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Willy Jump

Willy Jump, PFLAG NYC Pioneer, Dies at 83 – Gay City News

Willy Jump (right) with her son Frank and Amy Ashworth, marching with PFLAG in the 1987 New York City Pride March.

Willy Jump was born Willy Broekveldt in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on August 2, 1936 of Frisian origins. Willy emigrated to the United States in 1958 to marry Harold Jump, whom she had met in Amsterdam while Jump was stationed in Germany during the Korean War a few years prior. In the early 1970s, I came out to my parents and Willy pledged to help other parents cope with learning about their children’s sexual orientation.

My mother first marched with me at the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1979, for which I was part of the planning the year before in Philadelphia as a representative of Gay People at Queens College.

Amsterdam-born activist Mom succumbed to complication of COVID-19

We went backstage to meet some of the parents from what was then called National Parents of Gays — and we met the New York City PFLAG co-chairs Amy and Dick Ashworth. Willy was immediately drawn to Amy since they looked like sisters (and later became as close as sisters) and my mom heard a Dutch accent that they shared in common.

The following summer of 1980 was Willy’s first of more than 20 consecutive years marching in the New York City Pride March with PFLAG. Parents of Gays had briefly become POLAGM — Parents of Lesbians & Gay Men — before becoming PFLAG. My suggestion to the PFLAG board one year to continue our course of ever greater inclusion in the organization’s name was to call ourselves PFLABAGASTR — Parents & Friends of Lesbians & Bisexuals & Gays & Sometimes Transgenders. They didn’t go for it.

In 1980 when the Pride Parade was still a “march,” I told my mom to meet me on the corner of Bedford & Christopher Streets an hour before the march actually began its lurch uptown toward Central Park — thinking it wouldn’t be that crowded yet.

So there I was looking for Willy amongst the throngs of leather queens, drag queens, dykes on bikes, and twinks, screaming, “MOM! MOM?” on a lamp post I had climbed. Almost immediately this handsome older guy with an impish smile and a little space between his teeth came up to me and tugged at my pant leg, shouting over the din in an incredibly hoarse voice that seemed incongruous to his appearance — putting his fingernail up to his mouth to hide his incredulity — “You really aren’t looking for your MOM but some big queen you call MOM — right?”

“No, I said, slowly realizing who it was that was inquiring. “I really am looking for my Mom.”

Then in rapid-fire, breathy-dragon-voice that sputtered like a typewriter on steroids, he shouted, “OH MY GOD! If my mother would just even acknowledge my being gay let alone come march with me! COME MARCH WITH ME? I could just die right now and go to heaven a happy drag queen. Do you know how lucky you are? I have to meet this WOMAN! MOM! MOM! MOM!”

And almost as soon as he had appeared, so did my mother.

“Hi Frankie. Who is your friend?”

“This is the infamous Harvey Fierstein,” I proudly exclaimed.

“Points! Points! You are scoring here,” Harvey raspily whispered. “And this is my mother, Willy Jump,” I continued.

Harvey grabbed my mother around the neck and planted a wet one on her cheek.

Coincidentally, the two of them would run into each other for the next decade at LGBTQ events and panel discussions. When I ran into Harvey repeatedly over the years — from his book signings to rides on the subway while he was going to the theater to perform “Torch Song” to spotting him on parade floats — he always gave me a warm greeting, “HOW’S YOUR MOTHER?”

Willy volunteered at PFLAG for more than 20 years, counseling parents of LGBTQ children and fundraising for the group’s annual dinners.

Willy Jump and Amy Ashworth, marching together again in the 1992 Pride March.

On Facebook, on the day I announced my mother’s death, my friend Jay Blotcher wrote, “What a dynamo she was! What joyous energy and awareness and defiance. I’m so sorry she has left us. Willy was a perfect surrogate mother for a generation of ACT UP and LGBTQ people… her passing is a loss to the entire progressive community.”

Willy Broekveldt Jump died on April 22 of complications related to COVID-19 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s Disease.

Donations in the name of Willy Jump can be made to:

PFLAG NYC
130 East 25th Street, Suite M1
New York, NY 10010

Make checks payable to PFLAG NYC. Donations can also be made in memory of Willy Jump at pflagnyc.org/donate.

Frank Jump, who worked alongside his mother Willy Jump for many years in PFLAG and other LGBTQ rights activism, is an artist and educator and the author of “Fading Ads of NYC” (History Press, 2011).

https://www.gaycitynews.com/willy-jump-pflag-nyc-pioneer-dies-at-83/

Thank you Paul Schindler & Andy Humm

Andy Humm

May 1 at 11:58 PM · Public

Willy Jump, right in the photo, was the cool mom in PFLAG which she served as a parent advocate for 25 years. Here her son, activist and teacher Frank Jump, pays moving tribute to her and their life of activism together going back to attending the first March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights together in 1979. The other mom in this picture (at left) from a NYC Pride March is the late Amy Ashworth, like Willy from Holland and like Willy a tireless activist for LGBT rights and social justice for all. Most have no idea how much these moms accomplished–from joining us on the front lines to speaking to school groups to going on TV to stick up for their kids to the essential work of PFLAG: helping parents accept their LGBT children. Rest in power.

Happy 80th Birthday Willy Jump – Menorah Nursing & Rehabilitation Center – Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn

© Vincenzo Aiosa

Willy Jump Turns Pinup Girl in Her 80th Year – Menorah Rehabilitation & Nursing Facility – #mjhspicture

© Frank H. Jump

Buddy doing his job well © Vincenzo Aiosa

© Frank H. Jump

Willy Jump in Rome, 1962

Amsterdam Photo Booth Memoirs

Encircling a Memory: Some events within the dates of April 11, 2012 – August 20, 2014

April 11, 2012 © Frank H. Jump

The image above was taken in April of 2012 during my mother’s last trip to the Netherlands. On this day we visited the gravesite of where Willy’s parents were buried and to relinquish the contract with the Nieuwe Ooster cemetery for the upkeep and claim to this burial place.

So much of your life could change in one day. As world events rapidly unfold we witness tragedies of single lives being unravelled by violence or unmitigated circumstances. The beheading of a long-captive journalist by Islamic militants. The loss of a son to unwarranted police actions in Ferguson Missouri. The disappearance and subsequent destruction of Malaysian passenger planes. The disinterment of your parents after over forty years of undisturbed rest. The relinquishing of a long-kept and valued domicile. All of these events have gone by unnoticed – not due to callous disregard or indifference but due to a neurodegenerative disease. Willy has dementia – Alzheimer’s disease – and lives very much in the moment. She no longer watches television and has no reference point as to what day it is or what is occurring locally or abroad.

On April 11, 2012 – we had trouble locating my grandparents’ gravesite. Frustrated, Willy was sure the headstone was laying down and I knew from online images that the stone stood upright. We walked in circles. We talked in circles. A young rooster nearby also traced a circular path. Finally we came upon an outdoor structure, a rectangular room in the middle of what I thought Willy’s parents grave should lie. The door had a mirror reflecting the illusion of passing time in the outside world. I could hear familiar music coming from within. It sounded like a Burt Bacharach song. On closer approach, I was sure it was Dusty’s voice singing the theme to the film Casino Royale- The Look of Love. We entered the oversized shack and the only light illuminating the darkness was from a projected moving image of dancers on a screen and a circling disco ball. We inspected all corners of the room and after silently accessing we were alone with these ghostly dancers, I turned to my mother and lifted my arms and we danced cheek to cheek while being serenaded by the late Ms. Springfield.

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

My mother’s maiden name is Broekveldt which loosely translates to Pantsfield. She married Harold Jump and became Willy Jump. ‘Jump’ in Dutch is “spring.” Dusty’s name is a hybrid of both of Willy’s given and married surnames. So here we were in the early Dutch spring, dancing together in the flickering light of ghostly dancers in an art installation in the middle of a cemetery.

© Frank H. Jump

In the video installation Tonight from the Brazilian artist Valeska Soares, people dance in an empty dancehall with an invisible partner. With the romantic tones of Burt Bacharach’s The Look of Love, glides lonely dancers through an endless reflecting space, sometimes encountering each other and moving immediately apart. It is a poetic, melancholic film that explores the loneliness one experiences following the loss of a loved one. They dance with the invisible partner, which is present in the memory. A memory that makes one happy. Tonight is filmed in the ballroom of the famous complex Pampulha in Belo Horizonte designed by Oscar Niemeyer in 1943.

The song ended and we emerged from this phantom-shrouded love shack to continue our search for my mother’s parents interred remains. We made a right turn, walked fifty feet towards plot number 42-3-0304. There they rested together- liefe Oma en Opa. For that moment, all recurring memories of Willy’s turbulent relationship with her father seemed to be erased.

April 11, 2012 © Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

On a recent trip to the Netherlands, Vincenzo and I parked our rental car in the parking lot adjacent to my grandparents’ gravesite. We walked in a circle around where I remembered they rested and accessed the online grave database for the plot number. As anticipated, they were disinterred and their bones were incinerated since I was last there with Willy. We further explored this beautiful cemetery where my grandparents once were layed.

July 26, 2014 © Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

When we returned from our vacation, we continued to empty my mother’s apartment and on August 20, 2014 – 861 days since my mother and I traveled to visit the place of her birth one last time, I handed in her apartment keys to the rental management office at Spring Creek, Brooklyn. Willy is currently residing in a lovely nursing facility in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn – overlooking the mouth of Jamaica Bay, Breezy Point, Sandy Hook and the hustle and bustle of jet-skiers, yachts, sailboats, fishing boats, cruise ships, tankers and other vessels en route to the New York Harbor or the Atlantic Ocean.

Menorah Nursing Facility © Frank H. Jump