear about Daryl firsthand from someone who knew him in Kansas.
25:52 Speaker 12 One thing about Daryl is he had an awesome laugh. When he laughed, it just...
26:00 Speaker 11 You could pick it out of a crowd. He taught me how to dance. We were dancing, I was looking down at his feet, and he said, "Don't ever look at the man's feet. Always look up. Look into their eyes." I go, "Okay."
26:14 Speaker 03 How old were you then?
26:16 Speaker 11 I was probably 14, maybe 15, something like that. I started dating when I was 15.
26:23 Speaker 11 But I remembered that.
26:24 Speaker 05 Dorothy remembers Daryl's advice on her date.
26:27 Speaker 11 And that was my first real date was, we went dancing.
26:30 Speaker 03 Okay.
26:31 Speaker 11 So I looked into his eyes. And then we dated for two years, so.
26:38 Speaker 11 It worked.
26:40 Speaker 05 This fits the image that I have of Daryl perfectly. The confident young man who always wants to help bring out the best in the people around him.
26:50 Speaker 03 Uh, do you know what their relationship was like between, uh, your mom and, and Daryl?
26:56 Speaker 11 Close. They were close.
26:58 Speaker 12 Very close. She loved her brother really a lot. And you can see from the letters that she always, always stayed in touch with him, no matter where he was at. She always did.
27:12 Speaker 05 Their mom, Lillian, is the one who kept in touch with Dan after Daryl died. Her letters were one of the reasons I was able to track down Daryl's family in Kansas.
27:21 Speaker 03 Do you know how he identified in terms of his sexual orientation?
27:28 Speaker 12 I never knew till we went to the ballgame in Kansas City.
27:31 Speaker 11 Nobody ever told us.
27:32 Speaker 12 Uh, and I never thought anything about.
27:35 Speaker 11 I didn't either.
27:37 Speaker 03 What happened at the ballgame in?
27:39 Speaker 12 Well, someone, my dad told me he was gay. I go, eh, no, he ain't. He said, yeah. I said, oh, okay. He says, well, look at his mannerisms. And I go, oh, okay. And then I realized he was, but I never talked about it, especially my mom, because she wouldn't believe it.
28:00 Speaker 12 But it was cool with me, yeah.
28:03 Speaker 03 Right from the beginning, it was?
28:04 Speaker 12 Yes. I didn't have anything against him for that.
28:11 Speaker 03 Nice. Like, why do you think you?
28:13 Speaker 12 I think the brothers did, but I never did.
28:17 Speaker 03 Well, you said your mom also found it hard to?
28:20 Speaker 12 I don't, she denied it, is all I know.
28:24 Speaker 05 So Daryl's sister did love him. Maybe she didn't fully accept him, but she did love him. Love without acceptance. It's a pretty common narrative among us queers.
28:37 Speaker 05 But with an anchor of love, sometimes acceptance, it does come with time.
28:43 Speaker 12 But I never had anything against people. You didn't either, did you? Nah.
28:51 Speaker 12 In fact, I had a lot of friends at work that were those women that were gay. I liked them. Yeah, I went on a trip with ones. I'm not, and I'm not.
29:01 Speaker 03 You went on a trip with a?
29:02 Speaker 12 Gay person.
29:05 Speaker 12 She was real sweet. She was a friend.
29:07 Speaker 03 Great.
29:08 Speaker 12 But we weren't, you know.
29:09 Speaker 05 Depending on how you identify, you may feel like Ellen and Dorothy are being kind and open and accepting. And they are. Interviewing them, I felt in every fiber of my body that these are kind and caring women.
29:25 Speaker 05 But if you grew up queer, maybe you tensed up there at some of the insinuations. I have gay friends, but just to be clear, I'm not gay. Or the idea that you can tell who's queer just from their mannerisms.
29:41 Speaker 05 I suspect Ellen and Dorothy weren't even aware they were saying these things, but these are the sort of subtle comments that plant little seeds of darkness. They're not the big overt acts of homophobia that cause immediate pain, but they can cause little seeds of damage to take root.
30:00 Speaker 05 At least for me, it's comments like these that worked their way inside me insidiously, growing up in my small town. They still make me question people's motives. Do people watch my mannerisms when I'm out in public? Does my family comment on how I look or act gay when I'm not around?
30:21 Speaker 05 I wonder if Daryl ever thought the same things. A part of me wanted to react more strongly to Ellen and Dorothy, to make them aware of these little comments, to make them aware that they weren't being progressive enough. But then I thought about my phone call with Daryl's brother.
30:38 Speaker 09 No, I never met anybody. And I didn't approve of him either. If I had, I met him.
30:55 Speaker 05 Ellen and Dorothy have come a long way in a single generation. And I don't know what's the best way to produce progress between generations. Is it better to call people out for subtle, painful comments? Don't get me wrong, getting angry is important, and it's a perfectly acceptable response to a world that's built to tell you that you are lesser than.
31:21 Speaker 05 But sometimes can it be better to sit down with a generation above you? Look them in the eye, acknowledge the work they've done, and lift the burden of progress back onto your own shoulders and trudge forward into the future without them? I don't know the answer, but I do know that Ellen and Dorothy did the best they could.
31:46 Speaker 12 We gave him big hugs that last time we saw him. Yeah, and he kissed me on my cheek. And yeah, we kissed him back, and we knew he had AIDS. Because he had those big brown spots all over him, and he wasn't well at all then. But that was the last time he came home, wasn't it? This was the last time we saw him. You know, back then when people, "Oh, my God, he's got AIDS and all this." I didn't feel that at all with him. At the funeral was... It was just graveside. Yeah. And all the relatives showed up. I mean, all of them. Anyone said anything bad? No.
32:28 Speaker 12 I mean, all of them, all his brothers, all his sisters, well, there was... Because he was the first one, wasn't he? Yes. He's the first one to die of the sibling, of the nine kids, and he was the youngest.
32:42 Speaker 05 Ellen and Dorothy did their best to accept Daryl. And his siblings, it seemed they all practiced love, just without acceptance. But at least love.
32:56 Speaker 05 I'm glad to know that when they laid that crooked little gravestone in the cemetery back in 1991, that Daryl's siblings were there.
33:06 Speaker 05 I only wish they knew the parts of him that I know. But walls are the price you pay for love without acceptance. Alan and Dorothy also managed to give me a lead on the roadblock that we hit earlier. You might remember.
33:23 Speaker 03 We went to a house that was referenced in the letters. I think it was 908.
33:30 Speaker 12 It's where Grandma used to live. She lived in a trailer.
33:33 Speaker 03 Okay.
33:34 Speaker 12 Is it still there?
33:35 Speaker 03 It was not there.
33:36 Speaker 12 They had a farm out of Thayer.
33:41 Speaker 03 Out of Thayer?
33:42 Speaker 12 Thayer, Kansas.
33:45 Speaker 12 That was a farm. They lived on a... That's where Daryl grew up.
33:48 Speaker 03 So we want to find this. We would love to go there.
33:51 Speaker 12 Cindy will help you there.
33:54 Speaker 12 She'll help you there. And we didn't find it. I can't remember. We used to go there every Sunday.
34:02 Speaker 03 We'll ask Cindy about it.
34:04 Speaker 12 Cindy will know.
34:06 Speaker 05 Cindy is another one of Daryl's nieces. And it turns out she might be the only one who holds the key to achieving what we set out to achieve in Kansas: to understand where it is that Daryl came from, to really understand it. If we can find the Allen family farm, I know, I feel it, that this trip will be a success. And Cindy is the one person who claims to know where the farm might be.
34:30 Speaker 13 But Mom said there's no house there. I think I would... If the trees are the same, I think I would still recognize the area.
34:38 Speaker 05 In the next episode, Cindy agrees to take us on a road trip, deep into the Kansas countryside, to try to find Daryl's childhood home: the Allen Family Farm.
35:06 Speaker 05 Resurrection is a team effort. If you want to help support us, please rate and review us. It helps us so much. Matthew Rogers is our editor and sound designer and music maker. Ethan Soil wrote all the original guitar you heard in today's episode. Davide Kietseze is the voice of Daryl's letters and scripts. Hannah Sung is our executive producer. Our outro track is called "Easy to Love," written for us by Clara Jones. Special thanks to Rachel O'Brien, Michelle Soicher, Isabel Deluse, Katie Hill, Roger Galvas, Amanda Pledgie, and everyone from Independence who is so generous with us. Matthew Carrietse Mary is the platonic love of my life and my co-producer.
35:47 Speaker 05 Resurrection is written, researched, and hosted by me, Dane Stewart. The creation of this podcast was made possible thanks to the financial support of the Conseil d'Art de Montréal, le Conseil d'Art d'Électe Québec, and the Canada Council for the Arts. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
Previous Resurrection, Episode 2: Four Christmases Next Resurrection, Episode 4: Kansas (Part Two) Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated