By Cassandra Day,Middletown PressAug 27, 2025The life and times of Middletown’s late transgender pioneer Katherine “Sissy” Wells, is being chronicled in a new play, “Katherine, Darling.”Up until recently, Wells was buried in an unmarked “pauper’s” grave at Old St. Mary’s Cemetery in New Britain, where she died, according to Doolittle Funeral Home Director Heidi Abbott, who helped piece together what is known about Wells’ life. Abbott is the cousin of Wells’ grand niece.Wells would have turned 108 this week. The play is part of the celebration. A staged reading will be performed Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m. at CNTR, 725 Main St. Transgender model Jolene Moste will play Wells.Folks knew Wells was born a man and presented as a woman, according to Brooklyn, N.Y., playwright and retired journalist Beth Harpaz, “but people didn’t necessarily hold it against her or judge her.”The play’s name is a nod to her response when people addressed her as Wells, Sissy or Walter. She would always reply “Please, call me Katherine, darling,” according to Barbara Woike, a city native and Wesleyan University graduate who took photos of Wells in 1979 as part of her senior thesis.
So what did Middletown Press do... they used the word she told them not to use!
Nor did the author of the article use the nickname that Ms. Wells never used and objected to, it was the newspaper that inserted the nickname. On a Facebook post...
As backstory, since June I have been explaining to individuals involved in "celebrating" Katherine that she had a name, the nickname was given to her by a community that shut down her business, saw her beaten in pubic multiple times, and left her to die in poverty to be buried in an unmarked grave.
So why did the paper continue using the name that she hated?
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