The Library Vault

Here at the Russell Library Information Department, we absolutely love a good research question. I’m always looking for a good excuse to comb through our microfilm collection of local newspapers (dating all the way back to 1790!), find books in our local history collection, aptly named the Middletown Room, or take a deep dive into our online databases.

Needless to say, I was thrilled when I took a phone call a couple of months back from former Middletown resident Barbara Woike. She asked if we had any information on a woman she had met and photographed back in 1979, one that some might call a local Middletown legend: Katherine, or as many knew her, “Sissy” Wells.

One quick look online told me that Katherine was a well-known figure in the Middletown, especially in the 1970s. Many remember her fondly as the owner of the Vanity Beauty Shoppe on Main Street, and as one of the best hairdressers around. Others remember her for her big heart, always making an effort to talk to others and get involved in the community. And others still remember her for being a pioneer in the Middletown Pride community: she proudly wore the name she had chosen for herself as a transgender woman.

It is, perhaps, because of Katherine’s identity that she seemed to have vanished from the record. Other than Facebook posts full of Middletown residents’ memories of her, a Google search didn’t pull up much of anything on Katherine: not where she was born, not an obituary, not a gravestone, nothing. Our only lead was a rumor that she may have been murdered, likely by someone who didn’t accept her for who she was.

Naturally, I turned to the library’s resources for answers. To start, the Middletown Room (you can check out some of the resources it has to offer here) has a wealth of Middletown-area yearbooks dating from 1908 to the present; I figured I might be able to find Katherine there. Sure enough, in the 1937 Woodrow Wilson High School yearbook, there she was.

Of course, she was listed in the yearbook with her birth name, but this was still an interesting look into Katherine’s early life. In the senior superlatives, she was listed as “neatest,” “most courteous,” “best dresser,” and “most sympathetic,” among other things—all descriptors that matched up with people’s memory of her!

Another place I turned to was the Russell Library’s list of online resources. We offer in-library access to two genealogy databases, Ancestry Library and FamilySearch (linked on our Online Resources webpage). Along the top navigation bar of both databases, you can find a “Search” option, which brings up a list of difference resources each database offers. In my search for Katherine, I found it most helpful to search “Records” on FamilySearch, and “All Collections” on Ancestry Library. “Records” encompasses all official documents, such as census records or birth certificates, while “All Collections” will allow you to search every type of record listed in the Ancestry Library drop-down menu.

Here, I knew I would likely need to use Katherine’s birth name to find the information we were searching for. While both databases allow you to simply search by name, place, and birth or death year, you can get as detailed as you want with “More Options”; you can list family members, specific dates and locations of life events, alternate names, and much more. For Katherine, I wasn’t able to get into such specifics; I knew her name, the year she was born, and that she lived in Middletown.

I was thrilled when I saw the results pop up on my screen! Recorded in the databases was a wealth of helpful information on Katherine when she was younger: there were census records, naturalization records, and Katherine’s World War II draft card, written in her own hand. Through these records, we learned that Katherine was born in Canada on August 29th, 1917, and emigrated to the United States with her family in 1925, at the age of 7.

What still stumped me was what had happened to Katherine; under the name Walter Wells, I could not find anything on the record about her passing. Checking through the Middletown Press in the library’s microfilm archive, I was able to find obituaries for her mother and brother, who both lived locally. However, Katherine herself seemed to vanish after a short mention in her mother’s obituary, and a Facebook comment indicating that she was still active around the city in 1989. Although we had pieced together Katherine’s early life, and had heard plenty of fond memories from the Middletown community, we still weren’t able to figure out the mystery of her final years.

It’s times like these when I’m grateful to work in a community like Middletown. I wasn’t doing this research alone; Barbara, who initially reached out to me about Katherine, had assembled a team of researchers from different organizations around the city. That piece of the mystery we had been looking for was finally found. The theory that Katherine was murdered could be put to rest; she passed away at the age of 82 on December 29th, 1999, after some time in a Farmington nursing home. She was buried at the Old Saint Mary’s Cemetery in New Britain, likely in an unmarked grave.

Although learning about and celebrating Katherine’s life is far more important than her passing, there *is* also something to celebrate from this new piece of information. Unlike in all the records I had found before, Katherine’s death certificate reflects the name and identity she had chosen for herself.

There will be an event honoring Katherine Wells at the Buttonwood Tree (located at 605 Main Street, Middletown) on Friday, June 6th, from 5:30 to 6:30pm, for those who would like to attend. For those who can’t make it in-person, the event will also be livestreamed from the Middletown Pride Facebook page. The celebration of life will feature “heartfelt stories from friends and community members, including historian and LGBTQ advocate Jesse Nasta,” executive director of the Middlesex County Historical Society. The Buttonwood Tree is a fitting place to hold this celebration: it occupies what was once the first floor of the Ariwanni Hotel, where Katherine lived in her later years.

After the celebration, be on the lookout for Katherine’s face at this year’s Middletown PrideFEST on June 7th!

Thanks so much to Barbara for allowing me to use her pictures of Katherine, and for being the driving force behind this massive research project.

WORKS CITED:

The Buttonwood Tree Performing Arts Center. Celebrate the Legacy of Katherine “Sissy” Wells ~ Support LGBTQ+ Arts & History in Middletown, CT. Facebook, 21 May 2025, 1:31 p.m., https://www.facebook.com/buttonwoodtree/posts/httpsbuttonwoodnetworkforgoodcomprojects252822-katherine-sissy-wells-memorial-fu/1139622374876060/