• Ken Ilio
  • Ron Dorfman

Ron Dorfman died Monday in his home on North Sheridan Road. His body was found on the bathroom floor by his friend Vicki Quade, who had come to take him to a doctor’s appointment. Ron was days away from a risky operation on his failing heart, and it was because his health was so precarious that he recently made history in Illinois. Last December 13, thanks to judicial dispensation, he and his partner, Ken Ilio, got married. The new law allowing gay marriage in Illinois doesn’t go into effect until this June, but Ron and Ken petitioned for and were given permission to marry early because of the high possibility that by June Ron would no longer be alive. They were the first male couple to marry legally in Illinois.

Sydney Weisman, a journalism friend I first knew in college and then met again in Chicago, wrote from the coast, where she lives now. “I am heartbroken that he’s gone . . . but I know he was also suffering, so I don’t quite know how to feel other than deeply, deeply sad . . . I never understood half of what Ron was talking about most of the time, I would just nod knowingly, but I felt he was . . . always one step ahead. He just seemed to assume we could and would keep up . . .

SAM. Social media quickly spread pictures of this tribute everywhere. One tweet was from Sam’s coach, Gary Pinkel.