The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/28/national/portraits/28ONEAL.html
November 28, 2001
Seamus O'Neil: Many Names, Many Faces
For Seamus Oneal, the idea of having one career and one name was much too timid. By 52, he had worked in five widely different professions, using three different names. As James, he studied drama at the University of Oklahoma, and as Seam, he acted, danced and sang in Off Broadway shows. "It would be fair," said John Oneal, his brother, "to call him a hippie."
Seam Oneal the hippie joined the Army, became
Captain Oneal and won medals for his work in hospital administration.
Nevertheless, after converting to Mormonism, he and Janet Kaye, his wife, and
their three children moved into a bed and breakfast by a big Maryland temple and
ran it together. Eventually, though, he returned to college to study advanced
computer science, moved to Manhattan and took a job with eSpeed
Along the way, he composed liturgical choral works that were played by the Mormon temple's orchestra. And he dropped Seam and became Seamus. "He said, `There might be other Jameses,' " said his brother, " `but there won't be other Seamuses.' He was something. A piece of art."
These sketches were written by Carla Baranauckas, Nichole M. Christian, Jane Gross, Constance L. Hays, Jan Hoffman, N.R. Kleinfield, Barbara Stewart and Robert F. Worth.
Life insurance, too, is an issue. Ordinarily, collecting on a life insurance policy is not a problem for a same-sex partner who is designated as the beneficiary. Tom Miller, 51, assumed he'd have no problem collecting on the policy of his partner, Seamus ONeal.
ONeal worked for eSpeed, in a northeast corner office on the 105th floor of Tower No. 1. Miller and ONeal had been together for three years, and ONeal's life insurance policy named Miller as the sole beneficiary. But when the twin towers collapsed, the company that carried ONeal's policy was itself devastated, and all the beneficiary forms were destroyed.
Miller was told he would have to prove he had been ONeal's named beneficiary, and that, if he could not, all benefits would go to the next of kin. "And," he says, despite their committed relationship, "they didn't mean me."
Miller submitted signed, notarized affidavits from ONeal's family members saying they knew he was the named beneficiary and they had no objections. After weeks of waiting, however, the insurance company informed him that it would not, after all, be able to give him the proceeds.
Instead, the insurance money would be given to ONeal's estate, which Miller has no control over.
"Thank goodness," he says, "I have a very good relationship with the family, so sometime down the road I'll get that money. But you can see what could happen to a great many people whose families do not like the fact that their father or their son lived with another man. They'd never get that money."
Whatever Miller eventually gets from ONeal's life insurance policy, it won't have come soon enough to allow him to stay in the couple's large apartment in Brooklyn. Immediately after the disaster, Miller had to pack up and move; he could not afford the rent on his paycheck alone.