Mildred J. Berryman was born September 22, 1901 in Salt Lake City, Utah, the third and last child of Richard Gordon and Mildred Stokes Berryman. Mildred's father was born November 28, 1862 in Tronis, England, the son of William and Mamie Rowe (or Fowers) Berryman. Richard left England with his family in 1867, settling in New Jersey. In his twenties, he drove a spring wagon across the Rocky Mountains and settled in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he worked several years as a miner near Leadville, and was one of the first "vigilantes" in that area. While in Colorado, he met Mildred "Millie" Stokes, an actress who was touring the United States. She was born on February 18, 1871 in New York state (town unknown) to George W. Stokes (mother unknown). Richard Berryman and actress Mildred Stokes were married in Colorado Springs in 1892. They lived there for two more years and then moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where Richard got work in 1897 as a bartender for the Utah Liquor Company, located between Main and State Streets on 200 South, at the heart of Salt Lake City's red light district. Their first child, George Stokes Berryman, was born in March of 1896 and their second child, Richard Gordon Berryman Jr. was born August 14, 1898. Until 1910, the family moved residences almost yearly. But in the summer of 1910, Mildred's mother grew ill and died in August from cirrohsis of the liver. After her death, the family finally settled into a home at 412 East and 900 South, which the family eventually bought and remained in. Mildred's father continued working at the Utah Liquor Company until 1913, when he got a job tending bar at Hanak and Rumph. In 1914, Hanak and Rumph changed its name to the Opera Buffet and a year later, it was called the Opera Bar, where Richard continued to work until the 1920's, when Prohibition forced him out of his job. In its earlier days, the Opera Bar is rumored to have had a significant homosexual clientele.

In 1939, Berryman stopped working on her thesis, "The Psychological Phenomena of the Homosexual," which she had hoped to turn in to Temple Bar College in Seattle, WA, which may have been an organization operating through correspondence courses. During World War II, Berryman worked at a small arms defense plant at Hill Air Force Base, where she met Ruth Uckerman Dempsey. At the end of the war, the couple opened a manufacturing company called Berryman Novelty Manufacturing. They remained together for thirty-three years until Berryman died at the age of 71. Her obituary lists that she was a member of the Bountiful Community Church, past president of the Business and Professional Women Organization, and past president of the American Legion Auxiliary. Parts of Berryman's unpublished thesis were published in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society in 1978.

Mildred J. Berryman died of natural causes on November 7, 1972 at the age of 71. Her obituary lists that she was a member of the Bountiful Community Church (which, since 1966, was a combination of the Congregational and Episcopal Churches), past president of the Business and Professional Women organization, and past president of the American Legion Auxiliary. Her obituary does not even mention Ruth Uckerman. At Barrie's death, her relatives descended on their home, "to take whatever they could". Fortunately for Ruth, the house and shop were legally protected and belonged to her. However, Ruth did have to hide the manuscript thesis of Mildred's from the prying eyes of her relatives. Once things settled, Ruth sent Vern and Bonnie the manuscript, asking that they publish it, however keeping Mildred (and her other subjects) anonymous, as she would have wished. Vern and Bonnie Bullough published some of Mildred's findings in the 1978 issue of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.

One source indicates that Ruth Uckerman then moved to Idaho to live with her son Clyde.17 However, Nellie Mathis, a neighbor of the two women, told me that rumors spread in Bountiful, Utah that Ruth had joined the People's Temple (led by Rev. Jim Jones) and had died in the Guyana tragedy in November 1978. Ruth Uckerman is not listed among the known victims of Jonestown, and the Social Security Death Index reports that Ruth Uckerman died in July, 1979 in Bountiful. She was also buried in the Delta City Cemetery, Millard County, Utah on July 12, 1979.
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Mildred Berryman was a researcher, writer, photographer, and stenographer and a lesbian member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She attended Westminster College in Salt Lake City, where she intended to study lesbi- anism, which the school refused. Berryman married "to try and escape her homosexuality" but soon left her husband. In 1920, Berryman had her first lesbian relationship with a music teacher named Mae Anderson. Their relationship lasted a year. Anderson would eventually become a faculty member of the Latter-day Saint School of Music, teaching alongside Willard Weihe, who was the president of the Bohemian Club, a social group for homosexuals founded in 1886. Around 1920, Berryman joined the LDS Church and received a Patriarchal Blessing in 1921. After another failed attempt at heterosexual marriage, she met Edith Mary Chapman in 1924 and they lived together for four years in Edith's home, which she later turned into a boarding house for lesbians.

Berryman began working as a photographer, processing and taking photographs for the Superior Photo Company. She moved back home and resumed work on her thesis on homosexuality, gathering data for her case studies over the next several years, primarily with people she had met through the Bohemian Club. In her study, she included data on 24 lesbians (including herself) and 9 gay men. In 1936, she met her next companion, known only as Z in case study #24. They were together for twelve years.

sources:
http://csw.pre.ss.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/10/MakingInvisibleHistoriesVisiblePartII.pdf
http://www.connellodonovan.com/berryman.pdf