Mishkin, Ian

NAME: Mishkin, Ian

Biography: Ian was a young man with a gentle, sweet spirit, a folksinger at coffee houses in the South Street neighborhood where he lived in a second floor apartment on Leithgow Street above a restaurant (now Marrakech).

He sang Scottish and English ballads from the Childe collection, songs by Leonard Cohen, with an affecting baritone voice. He also loved opera, and was a fan of Renata Tebaldi, especially.

He was one of the original group founding the Kater Street Gay Community Center in 1975.

He later moved to San Francisco in the late 1970s where he continued his folk singing, working in medical care, and achieving his degree to become a psychological counselor who was loved and respected. He did all this on his own as his family, from New York, had rejected him after he came out as gay.

Ian's passion for opera led him to "super" in San Francisco Opera productions from 1985 - 1995.

In late summer 1998 he began suffering from a neurological disorder apparently similar to ALS and became

seriously debilitated by August 2003, according to the last information available about him on the Internet

([[1]])

Date of Birth: 6/9/1955 #htmldiff2

Date of Death: 8/30/2003#htmldiff4

Age at Death: 48

Employment:

Social/Political Groups he attended: Kater Street Community Center

His friends included: (type your name here, or names of others) Bob Stewart (who wrote this biography), Harry Kelly, Rusel Silkey.

Testimonials to him (add a space before a new testimonial):

Ian was unfailingly kind, gentle, and sharing. I have fond memories of his singing ballads at home and in coffeehouses, and his playing recordings of Renata Tebaldi. We attended two Judy Collins concerts together, one in Philadelphia, and another in San Francisco just before her 40th birthday in 1979. -- Bob Stewart.