William E. (Bill) Parker was born June 21, 1935 and died June 20, 2014. He and the donor, Ed Gentzler, were partners for 27 years. Bill graduated from Anna-Jonesboro School District in Illinois in 1952 and entered SIUC. He moved with his family to St. Louis in 1953 and began acting around town. He joined the Southtown Players, where he also directed several plays, and other acting groups. He also performed at several establishments in Gaslight Square. He received his B.S. in 1966 from Memphis State University and went to SIU Carbondale for his M.S. in Theatre and Communication in 1968. He received his Ph.D. in Theatre and Speech from SIU in 1975. He moved to Seattle to take a job at Pacific Lutheran University, and met Ed in Tacoma in 1987. Bill was 11 years Ed's senior. Ed was working at Boeing where he had worked on a proposal for a spacesuit that could be used outside the space station. They retired in 2000 and moved to Florida. They moved to St. Louis in 2008 when Bill began dealing with cancer and wanted better medical facilities. Bill died in St. Louis in 2014 of sepsis after complications from a blood transfusion.