Torin L McClure

February 22 1995

Age 35, Dallas, AIDS

  

Snapshot and Comments Contributed by his ex-roommate, David Paulson

Torin L. (Lynn?) McClure was raised in Maple Park, IL, and born to an Irish-Bohemian family, he was the youngest of 4 children, a 1977 graduate of Kaneland High School, 1981 graduate of Northern Illinois University in Interior Design. His earliest office design was featured in a national magazine and he went on to open his own design business in Dallas. His first car was a white Pontiac Firebird, of which he was very proud. He liked to drive fast, and could make a snowmobile fly through the air. Our first apartment after college was large, full of light, very humble, but he made it look like something out of Architectural Digest with scraps he drug home from dumpsters from the science and engineering labs. I was in charge of cleaning up his messes, and usually happy to do so. We watched both MTV and the Weather Channel sign on for the first time from that apartment.

Torin was always surrounded by a select but very devoted circle of friends. He loved Elton, Abba, Laura Brannigan and Moody Blues, but also grooved to country and jazz. He was an intensely visual person, seeing beauty where I only saw function or chaos. In illness and death from complications from HIV and AIDS Dementia, he was surrounded by a loving family of friends in Dallas, and still is remembered by both his Illinois and Texas families with love and sorrow. He was tall, dark, lanky, mysterious and always joyful and kind. You were the love of my life, Tor.