On October 1, 1977, when Ray Niro heard a knock on the door of his Back Bay apartment, he had no idea his life was about to change forever.

His friend Timmy was coming over to drive him to the Napoleon Club, a gay bar in Bay Village (now closed). But when Ray answered the door, a stranger was standing in the hallway. His name was Scott, a 22-year old “cute” young man Ray had never seen before. Ray recalls simply saying, “Oh.” Scott said, ”I’m a friend of Timmy’s. He’s parking the car.” The three men went to Napoleon’s and the next day, the young man returned to Ray’s apartment, this time with an album he wanted Ray to hear by a new group called The Village People.

Ray would marry Scott and they are still together and in love today, over 40 years later. “We remind ourselves that we are so lucky to have found each other and to have had this life together.”

A graduate of Boston State College (now UMass Boston) and Simmons College, Ray is a recently retired librarian who knows the value of a research archive. Like a lot of people their age, Ray and Scott have accumulated lots of gay-related materials ranging from matchbooks to newspapers. Ray wondered, “Who will care about it?” So, over the last year, he’s brought in boxes to Libby Bouvier at the History Project.

As a librarian, Ray knows that donated materials, though very welcome, incur added costs to an archive for their storage, care, and processing. “It’s customary that when you donate materials, you also donate money.” Though not wealthy, as a couple with two incomes, Ray and his partner are now in a position to give back. They’ve decided not to wait but to begin giving to their favorite causes while they’re still alive.

Why did they choose the History Project? 

“I remember looking at court records from the Plymouth Colony in the 1600s, and there was a case of two men being fined for having sexual relations. I thought to myself, “We’ve always been here but our lives have been hidden.” Ray’s research also unearthed the tragic story of a young man arrested in 1907 for sodomy who was still in prison in the 1920s, when he was periodically sent to a hospital for “treatments.”

Niro wants people to know how important it is to support The History Project. “This is our history. Just like the people who trace themselves back to the Mayflower, we have a history, too. People struggled, adapted and coped with living on the fringes. For them and all the people who didn’t get a chance to live full lives, we should honor and remember them.”