Bio
Monica Wehrle and Harriet Miller reside in Allen County and have been a committed, loving couple since 1977. As women’s rights advocates, the couple created the Fort Wayne Women’s Bureau, a nonprofit human services agency that provides a host of services to women and children, and they spearheaded a national fundraising event for the organization.
Because they are not married, they are unable to own property as married people do, but instead have had to incur legal fees to ensure that in the event of one of their deaths, the property would automatically pass to the surviving person. During the course of their relationship as a couple they have had to expend significant sums of money to pay attorneys to create legal documents to secure the right to make medical and other important life decisions for the other person in the event of incapacity. If they were married, such documents would not be necessary. Additionally, are concerned that in the event one of them is hospitalized, these documents will not be honored.
Harriet has three adult children and four grandchildren, and the couple has many great nieces and nephews who know them only as a couple. They wish to marry and wish to do so in Indiana – where they live. They want their legacy to be honored with dignity and their heirs to be proud of who they are, with knowledge that Indiana and the United States recognizes them and their contributions as a couple and provides them with full legal rights.