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| Jean Mayberry (left) and Aleta Fenceroy comprise the team behind Fenceberry,
an informal news source that gay civil rights advocates and members of the media
turned to for information during the past eight years. Fenceberry stopped operating
on July 31, primarily because it consumed so much of the couple’s time.
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Ages: Jean, 54; Aleta, 55
Residence: Omaha, Neb.
Original hometown: Sioux City, Iowa
Occupation: Jean is a jewelry repair specialist for Borsheim’s
Fine Jewelry;
Aleta is a software analyst for First Data Corp.
Education: Jean completed one year of college at Western Iowa
Tech Community
College (Science and Math); Aleta earned a master’s degree in music at
the University of Minnesota.
Relationship status: Partners for 13 years
Children: Jean, none; Aleta: Michelle, 35, and J.J., 34, plus two granddaughters.
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HOME > ENTERTAINMENT > FEATURE
By: Cyd Zeigler Jr. and Bryan Anderton COMMENTS
 
continued...
that it was important, too.”
WHEN FENCEROY AND Mayberry acquired the distribution list in 1996, it consisted
of about 250 e-mail addresses. By the time they signed off on July 31, it had
more than 1,000 names.
One of Fenceberry’s most avid supporters has been lawyer Evan Wolfson,
founder of the New York-based organization Freedom to Marry and author of “Why
Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People’s Right to Marry.”
“The service has been invaluable,” says Wolfson, a subscriber
for many years. “To have, every day, news from all around the country
pulled together in such an intelligent and creative way has been a bedrock
for my work. And they have built community in the truest sense — through
connection and information.”
Wolfson has met Mayberry and Fenceroy many times and says, “They’re
lovely people on top of being incredibly dedicated and successful activists.”
Another huge fan is the man who started the service, Bill Stosine. In an e-mail
sent to listserv members after the couple announced their retirement, he says
he started the listserv so he could send editorial letters to newspapers about
gay issues. He told a few other activists about the service so they could do
the same, and the word spread, as they told their friends, who told their friends,
and so forth.
Fenceroy and Mayberry have done an “amazing” job with the service,
he says in the e-mail, describing them as “a one-in-a-million miracle.”
“I am in awe of their ability to carry this burden, to spend hours and
hours every day at the computer, for eight years,” Stosine says. “I
can’t think of anyone in the world more deserving of time off than Aleta
and Jean.”
WHEN ASKED ABOUT the scope of her own work, Fenceroy is humble.
“It’s been a pleasure and an honor,” she says. “Nobody
told us to do this. We just kind of started doing it and it kind of happened.
I was very proud when people would use what I did in their work and in their
communities.”
The Washington Blade and its sister papers, as well as at least one reporter
at the Washington Post, used Fenceberry as a resource.
Fenceroy suggests that anyone thinking about picking up where the two women
left off should be retired or permanently not working. While the work they
did was daunting, she also believes “the void will be filled by someone.”
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