Joseph Emerson Eaton

Diagnoses

Passions

Vocation

Lifestyle

Family

American street person, the son of a wealthy Massachusetts family, he died a homeless alcoholic in San Francisco of AIDS on 12/03/1988. He grew up in an affluent Boston suburb, the grandson of a prominent financier and the son of a business executive. At 12 he was hit by a car. With rehab in a hospital he missed school and had a difficult time adjusting to the private school where his parents put him, his parents divorced at that time. He began drinking at 13. Eaton took odd jobs in New York and Denver, feeling that he'd come home upon reaching San Francisco in 1981. He met a gay partner, Phillip Coleman in 1982 and took a job he liked in a florist shop, where he was a reliable employee. In 1986, Phil was diagnosed HIV+. Eaton took care of him until the end of November 1987. His drinking increased until he was living on the street, begging and eating in soup kitchens. He had AIDS with rashes, fevers and infections. On 12/02/1988 he went into a skid row cafe for a hamburger and collapsed. Thinking him drunk, they threw him out. He huddled in a doorway for shelter and the next morning about 5:00 AM when a local minister stopped to see if he was all right, he was dead.