Scholar, writer, and performer Andrew Ingall, podcaster and filmmaker Gail Golec, and other special guests shine a light on LGBTQ+ Vermonters whose stories and legacies serve to reimagine care for elders today and in the future.
The program features a performative talk with slides, discussion with community leaders about LGBTQ+ aging and caregiving, and Q&A. Ingall states, “My hope is that this event inspires others to honor ancestors, illuminate patterns of queer resilience across time, and serve as a guidepost to foster stronger connection in our communities.”
In his presentation, Andy pieces together the story of his cousins Warren and Leon. They lived in Townshend from 1980 to 2007 and were partners in life and business for 58 years as antique dealers and designers. For this event, Andy connects Warren and Leon’s remarkable biographies to notable couples in Vermont history: Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake of Weybridge, whose relationship as “help-meets” was considered a sacred marriage by their 19th century neighbors hundreds of years before the introduction of same-sex civil union and marriage; and Thom Herman and Jeremy Youst, who between 1979 and 1984 owned and operated the Andrews Inn, a hotel, bar, and disco in Bellows Falls renowned both locally and across the Northeastern United States.
About Warlé
Using archival documents, photography, original artifacts, dance, clothing design, and creative nonfiction, Warlé manifests the lives led by Andrew Ingall’s distant cousins. The goal is twofold: to encourage others to explore their queer ancestry and to generate conversations about how we care for LGBTQ+ elders and refugees today.
Warren Kronemeyer and Leon Ingall co-founded Warlé, a small business on Manhattan’s Upper East Side specializing in antiques, contemporary objects, art framing, restoration, and interior decoration. Leon was a Jewish refugee and fashion designer who fled Bolshevik Russia, relocated to Weimar Berlin, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1940; Warren was a writer, journalist, antiques dealer, and an operative of the WWII-era U.S. Office of Strategic Services. After several decades together in New York, they left the city in 1980, moved and to Townshend, Vermont, and became beloved citizens of this rural community. The people of Townshend took good care of them at the end of their lives. They were, in the words of Armistead Maupin, “logical” family. The work of Warlé is to repair broken branches in our family trees, to graft new ones, and to think expansively about kinship and caregiving. Follow Andy’s research on Instagram @warleinc. Learn more on the Warlé website here.
Sponsored by Vermont Humanities 2025 Fall Festival Resilient Patterns
About the Fall Festival 2025
The Vermont Reads 2025 book, The Light Pirate, raises the question of how we choose to adapt and grow after experiencing climate related crisis and trauma. In a flooding world, Wanda finds solace and hope in building community.
For this year’s Fall Festival, we want to highlight similar stories of hope as Vermont cities, towns, and villages face interrelated, complex problems such as climate change and the housing crisis.