A Lasting Legacy

A search of the archives of The Southampton Press doesn’t turn up many results for Rose Walton, a former Remsenburg resident and an LGBTQ pioneer who died earlier this month at her home in Sunset Beach, Florida, with her wife, Marjorie Sherwin, and niece Robin Pascarella by her side.

It’s not clear why her hometown newspaper wrote little over the years about the woman who worked so tirelessly to help others, even after the Rose Walton HIV Care Services Center at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital was named after her in 2011. It was an unfortunate oversight.

Whatever the reason, one thing is clear: The 85-year-old advocate’s legacy will live on for generations for the work she did to ensure that those with HIV/AIDS received the care they deserved, even amid the cloak of darkness and distrust that hung over the disease during the early days of the crisis. And she will be remembered for standing up proudly and openly as an out lesbian woman in a time when doing so had significant risks. In 1990, Walton and Sherwin were the only couple featured in a Time magazine story titled “Couples: The Lesbians Next Door” to allow their photographs to run with the article.

Tom Kirdahy, an LGBTQ rights attorney and theater producer, and a longtime friend and colleague of Walton in an effort to provide care and services to people with HIV/AIDS in the 1980s, said that Walton was the first openly gay person he remembers reading about on Long Island, and notes that she was “the model for living life openly and with dignity.”

Her bravery in doing so and being “unafraid of telling that to the world” paved the way and made it far safer for future generations. Kirdahy also said he admired Walton for being “a true pioneer in HIV care on Long Island,” noting that she would give lectures and speak on panels emphasizing the importance of HIV education.

She saw a need to educate people about the disease and offer services to those who had contracted it, and just dug in, making it her life’s work.

Walton created and implemented Long Island’s first informational and referral HIV/AIDS hotline, developed a statewide college HIV/AIDS educational program, and founded the AIDS Education and Resource Center at Stony Brook University. She taught other educators on SUNY campuses across the state, raised millions of dollars of funding for the Stony Brook center, and even spoke before Congress.

The work she accomplished was profound, and she touched many lives. She leaves a tremendous legacy that should be celebrated well into the future, and is a role model for future generations to live their best lives honestly and dedicate themselves to making the world a better place than they found it.