Archives West Finding Aid

Dan Milton Hughes Wilcox (1940-1994) was born in Salt Lake City in 1940 to Bruce and Marice Hughes. His parents divorced in his childhood and his mother married Wilford Wilcox when Dan was 14 years old. Dan married Linda Player in 1964. They had three children: Kira, Alicia and Christine. Wilcox graduated from the University of Utah in 1966 with a B.S. in Education with an emphasis on Mathematics and Sociology. Wilcox taught L.D.S. seminary for three years before returning to the University of Utah to pursue a Ph.D. in Philosophy.

In 1978 Linda and Dan divorced, and Dan came out as a homosexual. He became active in the gay rights movement in Salt Lake City, and led discussions with Affirmation, a group for gay and lesbian Latter Day Saints and was also active in the Metropolitan Community Church, which ministers to LGBT people. In 1979 he moved to Boise, Idaho and began studying environmental illness and "brain allergies" to help cope with his life-long struggle with mental illness. In 1990, Wilcox was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He died in 1994.