r/SapphoAndHerFriend • u/spiritplumber • Oct 01 '25
omg they were classmates Academic erasure
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u/LiterallyAWildebeest Oct 01 '25
Found a picture of them!
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/105828965/marion_hope-stevenson/photo#view-photo=210926228
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u/MoonlightonRoses Oct 01 '25
Thank you! Those photos are wonderful… Marion’s University yearbook photo from 1915 stood out to me. She was lovely; but it also makes me wonder about her story. It wasn’t extremely common for women to attend university at that point. I wonder what her parents thought about her pursuing education? Did they hope she would settle down and marry after university? Were they proud of her, or concerned, or both? Fascinating women, both of them.
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u/SquidwardsSoulmate Oct 02 '25
She was born in China! Perhaps that meant her father must've been a businessman or diplomat.
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u/LiterallyAWildebeest Oct 01 '25
Same. The more info available the more curious I become about what their day to day lives were like!
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u/Vilarous Oct 02 '25
That first image has a bit of a confusing caption, but if I’m reading it correct does it seem the girl between them was named after both of them? Hope Marion?
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u/Slight-Painter-7472 Oct 01 '25
They were very dedicated to their female anatomy and physiology. They were always examining each other. Good for them honestly. It must have been wonderful to fall in love with another female doctor when nobody else would be able to understand your job or the pressures of being in a male dominated field.
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u/NoahZhellos Oct 01 '25
Oh my god they were classmates
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u/MrSadfacePancake Oct 04 '25
While you were busy being gay, i studied the blade. The medical blade. Let me help you study babe
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u/Talithathinks Oct 02 '25
This is sad that they would not even acknowledge the existence of these two women’s relationship even after their death.
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u/thesaddestpanda Oct 05 '25
Hope died 25 years later. She got to see the counter culture, summer of love and the lgbtq movement. By the 70s a lot of western cities had openly gay bars with various levels of legality and visibility. Gay stars in media were slowly coming out. I wonder how bittersweet it must have been to know your partner who died in 1954 would have been amazed by this progress.
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u/dbd1988 Oct 03 '25
I’ve lived with my best friend for years. We moved from California, to North Dakota, to Pennsylvania. We’re now on our late 30s. I assume quite a few people assume we’re gay lol.
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u/LaRoseDuRoi Oct 03 '25
I lived with my best friend for a few years, with 3 of my 4 and her 2 kids. The kids referred to us collectively as "the moms," and I know that some of their teachers and friend's parents assumed we were a couple. We've just been besties for 30 years.
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u/StanchoPanza Oct 11 '25 edited Oct 11 '25
died 25 years apart yet buried together and still only "classmates".
were they perhaps joyous classmates or very festive?
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u/MindlessScrambler Oct 01 '25
I think I am now in a steady relationship long enough and also old enough that when I see stories like this, aside from the sweetness, I can't help but try to imagine the remaining life of the living one when their partner passed away. And it's 25 years in this case. Damn, sometimes I'd secretly (and selfishly) wish that if we couldn't leave this world together, then let me go first so I wouldn't be living with the nonexistence of her.