Interview of Sue and Val thirteen nice girls, lesbian fun society, and drag

Sue and Val interviewed
Sue: I played ball for 13 nice girls for 12 years. When I moved here they didn’t really need any players but I needed a team. I needed a group to play with and they were kind enough to let me start.
Did you both move here together?
Sue: No she’s been here for years. I moved here, we met 13 years ago so I moved here 12 years ago.
Where did you come from?
Val: oh way far away, Tacoma. (Laughter)
When and why did you move here?
Val: You know actually I was living in Puyallup at the time and you know a girl I kinda just moved down here for her. IU came to stay and visit for the weekend and just never moved away. It’s not like she and I moved in together we lived in different residents but I just met up with a really nice group of gals and went this is for me. Puyallup had nothing; there was no one in Puyallup.
Where these just all sorts of women or just gay women?
Val: Gay women. Yeah.
What year did you come to Olympia?
Val: Probably in mid, late 70’s.
Sue: Long time ago.
Val: That’s right, a long time ago. Community back then we didn’t have gay bars here in Olympia. There was a gay bar in Tacoma.
What bar was that?
Val: It was called; it’ll take me a min, D.j.s. It was up of port c kinda close to where the dungeon is where the old town hall is. The town hall that was turning into dancing. In the divvy part of town up above pacific avenue. Right next door to d.j.s was a peep show where you could put quarters in the machine and watch het sex. And around the corner were you could rent a girl if you wanted. I mean it was divvy. There were gals that would come in a dance for a bit and leave with gentlemen that would cruise around for a bit. They weren’t there for the lesbians but it was a lesbian gay. It was great fun for us, but the working girls used it as a front as well.
What did the crowd of folks that you found in Olympia consist of? Were they all friends that would go to these bars?
Val: Yeah. Well the girl was going to evergreen and the crowd that I really moved into with stuff. There have always been different groups in Olympia and this was really more of the farmer group. Back to the land raisin chickens have pigs, gardens you know.
Who were some of the main people that you recall involved with that movement here? I’ve got a bunch of names but the more the merrier for research.
Val: Okay well gran channy, clay, Becky erstes, just tons and tons of people.
Where you part of a household?
Val: Well I was but Kathy lyal and lee Richards are no longer town. The people I lived with were in a household I lived in a tent behind the house actually. But it was cool tent I had a bed and a rug on the floor it wasn’t your average tent. It was little but we had chicken\s and goats and stuff like that.
How long did you stay involved with that group or are you still in touch and involved?
Val: Well I’m friends with some of the people I knew back then still in town or in contact. There were still people I know from my first wanderings around town you know. However I also went through, it wasn’t that initial crowd but some of these folks are still around too, but it was really grouped around marijuana and drinking. and then one of the crowd got killed in a car accident were everyone in the car accident including here and her girlfriend of the time had been drinking and they were coming back from the bar in Tacoma as I recall and we went to the wake with my girlfriend of the time and on the way back I go you know I’d been drinking and I went didn’t we learn anything? So I stopped drinking and driving and drinking and smoking. And that pretty much put the end of me hanging out with that crowd and I was kinda lonely for awhile because of the complete life change. Those people are good people. They aren’t out robbing people or hurting people, there was irresponsibility around drinking and driving.
How old were you with this crowd?
Val: Probably my mid twenties.
So what were you doing when you two met?
Val: Oh I was old. I had been through several groups. At this point I had already been to 13 nice girl games and the matrix era. I call it the matrix era although I was not involved with matrix. I was one of the people who had a problem with the whole political era. You know take back the night and lets stamp out classism.
Why did you have a problem with it?
Val: Well because I felt like there were people who were trying to tell other people who they were and what to do. I knew somebody who inheritated some money and there were some lesbians in town that had a complete itinerary of what this gal should do with her money and when she didn’t do that she was ostracized. There was a big divide in camp over a lot of political issues. If you didn’t toe the line you were considered not p.c. you weren’t being sensitive to others people’s needs and all that and I was just like well FUCK you. You know, what about me? It wasn’t listening. It was always a telling blah blah blah I’m telling you what to do. There were some people that knew my dad was a heart surgeon and they didn’t know the other half of the story that I got kicked out when I was 17 and didn’t have a dime to my name. there was no way that I could go home where maybe they could have gone home if it was their family but they had no idea where I had gone through to get where I was. There was a lot of judgment and I had judgment in the other way too.
That’s really interesting. The only people I have really talked to around the matrix were people involved or invested in working on the matrix and so the only perspective I’ve been given is how it connected all the lesbian issues in the city and really tightened everything.
[Laughter]
Beyond the folks working on political issues what other things were going on in the community and the people?
Val: There was a really connected community. Now I will say that the people that I had the hard time with I really enjoyed as friends. It wasn’t that they were bad people and I it worked the same way around. There was a lot of political head butting around political issues and what the right thing to do was and I’m sure there are still political issues between us but we also have similar foes. So you know if you call my lesbian sister a name I will be right by her side I don’t care if we were fighting ten seconds ago. So there was also that strong sense of community, I would have backed any of those gals up in a second. That doesn’t mean that I believed in what they believed in and doesn’t mean I necessarily even liked them that much. I don’t feel like my goal in life is to change the world maybe I’m selfish and that’s why I’m so glad I live in America, I’m allowed to be selfish. I also think I do things that help people and don’t think I got enough credit for the things I was doing or the things I had to overcome.
Thanks for sharing all that.
Sue:Getting the history. She’s got it.
Val: In any group you’re going to have the jock gang and the back to the earth gang and you’re going to have the chakra gang
[Laughter]
The chakra gang!?!
Val: Yeah and the new age gang and back then it was hippier. You know I went out with a gal that you know was a really nice gal that was defiantly into the new age stuff even thought I didn’t comprehend it at all but I would have fought tooth and nail for her to do what she wanted to do and I wanted to be treated the same way.
Well as an open question for both of you what do you think the keystone points of Olympia gay history have been? This whole interview is to help build the raw data and stories of the gay history of Olympia because there is so much to get and nothing can be accessed really. So what are some main things that stand out in your experience, some people argue that the thirteen nice girls was a keystone of gay Olympia history…could you tell me what you think?
Sue: I think probably when thirteen nice girls got started back, we were trying to decided when that probably was mid eighties maybe. And I think when they probably started it was probably a core group that brought some communities together... and I think in my time with thirteen nice girls we’ve kinda still retained that grop but like val said there is different groups and one of the nice things about thirteen nice girls now is they are just a wonderful group of women and I was so fortunate moving here from Utah via Idaho that I ran into a group of women like that. Because they did create a community and create a feeling for somebody some outsider to come in a feel comfortable. And that was the feeling I picked up on when I came to Olympia 12 years ago. I was blown away how the gay and lesbian communities really are a tight nit group. Even though they have their differences and even though they may no t all is soft ball players and may not all be political activist they still are very open community. But I think that that also has to do with Olympia itself because in order for them to be as open as they are they have had to be in communities straight gay communities that have shared and not been judge, mental. Not that there aren’t some out there but you know. I was just blown away when I could walk down farmers market holding hands with Val going whoa.
Where you out before you came here
Sue:No?
You came out when you got here then?
Sue: Yeah [laughter] well I had to
Val: She didn’t have a choice dating me. I said don’t worry It’s all right. One of the first times she and I went to dinner was a at budd bay café and we sat down there and there were flowers there that a friend sent to our table and stuff. The waitress went up there and said well what are the flowers for and I said well it’s our one year anniversary or I said it’s our anniversary and she’s like well how long have you two been together and sue was like what this doesn’t happen in Idaho or Utah.
Sue: You just don’t see it. They are just much more conservative states. I mean you have your groups but they just aren’t able to be as open as in this area here.
Val: If I was to give you a list of things
If you were eh? [Laughter]
Val: If I were like I will do right now. [Laughter] I would say and this may not be in chronological order but one of the things was the lesbian fun society which I’m sure you’ve heard about. It really did bring a huge assortment of people because it wasn’t political. It almost came as a reaction of some of the political stuff. Our motto was if it’s not fun we’re not doing it. At the same time it brought people together, it was political to show that we can live normal lives and just go about our business and it doesn’t have to be an exotic fight all the time. It can just be us just being and to go out and dance and just have a good time. It was pretty conscience done as let’s take a break. Even before that I would call it the intermezzo/Smithfield/rainbow era. Smithfield was originally called the intermezzo and named the Smithfield after it changed owners. It was defiantly the lesbian/gay place to hang out at one point and then it was owned by a gay man for awhile and the rainbow down the street was very cool and if it was in the correct era you would have seen people beat poetry snapping their fingers there. It was that kinda place except a different era. So there were all kinds of jazz bands and I would also say if you haven’t heard of the band Gila you should look into that. They were a group of lesbian who were a great little jazz Latin African great little band.
Did they play at the rainbow a lot or..?
Val: They did play at the rainbow and sometimes at the Smithfield and I guess another thing I point you towards and Kathryn would know about this because she lived in that household. I don’t know if you heard about the era of people naming their houses but Kathryn lived at nanny noodles and nanny noodles was the property that houses the very first northwest music festival. Back then music festivals were starting to happen and that was going on in Michigan and California and Olympia had its own music festival. Pharon came and pharon had hair down to her ass and not only that it was down to her belly button too. She was popular, when she was at nanny noodles nobody knew who she was but that she was fantastic and then she became very popular and her popularity kinda fell off with Chris Williams and you’re looking at me like who’s that?
[Laughter]
Val: Yeah your general lesbian music history is, you could spend a lot of time trying to focus on that if that were you want to go with it. But pharron is a kinda a Joan armetradiong artist, very cleaver with her lyrics.
Did the music festival only happen once?
Val: No no I think it happened two or three times, we had more than one and again I’m not really the person to interview about that. I just attended and can think of that being an important thing that happened. There were a lot of gatherings around the importance of music and just around music. At one point my partner and I worked at hardell’s lumber mill for five or six years and one of the things that happened there was one of the guys started teasing or making comments out of the earshot of my partner and I and one of the other guys basically told them to shut their mouth and for five or six years not another word got said.
What time frame was this, as in what years about?
Val: Late 70’s roughly would be my guess.
When you were working in the lumber yard was this the same time ear as gay women construction like nozama and atriums?
Val: Yes absolutely. Well one of the people I was partners with was one of the people in nozama. And the construction stuff was important.
How so?
Val: Well the whole group, and this was group I didn’t hang out with much but there was this whole group of them that are still very very active going to nicgroagua and that s a whole realm of activism that isn’t gay oriented but it’s amazing. And you would probably be shocked how many gays are involved with that. And the co-op stuff, also a lot of lesbians in that.
[Skipped conversation off subject]
So when exactly did the 13 nice girls really start up, do you know why?
Sue:I told Val I bet she’s going to want to know that and we were thinking mid 80’s. Now the team, I’ve retired this year, it’s a great group to finish out a career with. When I started 12 years ago there were only 2 players that had been with the team for several years. Grace and leyane and I think Wendy was there I think Wendy was one of the first ones but they have been around its kinda tough because this year the league itself is kinda questionable. There aren’t a lot of women’s teams to play ball against really. I the last couple of years we have only had maybe five six years to play again. The women’s slow pitch team is kinda dyeing out which I don’t know why but many of the better teams have gone up north or are just playing tournaments. The average age of the thirteen nice girls is probably mid thirties.
Where they all younger when everyone started or new folks?
Sue:On the team now we picked up some 22, 23, 24 year olds that are now late twenties but I would say probably about like me mid to late thirties when we started. Some of the members were people that moved here from California and Illinois and then through conversation or whatever and if you enjoyed softball then you’d find heres this team that would be fun to play on. But not everybody that plays has the opportunity to play for thirteen nice girls. They started on other teams which are good cause then it gives you somebody to play against. I’d say it started off in the mid 80’s.
You were saying that the gay community and the team were really open but how did the rest of the community react to it?
Sue: Do you know the answer to that question (to Val?)
Val: Well...
Sue you were saying that playing with the thirteen nice girls was a really great experience but how did Olympia and other women’s leagues and the communities react to an all gay team?
Val: Well yeah, I remember going back to the games way back when actually even some of the team were in those women’s bands I was telling you about so there was this kind of blending. I don’t remember much of a reaction at all. I just went to a couple of games you know. The tribe teams didn’t do anything.
Sue: In my time playing there has been no disrespect towards our team. And maybe that’s because we’re good softball players. I have never felt disrespected for being on a gay softball team. I remember we went to lesbian softball tournament and somebody said well aren’t they all?
[Laughter]
Val: I think another thing that thirteen nice girls had going for it even way back then was that there were really, really nice people playing on the team. There weren’t people coming in pouting they were there to play and have fun and it was really infectious. The team has kinda gone up and down with that philosophy and sometimes it’s easy going about it and then a little more let’s gets out there and kicks some ass. Never with some of the seriousness have some of the teams I mean some of them you don’t even think they are having fun. The thirteen nice girls were always like that...
Sue..Which is probably why we’ve always been treated well as a team. We have been and we are nice, and we are nice to play against and we get compliments about that. It is about the sport, it is about the ability to play not just being competitive.
Val: As a fan, if the other team’s player made a really good hit I’d be right there cheering them all you know good job! Bastard.
[Laughter]
Val: You know it’s all about playing as hard as you can. Play hard work hard.
If the team is an all gay team how is that defined? Limits to lesbian definitions? Language to it? Or is it just like we’re a gay team if you want to join that s good with us?
Sue: Naw. You know we actually have some straight players on the team now in the last few years so I think it’s more if the person is a nice person gay straight you know.
Is that how it has always been?
Sue: I think so Kara. Thirteen nice girls always had pretty good softball players. Either they had retired from fast pitch or they had just years of experience but it was defined probably more so on what kind of person you are. Are you a nice person? Can you play ball? That’s kinda how our philosophy goes. You know we a family with a softball problem, not softball players with a family problem.
Good motto.
Val: I don’t think there was ever really open tryouts or an ad in the paper with tryout it was always the friend of the friend of somebody who got invited or people actively campaigning you know I watch you play really want to play please, please, please and then what happens is that you end up with a lot of people who are a lot alike. There is a natural tendency of people to hang out with people who are like themselves. So a lot of nice girls join and one or two bitches. SO if I think somebody would fit in and probably they would.
Sue: Usually if we lost players it was because they had commitments come up or they played for another team or they wanted to play more games than we did or play tournaments which we didn’t really do much.
Val: There was a kinda weird period and a kind of influx, and I don’t think anyone was mad at anybody, but for two or three period younger periods came in and played and the team ended up being really competitive because the thirteen nice girls has always been a good team but it suddenly became an excellent team. That then meant let’s play more tournaments and really tighten the screws a bit. And there were some players that really didn’t like that so they started a new team and took with them the early philosophy of the thirteen nice girls. They just wanted to play and have fun. So the team has had a rise and fall like anything but no different.
What was the name of that split off team?
Val: The Tomboy.
When did that happen and did it run long?
Sue: That was probably, I would say the late 90’s maybe 99. 8-9 years ago.
Was it older players that split off?
Sue: Some of them. At the time you played completevly or rec league. They played rec league and the players that we accumulated in those years just naturally we became a more competitive group. Not that it was intended it was the ability and the players played because they loved the game and when you love the game you just play hard. I would say not that the players on the other team they just played different teams and when you’re on a rec team you also play rec teams. Like I said this year they have decided to play some tournaments instead of the league so we’ll see how that goes. I guess there is a tournament next week so we’ll see. Some of our players have moved towards Seattle so they have to commute
Val: Another thing that kinda blew it for me is that the nice girls would play one game a week and after the game we would have some cake or have a picnic or come here [back to sue and Val’s home] and have a little food and just hang out. And then what happened they changed it to the league time was half as long but you played double headers. So you go and the game is at 6 and the next is at 9 and it ends at 11 and then come on you guys it’s a long day and the social part of it just died. I went I’m not going I mean I like softball but I don’t just want to cheer and cheer and go home.
Sue: I think they decided to do that since we lost a couple teams and it was more cost effective for them. But it did change the socialness we could have. Not that we didn’t still go to have a bite to eat or something but the players from Seattle would have to go home.
Val: Everything has a rise and fall. Matrix, nice girls, lesbian fun society. And the story with the lesbian fun society’s that there was a small group of us sitting in the living room on the floor well let’s do this. Kind of a lesbian welcoming committee as we saw it so we put an ad in the news paper and we got some phone calls from Chehalis or Onalaska or something like that with a graduating class of like 8.
Yeah I drove past it once on accident.
[Laughter]
Val: Yeah they’d call and we’d go and scope her out make sure she’s not a thug and we’d introduce her to the community. We came up with the concept and taking a calendar and saying okay on Thursday this month I’ll show desert hearts at my house and anybody who wants to come can come. We had 35 people that we would send a little flyer who we all invited and we figured oh maybe ten people would show up and oh the next week we’d have this thing on Tuesday and play games. So we once a month sent out this little flyer on who would host and that was really successful. It grew and grew and we decided to pull our money together and throw a Halloween dance. We rented the Olympia ballroom
Above the urban onion?
Val: Uh huh and oh the Halloween parties were pretty extensive. I remember this house was filled with 8 and 6 feet piece of cardboard painted with castle walls and we lined those walls with them and we would have contests and dancing. There would be over 300 women who would show up at these dances. So then what happened we just said here sign up and we can include you in the flyering? It ended up after a few years we had enough women on the list that we qualified for bulk mailing. I mean you cannot send out an open-ended mailing invitation to 300 400 lesbians to sit down in your house and watch desert hearts. It got too big for its britches. The original welcoming committee, many of the women who came into town and everything with our weekly ad in the paper we had people who answered the phone and we scoped them in and invite them to the next event and then there was the initial 7 or 8 of us and I don’t know the inside story but I betcha like 7 or 8 buck that its true with matrix too that the initial people that had all the vim and vigor to have it happen just finally said hey how come its always us doing it and they tried to get other people to make it happen and we started to try to get other people to take over and we had been doing it for 8,9,10 years and we said okay heres the list and here’s how you do it and we have money you can use cause we finally made money to pay for the rentals and audio equipment. It was a paper sack full of money frankly when it finally ended we gave the money to a mutually agreed upon group in town [stonewall youth]. Eventually if you finally say I have to step back and nobody steps in it dies.
Did it just die real quick then?
Val: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It carried on for one year and then that was it. The gals that took it on tried really hard and the people who were interested in taking it on didn’t have the other ten people taking it on with them. Two or three people can’t do it. For something like that and matrix it was a labor intensive love.
Was the flyer mailed a news letter or a post card?
Val: It was a news letter yeah. A call for help and all that kind of stuff. I feel really fortunate to have been involved with that great people working on that.
Are there other stories from that work that you feel are important?
Val: Well the first gay prides were a whole 15 people bucking down the street.
Yeah I’ve heard that! The owner of jakes said he stopped by just for a quick min and almost missed it
[Laughing]
Were you there?
Val: No but I have heard that it was quite a small gathering. I went the next year but I heard the first year was just this tiny rara munchkins going down it.
Since both you guys have been here for some time how has pride shaped the community?
Val: It’s really grown in my book
Sue: In the time I’ve been here it’s really grown too but she has more of the history part of it in my opinion.
Val: I was Miss. Gay Olympia
When?
1999.
Was this at the drag balls at thecla?
Yeah.
Tell me about those. Nobody I can catch has been able to tell me much.
Val: It was a group called spectrum that started it. When I joined in it was a bunch of queens basically. Gay guys, there was a couple of other women involved.
Sue: I’d say mid nineties. Like 96’ when you were.
Val: Yeah 96 was my final year, my final performance.
You performed in it?
Val: Oh yeah I traveled around and did my shtick.
Did you do drag?
Val: No I did stuff like you’ve never seen before!
I don’t know about that I get around.
[Laughter]
Val: I was considerably thinner and foxier and I put on really thin leotards and had on basically a black leotard with black skies and black ski boots and start laying on my back with the skis on and then with the skis because they provided a fulcrum I could just like fall forward and the back of the skis would fall forward with dancy moves. So basically a dance with skis, It was really slow-mo.I did stuff like that some lip-syncing but extremely choreographed movements with it like Alanis morriset and Bruce Springsteen.
Have you seen drag shows lately you could compare them to?
Val: No no, I haven’t been out lately.
At that time was there a lot more performance piece work and less drag in a drag show?
Val: No mostly drag, mostly queens, I was the performance piece. I would go to the meetings they would get up in thecla and say I don’t care if you play the accordion up here lets entertain ourselves. I can say I used to have a problem with drag queens and whatnot I would say I don’t understand anyone that would want to put on a bunch of makeup and wear high heels girl or guy it just didn’t make any sense to me at all. But then when I was hanging out and traveling with them you know with my queens I just went a total turn around in my head. How could you have any problem with anyone that is having so much fun with what they are doing? I mean you go, you go girl! It was fun. And of course there was political fighting and it ended too.
What happened?
Val: You know I have yet to be involved with any kind of volunteer group that didn’t have fighting and bickering in the middle of it all. I’m generally not somebody who gets involved with it though. We would meet every week and we would sit down and finally it reached the point where I said okay are you going to turn in your resignation as being president and then we are going to talk you out of it and then we can continue on with our business can we just skip that part this week? I’m in a hurry tonight. The drama, probably the lesbian fun society had the least amount of drama that I was directly involved with. The thirteen nice girls don’t have much.
Sue: Yeah not really.
Val: It just ended up being a big debate on whether to join the Tacoma official court or start our own and getting the name sanctioned and who would own the name. All I wanted to do was to get out there and have fun but. It was this strange kin of experience because they really wanted a miss. Olympia and so I tried out and won it and I did a fun piece to win it.
[Skipped side tracked chatting]
Val: I could tell you what seems to have evolved quite a bit I don’t think men are seen quite as evil as they used to be back in the late 70’s early 80’s. Some of the things back then were hang him by his balls. And this is my opinion there should be levels a 23 year old guy who beds a 16 year old girl is not the same as a guy who take a younger girl or different levels that are not recognized. It doesn’t matter your off to jail.
[Skipped side tracked conversation]
Val: I used to live in Bellingham and it’s very much like Olympia. I was there in the seventies but Bellingham has a great history too. There was a whole group of us that used to hang out and we went to a bar way down on the water front called the Alaskan. And we hung out there and hung out there and it wasn’t a lesbian bar and there wasn’t a lesbian bar it was a real working man’s kinda bar but it finally reached the point where a guy would walk in order a beer and look around, finish his beer and sneak right out. So then what happened a couple of the gals that hung out at this bar went to the bank and said well we want to buy a bar. There was a bar called the hut that was on sale and they wanted to buy that bar. They said no way. They dink and loitered and they went back and they said we want to buy a bar and its going to be a gay bar. And the bank said alright that might work for us that might make some money. So they opened up the hut and they got the money which eventually they bought the space next to it and it became rumors. And I was a part of the people that scrubbed and cleaned and did all the stuff inside the hut and did the opening of the new hut which was rumors. So it was owned by a couple of gals for a long time. It started out in this little seedily tiny place.
A barstool bar?
Val: Exactly, booths on one side, barstools, and a bar. That was it until they bought the space next to it and added a pool table.
[Skipped side tracked conversation] when I first came out I was told I had to choose to be butch or femme or I was not going to be expected in the community.
Now a days you can’t be either often my age it seems so often.
Val: Yeah it’s strange but back then you had to choose and if you didn’t you were known as Kiki.
What’s Kiki from?
Val: It just means you hadn’t chosen. You were indefinable, don’t get involved with her you don’t know what you’ll be getting into or might be getting into you. [Laughter]
Was it just not believed when people came out?
Val: No people just didn’t know how to treat you. Were they going to treat you like a butch or a femme? I sat down and I thought about it and said well I just can’t see myself sitting around waiting for some bull dyke to come up and say hey babe you want to dance but at the same time I couldn’t see myself going hey babe you want to dance. So I decided I was going to be butch because that’s more my style but I was going to be the strong and silent butch. That way I didn’t have to take on the more overt bull dyke behaviorism that just didn’t seem polite to me. I was more of a gentleman I guess and so I just was more refined than the bull dyke.
How old were you when you came out?
17
Was that a common age when you came out it seems a lot of people in the 70’s and before held out longer than that.
Val: No, no I got kicked out and on the other hand I can’t say what was common but know that for myself right about that time most of the people I knew were much older than me. But the group that I kinda fell in with was an entire Girl Scout group that all the gals in high school was a lesbian. They all got found out and caught and the whole group got busted up and this was in Renton. They all had just gone to college and stuff like that so you know it can be that way. They were all out and clearly my age or younger so I don’t really know what typical was. It turned out that my roommate was a lesbian in college and she was one of those girl scouts. She scoped me out and I never heard the term lesbian before I just knew I was kissing on my girl in high school and these natural things happened I just knew who I felt romantic towards. She told me she was also butch and introduced me to all the girl scouts and they were the ones who basically said is she a butch or a femme and I had to decide. They lived mostly in Seattle and we lived in Bellingham and on our way back up to Bellingham my friends say you need to choose. Well what does that mean? I guess I’ll be the guy, the butch.
Like straight up cornered you? You need to decide before I let your kiki self out of this car kinda thing?
[laughter]
Val: Yeah yeah that’s pretty much right. In fact I remember watching sue walk across thinking well who’s this cute butch looking gal. she asked me to dance and she should I say it or not, the typical saying butch in the streets femme in the streets so you know there are different ways that people do it. I don’t want to be with somebody that is a girly girl I want somebody who can get dirty and ride motorcycles and enjoy doing things I enjoy doing no delicate flower. One of the things I love about sue is one of the first times we were kidding around and she slugged me and I went YES this is the girl for me!

Interview Of Jene-Olympia Lesbian 1970's

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 9^th 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 5^th 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.