Frank Warren O'Reilly (September
14, 1921 - March 28, 2001) was a gay activist and founder of the Charles Ives Festival in Miami and of the Chopin Foundation.[1]
Queer Places:
2210 6th Ave, Fort Worth, TX 76110
Congressional Cemetery
Washington, District of Columbia, District of Columbia, USA
Frank Warren O'Reilly (September
14, 1921 - March 28, 2001) was a gay activist and founder of the Charles Ives Festival in Miami and of the Chopin Foundation.[1]
O'Reilly worked as a music critic for The Washington Times and the Miami News. He regularly wrote free-lance articles for symphony and opera publications.
O'Reilly started the American Chopin Foundation and organized the Charles Ives Festival in 1973, for which he received a presidential citation in 1975.[4][5] He assembled a Festival Committee that included Leonard Bernstein, Leopold Stokowski, Lou Harrison, and John Cage.[6]
Frank Warren O'Reilly was born on September 14, 1921, in Fort Worth, Texas. He attended Lily B Clayton Elementary School, Daggett Middle School and Polytechnic High School. He earned a bachelor's degree from Texas Wesleyan College, a master's from Texas Christian University and a doctorate from the University of London. O'Reilly served during World War II and attended New York City College.[2]
O'Reilly's passions included history political science international relations and economics, said his sister Catherine Florence O'Reilly Zuefeldt of Lewisville. "He had a thirst for knowledge and anything he could learn he would soak it up" Zuefeldt said. "He was a historian of great great depth. He could tell you what happened in any given time in any given year and who was on the throne at the time. It was incredible."
Frank O'Reilly and Eleanor Roosevelt
O'Reilly loved to travel and had hitchhiked to every state before he graduated from high school, Zuefeldt said. His later travels often carried him to the world's distant corners. "He was always on a trip" she said. "He went to every place in the world except two countries and he repeated several of them."
O'Reilly, who lived in Miami and Washington for much of his life, was buried at Congressional Cemetery, Washington, D.C. His tombstone reads: A Gay WWII Veteran. F. Warren O'Reilly, Ph.D., 1921-2001, During my eventful lifetime the only honest and truthful ending of the Pledge of Allegiance was "... with Liberty and Justice for SOME".[1] The F. Warren O'Reilly papers, 1922-2001 are hosted at the University of Miami, Special Collections.[9]
My published books:
