Partner Blair O'Dell

Queer Places:
512 Park St, Montclair, NJ 07043
Mount Hebron Cemetery Montclair, Essex County, New Jersey, USA

Louis "Paul" Hennefeld (December 11, 1932 - March 7, 2016) devoted an entire room of his Victorian house to his stamp collection. He had thousands of stamps and special-cancellation postcards that depicted gay people or related issues. In 1982 Paul his partner, Blair O'Dell, and a handful of other collectors started the Gay and Lesbian History on Stamps Club and began publishing the Lambda Philatelic Journal. When the group applied for membership in the national stamp-collecting society the American Topical Association, their application was rejected. But two years later, after Paul began winning ATA awards with his gay collection, the club was granted membership. Paul's collection consistently provoked reaction in an otherwise reserved environment. His stamps were turned away from one exhibition, and protested at another. But usually people read every word of Paul's exhibit text, and twice, tearful men hugged the collector and thanked him for his display. Paul's collection received the ATA's second-highest honor—the Reserve Grand Award—at the group's annual show in 1987.

Louis, known as Paul to friends and family, was born in Anthony, Kansas, on Dec. 11, 1932. His family was originally from New York City, but they moved out to Anthony during the Depression to work for his aunt who owned the local newspaper. Eventually they returned East, settling in New Jersey, where Paul joined the Air Force at age 19, rising to the rank of staff sergeant. During his Air Force career, his tours of duty encompassed locations in the Far East as well as in Saudi Arabia, Great Britain and Texas. On his mother's side, Paul was descended from old New England families, with direct lineage back to several Mayflower passengers, including Elder William Brewster, the senior religious leader of the Plymouth Colony. His grandfather, Grant Wright, was an artist and illustrator. Paul was a stamp collector, and his various exhibits won several gold and "Best of Show" awards at major philatelic exhibitions.

Paul Hennefeld lived with Blair O'Dell, his partner since 1976, in Montclair, New Jersey. He was photographed for 'Family: a portrait of gay and lesbian America'', by Nancy Andrews (1994) in his home holding a stamp of blues singer Ma Rainey issued by the nation of Gambia. "I've always collected stamps, even when I was a boy. I was collecting United States stamps when Jonathan Ned Katz's book Gay American History came out in 1976. I was reading the book, and every time I came across someone who was on a stamp, it clicked. I said, "My God, there's a lot of gay people here on stamps. That would make a good collection." So that's what got me into doing a list for the collection. I had had so much trouble accepting myself as a gay person. But if I had known when I was younger that all these people were gay or bisexual, I am sure I wouldn't have had such a difficult time. So I said, "This might be a good way of spreading gay history to the straight public and also gay public." So I've been outing people through stamp collecting before outing became the thing to do. It's all on stamps. I have it beginning with Greek mythology and bring it right up to the present time. Because my collection is on exhibit I have to be very careful about the people I put in it. I wait for more books and documentation to back me up. People ask me how I know so-and-so is gay. I just say, "Well, I got it from these books." There are several stamps with Martina Navratilova, my favorite. I even have some congressmen like Barney Frank because his signature is on the corner of each letter he writes, and that's called a franked envelope. Jon Hinson is the only Republican congressman I have in the collection. He resigned from Congress in 1981 after he was arrested on a morals charge. After he gave up his seat they still used his envelope. But he wasn't a congressman anymore, so they stamped it from the clerk of the House of Representatives. They only used this for about a month after he left his job. That makes it quite rare—an unusual item.

Louis Paul Hennefeld, of Montclair, died on March 7, 2016, at the age of 83 at his Park Street home in Montclair. He was survived by his spouse of 40 years, Darren Blair Odell.

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