Dr. Susan M. Love and Dr. Helen Sperry Cooksey never doubted that some day, after two decades together, they would be able to legalize their same-sex union with a marriage certificate. But they didn’t quite foresee the frenzied rush to San Francisco, the eight hours waiting in line in the rain and the slim odds officials gave them of ever entering a City Hall already overwhelmed by other couples with the same goal. Nonetheless, Love, a retired surgeon and author of books on breast cancer and menopause, refused to give up. And Cooksey was equally determined.While Love stood in one line, Cooksey stood in another, to hedge their bets. “They told us there was no way we were going to make it in time to get married but we stayed in line anyway,” Cooksey said. “They told people to go home and a lot did, but we stayed in line anyway. Finally they said we had only a one percent chance of getting there in time for a marriage certificate-but we stayed in line anyway and now we are married.” Love and Cooksey were married on February 15 in the rotunda of San Francisco City Hall in a ceremony presided over by Michael R Farrah Jr., Senior Advisor to the Mayor. The couple’s 15-year-old daughter, Katie, witnessed the ceremony which finally legalized their 21-year relationship. “I wasn’t sure what to think when my moms picked me up at a friend’s house on Saturday morning and said we were heading to San Francisco so they could get married, but I am very happy that we did it,” Katie said. Love is a clinical professor of surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She is the author of “Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book” and “Dr. Susan Love’s Menopause and Hormone Book,” one of the founding mothers of the breast cancer advocacy movement, a Founder of ProDuct Health (now part of Cytyc, Inc.) and president of the Susan Love Research Foundation. She got her bachelor’s degree from Fordham University, her medical degree from SUNY Downstate Medical Center and an MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA. Cooksey is a general surgeon at the Jeffrey Goodman Clinic of the Gay and Lesbian Center in Los Angeles. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of California in Santa Barbara, a master’s in fine arts from Harvard University and her medical degree from Harvard Medical School. Both women trained as surgeons at Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital, the place where they first met when Cooksey was the intern taking care of Love’s mother. It was several years later, when Helen invited Susan to New Hampshire over Labor Day weekend, that they fell in love. They both practiced surgery in Boston until Love was recruited by UCLA to come to California. No strangers to gay and lesbian civil rights, their court case to allow Cooksey to adopt their daughter went to the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in 1993, setting an early precedent for second parent adoption. “We are used to fighting for our rights, so standing in line for a few hours was a small price to pay to be able to finally wed,” Cooksey said. Love is the daughter of James Love, a retired businessman in Mexico City, and the late Margaret Schwab Love. Cooksey is the daughter of the late Donald Cooksey, a founder and former associate director of the Radiation Laboratory (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory) at Berkeley and the late Milicent Sperry Cooksey of Berkeley. The couple lives in the Palisades. Although they had undergone a civil union in Vermont in 2002, they had always wanted to be able to be legally married. Friday’s morning paper announced that the City of San Francisco was legally marrying same sex couples and at an early Valentine’s dinner Friday night Susan asked Helen to marry her. They decided to elope the next day and with their daughter jumped on a plane to San Francisco. “It was truly a ‘Rosa Parks moment’,” said Love. “You got the feeling you were part of history in the making and that there was no way they are going to turn the clock back.” In spite of the frenzied hours building up to it, the marriage ceremony itself was a moment of deep emotion for the couple. “I never thought I would be able to stand up in public and marry the love of my life,” said a teary Love. “It really does make a difference.”
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