April 2009 interview of Olympia History from Jene E. Lesbian/Dyke community member
Interviewer Karama Blackhorn
My name is Jene Eberheart and I don’t think there is any other names I have been known as other than growing up in Cuban-Mexico and being Wanita.
I identify as female and as a dyke. And my ethnicity I am Irish German English welsh northern European mutt. Identified as white. I was born into a middle class family.
Is that where you are still?
My father grew up dirt poor and white man who was in the military in the WWII and threw the gi bill got an education and got into the state department and things that really weren’t been possible for him without the G.I. bill so he made it into the state department
Climbed the ladder?
Yep. That’s what he did. My mother grew up middle class the daughter of two artists from Chicago, hes from L.A. and I was raised in the Northwest.
There was a period in Olympia where the lesbian community, the young lesbian community at the time was wrestling with issues of privilege and oppression and we created different support groups based on our class standing for those of us who had economic privilege to challenge ourselves. I was so wanting to work hard on my class stuff that I identified with the ruling class women that literally owned the means to production and it took me not too many weeks but a little while to figure out that actually I had not grown up with my family owning the means of production like factories and shit like that. But because my first ten years, those formative years as the daughter or a state department diplomat you know we had a bizarre life. You know living in Latin America and having Maids and all that I felt terribly guilty about all that whatever. But when my father was fired from the state department it all became clear that indeed that we really were just run of the mill middle class folks. My family has had to juggle things to make ends meet.
At what time were, was there a definitive moment when the lesbians in the area started talking about class and privilege? About a time…
Let’s see, I moved here in 1977 when I was 21 years old.
Did you come here on your own?
I came here with my first girlfriend. We had been together for 2 years and we were together for another six months or so. I followed her here because she wanted to come back to school and finish here undergraduate eduation. I did not go to college and did not believe I would be going to college. So I followed Becca here, and immediately fell in with the feminist karate union was a dojo out of Seattle ran by Pipe Baitman a very accomplished martial artist. At a women’s school, several of us would commute to Seattle. She would come down and teach once a week and then we would teach each other to keep it so. I started that right when I moved to Olympia January of 77’.
Was that solely women or lesbian women?
Oh it was women, leadership was all lesbian. And not necessarily Seattle, but in Olympia leadership was all dykes for awhile. And it was based out of evergreen. I came into it probably a year after Joyce Kilmer and some other folks in town had started in Seattle. And then another year or two we had, there were some of our members here that did not want to participate in the elitist belt ranking system. And so the refused to do that and so the sensei in Seattle refused to authorize them to allow them to spar to the head there was certain stuff they couldn’t do. We thought that was ridiculous so we broke away and started feminist in self defense training
Which was F.I.S.T?
Yes. Fist has a little different orientation it wasn’t just the martial art it was also spent more time talking about other issues around women defending themselves and believing in women.
When was that?
It was late 70s it could be early as 78, late as 79.
How long did it run?
Not too many years ago it ended. I mean it probably ran for close to 30 years. But I wasn’t involved after the first couple of years.
Was F.I.S.T. through evergreen?
No, community organization. That would offer workshops out here but we really wanted it open to more women that just students and staff. Borrowed space rooms like churches and the old community center, I forget all where all.
The couple people I identify with that who really hung in there for decade one of them Is Debbie Leeong and Teresa McDougal who works at the Olympia food co-op and umm Debbie has 9th heaven Chinese herbs she has a csa for years and does some journalism and they are both still around in Olympia.
But anyway back to when did folks the lesbian community and dyke community start having conversation start having conversations about class it was defiantly by the late 70s I don’t know how much of that was going on before I arrived but I felt like I was in that wave of this is an issue we talk about and we wrestle with and this is part of our make up as a visible Dyke community in Olympia. And we could use this we would have lesbian community gatherings and lesbian no-talent shows and whatnot.
Were there issues between female space and lesbian space?
Umm, yeah in Olympia well it was like as far as I’m concerned we ran the action. So it wasn’t like we were competing against straight feminist. They might have been competing with us but we were not competing with them. Now I don’t know about earlier in the 70s here, I couldn’t tell you about that.
Were there places that lesbian met one another and where people met to start actions and hold discussions specifically?
And you know specifically with organizations like fist and there wasn’t a permanent location, people would just get involved and organize stuff. I think hard rain printing collective would have to figure into this as a spot that always existed. So the hard rain printing collective was a movement press here in Olympia that printed for uh, printed matrix that came a little later they started printing anything and everything. There was a prison abolition movement stuff, and northwest Indian women circle printing in support of sovereignty issues and anybody and everybody that needed something printed that was progressive in this light was printed through hard rain printing collective. So Grace Cox who works at the co-op, Don Martin who started the gay resource center and don is an accomplished artist. He does the most amazing silk screening images he did that as part of our building community we created t-shirts and hard rain put out a calendar of silk screen images of different political struggles that were being advertised including back in t the late 70s the push back against gays and lesbians adopt children.
Even back in the 70’s?
Oh yeah. Late 70s. so you know the national lesbian mothers defense fund, I had friends in Olympia who were a part of that struggle, and the fair employment and housing stuff going on in Seattle.
Was that initiative 13?
I don’t remember the number.
I found a whole bunch of information about initiative 13 in 78’. It seems there was a lot of political actions going on in Olympia regarding it.
State wide or…?
Yeah it was in Seattle in 1978.
Okay yeah we would go up to Seattle. Yeah seeing the milk Sean Pen’s movie got me going whoa yeah Anita Bryant oh yeah!
Did Anita actually have an effect on Olympia community?
Absolutely!
What was the deal with it, what kind of effect?
I think of the evergreen Christian center on Black Lake Blvd was particularly visibly homophobic and you know stupid pieces from their pastor the religious section you know about just icky stuff. I remember picketing the evergreen Christian center. Like we made it known we were going to picket. So we showed up and all these dykes with our signs
How many probably showed up to such a thing?
Maybe 25, 30. So this bunch of young dykes and a maybe a few who we would call them honorary dykes don martin and Greg Faulter our honorary dykes. Greg is straight don is not. But anyway, I remember one of our housemates made this image of ladies serve you husbands cause that was one of the quotes from the church ladies or pasture. We were fucking like, concepts like that right? So under that quote she drew a picture of a man’s head on a plate with an apple in his mouth. Just you know we weren’t into chopping men’s heads off but thought it was pretty hilarious that anybody would say anything like that in the 70’s. serve your husbands?
The Conestoga bar was a bar that was the top floor of a building on Columbia streets or water street..you know where the swing bar, it’s on the way to the capital Olympia supplies in on Columbia and it’s like two blocks up from there away from capital lake. It’s an office building and the top floor was a disco. And I don’t know who started going there and thinking wow there are no gay bars in the town we need to carve out some space. I don’t know who started it don might have an idea. I just remember going there with other dykes to dance and everyone smoked back then in the bars its pretty recent that Washington state outlawed smoking in bars. That’s why I hated going to bars I just hate cigarette smoke. But you know it was a good cause we would go down there and the straight people did not like it there was not anybody going great welcome carve out some space on the floor its like just felt entirely antagonistic. But we went there to challenge; we didn’t ask permission we loved the challenge. So there were men and women but mostly men that didn’t want to give us any space on the floor they navigate to uh kind of crowd us or bump hard or elbow us or step on us and there were some swings there I think there might have been a full blown fight. It brought some bad publicity to the Conestoga and they decided it wasn’t worth it and they shut down/ which we thought was a victory well if we’re not welcome here then you should shut down.
How long did the Conestoga battle go on?
That challenge was months.
So it wasn’t even that long?
It might have been more than a few months but certainly under a year. And the first women take over the night marches were lesbian run. They were downtown. I’m aware that there just arnt anymore, I hear about them on campus but I’m like we need to take back the campus but nobody has organized anything downtown in forever. That’s really where we challenged our energy, it was not evergreen it was in town. So the marches were fist’s were the security. And Greg our honorary lesbian had walky-talkies he showed us how to use. We didn’t just go downtown we went in and out of bars.
That’s really cool.
Yeah taking the whole march out. Sometimes people would stand in the door ways and not let us in.
When do you think actions like that started to wane off? When less community organizing from evergreen queer people and community became obvious?
That’s a good question I wish I could put my finger on it for you. It took me a long time, I started getting really involved in central America solidarity stuff in the early 80’s and by the mid 80’s I was in deep. And I would show up at an occasional queer event but I wasn’t organizing them. Matrix had a run from the late 70’s to the early 80s
1984.
Oh 84? Okay, I was with it for the first three of those years. So there I am off doing central America stuff and it took me years and years to turn around and go well where did it go? Because I just assumed it was all just still going on. And it wasn’t. Maybe it had to do with the time and the space of carving out space and once we carved enough space for the time maybe folks just didn’t feel like we needed to do that anymore.
Do you think that aids epidemic played into it at all?
No.
Was there much of an impact that you felt of aids on the community and the city?
Umm, some folks might say that’s true but keep in mind that AIDS early on was perceived as a gay man’s thing. And a lot of us in the politicized lesbian community dyke community and I use those interchangeably a lot, a lot of us just didn’t perceive we had that much in common with gay men. And it had a lot to do with class stuff and it had a lot of just do about power dynamics and perceiving the visible gay male community as not interested in anything beyond themselves. Except that of the honorary dykes like don and Greg and some others. My perception is that most gay men, gay men that are visible to me were just into their trip. And it didn’t have anything to do with challenging themselves around class issues or race issues.
You couldn’t feel a political side…?
Yeah or why they don’t care about genocide in our country or its like liberation movements. I felt like I had less in common with them then I did who were politically oriented and not queer. So, I know there are dykes in this town who totally worked on HIV and AIDS stuff from early on but its nothing I put myself into. I know that preventable diseases deserve full community support to make pharmaceuticals assessable and how capitalism and the industry gets to rake in tons of money of ill and dying people and they don’t create generics it’s just an evil system.
But none-the-less it just wasn’t your calling at that time?
It wasn’t, I was called to .s. has learned a ton in Vietnam about not bringing people home on body bags while they wreck havoc and kill over 2 million people in Vietnam. And the war ended right around the time I would be getting out of high school. Mine was the first class not to get drafted. So that was super visible in my day so the central American wars in the 80s were holy shit here we go again but in this hemisphere. And I speak Spanish and this is right next door we are not sending in troops we’re sending in advisors to train disenfranchised folks in their own countries to kill their own people. But this is still low intensity conflict for us but not for them. That was coined during Ronald/bush years. So for me it shifted to foreign policy not as a greater importance then internal policy cause the us was clamping down on resistance in this country. We watched the police state growing from the 60’s forward. Wire tapping, search and seizure without warrants, assassinations of political figures, black panther party.
Was there mobilization like that in Olympia?
Yeah there was, Grace Cox who you should interview seriously. It’s the whole native America fishing right struggles the bolt decision came down in 75’ just before I came here but folks I know who were white folks here in solidarity with and well and the Native Americans who were in the thick of it who still live around here. It was a big deal. It was centered on Olympia. it was happening in Nisqually and 5th street bridge, and white fishermen were just up in arms so this whole thing, a super anti-Indian sentiment in Olympia. They were not honoring this last bit of the treaties broken. They had a right to 50 of the catch and judge bolt a white judge came down in their favor. But I did feel the backlash of that. Olympia was a backwater town. Hell yeah, evergreen has changed Olympia a ton. Not just that evergreen is out here we have infiltrated the state. There are tons of people who went to school here that now are the state apparatus you know the ones moving the conversation forward about actually you know? People graduating from evergreen working with the tribes on fish habitat restorations and a whole lot more sustained effort to collaborate on stuff didn’t happen for that. And other folks can tell you a lot more on that.
So you asked before when did that really visible in your face lesbian dyke community meetings slow down and stop. Anna Schlecht or Grace Cox might be able to answer that.
Yeah I know that Anna is still in the thick of it all.
Yeah she is. And I pulled back, not saying I’ve had enough I ….
Yeah, your passion went elsewhere.
Yeah. The matrix part was a more conscious move. Me pulling back to spend more time doing what…I can’t identify why but it took up a lot of time. It came out every month.
Were there a lot of people working together on it?
No the collective was like five to seven women.
What was the call to start it?
That’s a god question too. I think we’d have to look back at the first issue to see who would say what about it. But it wanted to get the word out about our events and organizing and support other stuff going on in solidarity. It was intended to be a collective consciousness raiser for ourselves and whoever we could get it in the hands of. To say the dyke community was alive and well and thought about other things then just our trip. I think I mentioned when we met the first time that there was a softball team called 13 nice girls.
Yeah, I’d love to learn more about them.
So there’s this very out dyke softball team that competed against other women’s softball teams. They really pushed that envelope that really out dykes could be visible in a league. And I don’t know if this was going on across the country, was it just west coast cites with visible lesbian communities, I don’t know. All those things would be really interesting to figure out. When did Seattle get its first team?
It’s really amazing that Olympia does have so many little secrets that keep popping up like this.
Why isn’t there a dyke softball team you know?
There is a 13 nice girls team still around. They were playing last year according to their calendar.
They are still playing? No way!
According to what I’ve heard from the queer gossip chain they have lost the momentum to play next year but they are still visible in some ways.
Have they been playing all this time?
That I haven’t confirmed. Everyone I’ve contacted from the current team line up has yet to get back to me but I’ll let you know if they ever do.
Jude wake was a friend of Kathryn’s and of mine, at a gathering at Kathryn and Nancy’s last year just went off and started talking about how that was the first pivotal turning moment in Olympia. It wasn’t matrix and whatever, they were before. And I didn’t challenge her I mean who am I to say anything I don’t know the timing. She was like we were out there and we were getting harassed and spit on and punched sometimes and mostly the men who where accompanying their straight women to these games. It shows just how threatening it was for these straight people. Ya know. They were strong in themselves and they also knew who the dykes were on the other teams who could not be visible or recognize them.
Showing the silent support, the head nod and all. Being a symbol?
Oh yeah. But Jude Wake would be really interested to talk about that more.
That sounds great, I’ll look her up. I have a few places that I had some questions about if you remember anything about them. Would you like to talk about Nozama construction?
The winter of 79’ I did a learning contract in my second year at evergreen. M heart wasn’t into academics deeply so my winter quarter of 79’ I volunteered with Janes of all trades. Janes of all trades was the first all women’s construction company they were under the table. They did decks and built a garage and you know they did smaller kinds of projects. It was two women who moved up from California together; Mick Harper and Helen Thorton. Helen is still around you should talk to her. And they huffed and they bluffed, figured out how to do it and took on jobs that were bigger then they could handle and figured out how to do it. I think there were five of us that worked together that winter. And then by spring Helen peeled off to work at the Olympia women’s center for health sliding scale abortion services and other women’s health care. And Mick and a woman who did union construction for awhile Nancy started artimus contraction. Kathy Cox, Karolyn Owen and I started nozama construction. So that would have been the spring of 79’. Two at he same time went different directions. And then annie garnish who still lives in town she was a union carpenter for decades and we’d have women at trades meetings at potlucks and women would move to town there would be an electrician or there was this or there was that but it was mostly budding carpenters. We took on jobs that were bigger then we could handle and figured out how to do it. Early on I’m still embarrassed about, some queasy feelings about some additions but we did the best we knew how to. There is a faculty member here who is retired who took us on. She knew we were novices and I’m grateful for her to hire novices. I still have an embarrassment, uneasiness, or whatever that we still didn’t do as we could have a few years later. I’m still grateful that she took that risk it was our first big job. Two and half story addition to her house. Artimus and nozama construction ads were in the matrix .
Yeah I found nozama ads in the gay resource newsletters and programs.
Really? Women working was our logo, I think we even screened up tee shirts. Back then you know the only signs weren’t like road workers working or careful of whatever it was always just men working signs. That might be lost on you know but women working was a really sharp contradiction to any signs that were out about people working. It was always men working. So women working wasa a direct challenge to it, I think a lot of people thought right on! I still have the screen for it. So we huffed and we bluffed and we built shit. we found older guys who worked in the lumber yards they broken their backs or whatever so being spatially oriented and I would draw things out like if you had this problem how would you do it and they would grab the pencil and draw it out so we learned a lot from them. But mostly just doing on the job and books.
Was you presentation mostly queer or dykes in anyway or was it just female workers?
Female workers but you would have to have your gay-dar completely off to not catch that I was a lesbian. So Carol Ellwood was not a lesbian she identified as bisexual. Kathy at that point identified as a lesbo but it was just extremely uncommon being carpenters and going into lumber yards. I didn’t wear a bra you know. I got called sir a lot in the lumber yards and I wouldn’t correct them I thought it was hilarious and I wasn’t out ot bend gender I was just like women come in all kinds of presentations and I was a lot thinner so my Brest were not so big. Boots and short hair and whatever. So I couldn’t put a finger on when the women workers stopped in town. At the end for I don’t know how many years how lonely it was, I was the sole proprietor. There weren’t women to hire, I didn’t want to deal with apprentices. In the end I would hire whoever had skills including men. When we started bombing Iraq I was like fuck it, I went under the table and just stopped. I wanted out and didn’t know how to do it I kept getting jobs even thought I wasn’t bonded or licensed. It’s a lonely world being self employed and I’m an extrovert. I hung up my last, my last project was working with don and john on their home. They hired me to be the lead and work with them so we reconfigured it all added a story and dormer. They did a nice job of what they wanted.
Giving back to your honorary lesbian?
Right.
Do you know anything about the rainbow restaurant?
So Laura a straight woman that was really supportive of gay people had a restaurant where plenty’s is now. The original Olympia co-op was right around the corner on water or Columbia Street.
Do you know anything about the lesbian work days?
Oh lesbian work days! I don’t remember much about the lesbian work days.
It was in 78’ in news papers. It sounded like a regular thing I’m just curious what that was, how long it lasted and why it existed.
Anna would know about it. I could have participated in it but everyday is a lesbian work day in my life.
What is a lesbian work day.
Where only lesbians worked there that day, but far as the co-op’s lesbian work day I don’t know if was special projects or if it was like only dykes working staffing volunteering. I don’t remember it really. Anna would know though she was really involved in the co-op early on.
Has somebody talked to you about the café intermezzo?
No not yet. I found some activity related to it though. They had women only meet ups in 79’ and the meeting in February was their first mention of lesbians wanting to meet there themselves.
I would identify that as the first place in Olympia where dykes were congregated and welcomed.
Yeah I was reading that the café invited them for lesbian meet ups there. Was that were some of the stuff like fist met?
No we used church spaces, the Olympia center, some space at evergreen.
What was the café like?
Uh, tables a bar. It was nothing special it was small, no character like the spar, a comfortable place. There was a picture of dykes on bikes ..
I thought that was the Smithfield café.
I it was the Smithfield. I’m confused now. Smith field predated intermezzo doesn’t it?
I don’t know that much yet its hard to tell.
Anna Schlecht and I won the collective queen ship at the co-op one year. Don has one the tiara before. There was a harvest ball every year through the co-op.
Was it queer centered or just happen to be ran by lesbians?
Lesbians run everything in this town.
Do you feel it’s still the same way?
That’s a good question. I don’t know.
But it was very evident before?
I feel like we were at the forefront of every progressive movement in town and I don’t really know if that still true or not.
I’d be up for chatting again sometime if you want.
Yeah that would be great I’m really excited about little things I just want to hear everything I can so thanks again very much for your stories.
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