- Tape and say this is Rose Norman, and I'm here with B. Leaf Cronwright, and we are interviewing Gwen Demider and Gail Atkins at Women Rights in New Jackson, Georgia on Saturday, October 12, 2013. - One second, I think I need (mumbles). I have it here. - I have a lot of notes, but... - We could make a quick outline afterwards. - Oh, yeah. Or, let me do review. - Okay. - Oh goodness. - (laughs) - The key dates are 1970, you divorced. 1975 you to me. 1980 it all blows up with-- - We get together in 80. It all blows up with whatever-- - Lundstrom. - And you get together with Gail, and you have the three different places you live. First, with Jack, friend and neighbor of Deborah and Jeffrey, and then the house on Young Street, and that's where you start looking for the land. People who were in the house on Young Street, Ronda, Melissa, and Sheree. Now, Sherri did not get in on the land. - Melissa and Sheree broke up at some point while we were living together. - Okay. - And she got with Robin. Robin was the new girlfriend. - Okay. - Who had... Robin had also been attendant to a neighbor down the street (laughs). - (laughs) Oh, Lord. So she really is at both. - Right. Now, and Wolfspider again, too. - Okay. - Okay, so we have this big ritual, and Gail says she's not looking that I call her, and I do. We got that, and we go out and look at it, and Gail feels like this is it. My feelings were not that strong, because I was thinking about it being so much like the land in Arkansas. Plus, I never know, you know. Are you sure, you know? - I was sure. - So we bought it the next week, and Pat's business fronted some of the money. I think I had 5,000. Alicia had 5,000, and we paid 15,000. I think Pat done burned... There was something else in there. We had to pay Pat back some. I don't remember how that went, but something like that. We paid cash. - So just three of you ladies, then? - Shocked the people that we were buying from. - Other people wanna be-- - They showed up. - No, because George didn't put any money in, and Robin didn't. I don't think you had any at that point, except... We had... I guess our money was combined. - Yeah, I did that. - Sorta. Anyway, we put five. Something like that. - Where did the 10 come from, then? - Five, five, and five from somewhere. I don't know. I can't. - Dunbar? - Dunbar was five. - She got an interest free loan from her business for part of it. Seemed like we paid her back for some of that. - Where's the other five coming from? - Alicia put some in. I put some in. I just can't remember the details. - I mean I have the book. I'll look it up when I get home. - Okay. - I might have it in-- - So 15,000 for how much land? - 40 acres. - Shit (laughs). - Nothing on it, pine trees. Nothing on it. But it did have trees. It had hills. It had cactus, sand, dry creek, wet creek part of the year. - And it was beautiful. It is beautiful. - (laughs) - Yes, beautiful. - I brought my time book, so I could have it for some of this. I'd have to get it out. - So no water, electricity, or anything? - No, we-- - Electricity was running through it, but-- - We hauled water for washing. - From where? - Our professor from Memphis State owned land right up the hill from us. They had a well. We could get water there, but at first we got it from a store that was three miles away. - How did we meet him? - Probably making phone calls. Nobody had phones back then. - Right. - So we'd go to the-- - So you'd haul it from the store, like you had to-- - Milk-- - The faucet-- - Milk jugs. - Milk jugs and a faucet that you'd just use. - We'd go up to Keil, the country store. We got to know the Keils, and Pat later hired old Mr. Keil to work on her cabin. - So he could-- - Actually, she-- - He had enough to draw social security. - Actually, she hired him to work at her sheet metal shop in Memphis, but that was a 60 mile drive, and he needed a few more hours to get his social security, and his eyes weren't that good. So she said, "How would you think "About working three miles from home?" (laughs). - And that's what he did. - He did some finishing work. - He was a carpenter. - Yeah, he was a country guy. - Just a lot of skills. Group: Yeah. - I think he had been a sheet metal worker at one point, a farmer. So he did some finishing work on our bathhouse, on the inside, and on her yard. And she paid him. I don't know what. But that kind of got us some points with the neighbors. (laughs). - Yeah, it did. - Did you do that the first year? - I don't remember any structures out there the first year. - I'm trying to think what started first. - The dome kitchen. - Yeah, we did that before we did the bathhouse, didn't we? - Yeah. - We started first. Okay, Pat Dunbar with the sheet metal company, she didn't really know what our skills were. She didn't really trust that we could build anything. Well, I'm just saying that, but she was also into new and innovative things, and she read about these dome structures, which I had read about too. So she had all this wood cut and sent down to us to build a dome kitchen. Unfortunately, she didn't leave any overhang, which was a fatal mistake, but anyway... So first, we built this dome kitchen. - Which still stands there. - Alice Reed redone the outside of the room. - So who all built it? - Me and you and Georgeann. - Was it overhand or (mumbles)? - You know, the walls slant in and out, so all the water comes off some of them and hits the walls if you don't have a big enough overhang, or if you don't put gutters out. So we went to gutters later, but anyway... Bluejay was there during this. Bluejay was lovers with Georgeann Wolfspider. - What? (laughs) - We go way back (laughs). - Way back. - The clock ticks. - The Bluejay? - Yeah. - John McQueen. - You don't have to write this down, but after we had signed all the paperwork and everything, Bluejay said she'd been over at Dianna's land. She said, "You shouldn't put it in any people's names. That's a mistake. You oughta do a land trust," after we signed everything. - This is Dianna's land at Sassafras or at Olla? Probably Olla. - I don't know, maybe Sassafras. I'm not sure. I'm not... well, no I guess it's... Because we went over there and visited. We stayed in Cedar's Cabin. - I can... I can answer Bluejay. - Yeah, we went over there during that time period. I remember, we went to a ritual over there at Olla. - Okay, Bluejay's view from that point was don't put it in anybody's name. Put it in a trust. - Right, but we didn't do it. It was in seven women's names. Without right of survivorship, Sole Femme, they call it. - Why did you do that? - So none of our relatives could... - But if you have right of survivorship, then your relatives can't do that. - Sole Femme means that none of your relatives can inherit your land. - But right of survivorship means that you die. It goes to anybody that didn't die. - So it doesn't matter if it's Sole Femme or not, because it's going to the ones who... right? - Well, if it... I don't know. Some people have told me they don't know what Sole Femme is in Mississippi. - Is that over there? - Yeah, that's not yours, I suppose? - Whoever's that is... - Anyway. - Okay, so yours has... It has seven women's names. - Right. - And Sole Femme without right of survivorship, or with right of survivorship? - Oh, just leave that off. - Our land has right of survivorship, and basically the last one standing owns everything, and nobody has any claim of any of it. - Yeah, that's the same. - Other than us. - Yeah, that's similar. Might have just used the wrong words. - Okay. - But right now-- - We don't live there now, do we? - (laughs) - We live there now? - Yeah. - Well, I'll be damned. - Where did you think you lived? - I don't know where I live. - You live there. - She was there about a month ago (laughs). - I can verify that. I sent you a picture even. - Okay. - We've got them. So that's some land. You've got seven names on it, and those seven people want to live there? - Pat and Annabelle did not plan to live there. It was kind of like Pat's survivor place when things went to shit in Memphis. There was an earthquake, or whatever. - Right. - But they built a mighty fab yert. After we went through our walls going in and out on the dome kitchen, she saw mother earth. Knew you could build one with straight walls, and put a cable around the outside to hold the roof up, so you didn't have to have a post in the middle. So that's what she built. - And it's gorgeous. You pull that cable and it lifts. - It is sturdy. It's probably the sturdiest on its own. - It's up there. - She screwed the sucker together every which way. A lot of women have lived in it. Sharon and Glenda lived in it, and Lee Curry and Mitru and Ayla. Yep. - We had all kinds of women. - Lot of women on the weekend-- - If you hadn't said that, then yeah, because I'm the one who put down who all lived in the yert, and I didn't get there yet, but a lot of people lived in it. Okay, Ayla. - Ayla, B. - Oh, B that lives on Olla now? - No. - Another B. - Let's say Belinda. - Belinda, yeah. - Belinda, Mitru, Lee Curry, Natalie's in Portland. I see-- - Oregon? - Huh? - Oregon? - Hm? - Somebody just came back from... - Hm, let's see. Olla, Jeanie and Paula. - Yeah, but they're a while. - Remember Jeanie and Paula that live in Arkansas? - Winter, all winter? - That's them. - Paula what? Winter? - They worked with Spinster Sink. Jeanie, she was an... Paula... what was her... Paula Marie Child, or Marie Daughter, or something. Paula Maria Daughter. - I can look it up. - She was a stewardess at one point. - Then she ended up in Ozarks. - We have carry on. - They bought land in Arkansas. - Yeah. - They lived with us for a year. I forgot about there. - So these are all people that lived at the yert for some length of time? - Yeah, yeah. - So, say how long people lived where? Alya has lived there off and on over the years? - And Belinda, how is she? - Oh, Lord. I don't know. - Don't worry about that. - Belinda was there a couple years, maybe. I don't know. I'd have to look that up. - It doesn't matter. I'm just trying to get a sense of... And did they live alone, or did they live with people, or both, or? - They had a threesome going, I think, for a while. I don't know. I don't know the details. We also had... Early on when we got there we had a little apprentice come from San Francisco named Athena. I don't know if you oughta put her last name, either. She's gone back to San Francisco, but Athena was an apprentice. We had several apprentices of and on. - How did they hear about you? - To help us build. We were probably either in Maize or LC. Josephine came back to visit when she got cancer. Let's see. Ayla left in 94. I don't know. Let's see when she come... Trish and Ayla helped us build. For a long time, Ayla would come for the winter, and then for the summer she would go back up to Wisconsin to farm with Trish. Oh, me. What is this visitors? - Now, where were y'all living when you first bought the land and moved out there? - Okay, okay. When we first bought the land, we moved into a tent with our queen sized bed, but it was like the rainiest year in years, so on one of our trips to Memphis, Gail had a Ford truck, we bought an old wooden camper to put on the back of it for about a hundred dollars, maybe, and we moved the bed into the back of the truck with the type writer and my coffeepot and the two cats, and we had one dog. We put her in the cab at night. We put poo up in the cab. - Okay, a queen size mattress... - A typewriter and a coffeepot and radio. - Manual typewriter? - Uh-huh, manual. Old manual typewriter. - So was the coffeepot like the earlier kind? - No. - So drip coffee. - Yeah, yeah. We had one shelf up behind the cab. - Okay. - With a typewriter and a coffeepot. - I don't know how she could type up there. - And on the side we had a radio. I remember we had a radio. - Like a transistor? - No, we had electricity by then. - Oh, okay. So you dropped a line in there. - Yeah, electricity went right through the land, so we could get electricity right away for power tools. - That's good. - So first thing we did was that dome kitchen, because we had a very... At first we had... I think Georgeann built a very small... Eight by two feet shed for tools, maybe. Actually, our kitchen at first was a clothesline with plastic over it, tent wise. That didn't last long. We decided we needed to build a kitchen. - This is a very organic group. - (laughs) hadn't thought anything out much. In fact-- - So nobody was living out there initially but y'all? - Georgeann, she had a tent. - She had a tent. - We were all living in a tent. Maybe we were living in the back of the truck. - Both, I just told her all of that. - I remember the truck. - So you and Gail had moved into a tent, as did Georgeann. - Yes. - Another tent. - Yes, and Robin and Alicia brought a tent out, and we told them, "Listen to the weather before you come." I can't remember why they were staying in town. Maybe Robin had a job. I don't know. She didn't have it long if she had it. Anyway, she taught sign language, so she could've been doing that. It was Alicia's birthday, and they wanted to celebrate on the land. This must've been in February or March. - Of the next year. - No, the same year. - We bought it in February, so this was like a month later. We said, "Listen to the weather!" We listened to the weather. We still had a house in town. We decided to go in town, because a storm was coming. Maybe an ice storm. They came out. They stayed in their tent. They took on an hour to crack the ice the next day to get out of the tent. - (laughs) wise women. Oh, lordy. - Alicia was used to three showers a day. I said that I shouldn't put that in print, but she liked baths, and we had not much bathing facilities. We had water we poured out of... Water we had hauled, so they took off for California rather quickly (laughs). - The accommodations were not suitable, but their name was on the land, but they hadn't considered how they would live there. - Yeah, I don't know what their plan was. Of course, I'll have to tell you, and you can write this down. When we moved out there, we were getting into all kinds of spirituality, and somehow I had gotten in my idea that we would probably be able to raise our walls with humming, or something like the pyramids, however they do all these odd things. I thought maybe we could levitate the walls into place. (laughs) and the roofs. - That didn't happen. We raised them, but it took more than... The old fashioned way. - So we had plans for a communal house, but that never really happened. - What really made it possible for us to stay out there was have a camper on the back of my truck, and that's what we lived in while we built that dome kitchen. - What kind of truck was it? - I think a Ford. - Ford. - Red Ford truck. - Like a Ranger or something like that? - Yeah, just-- - Something else. F something. - F-150. - Yeah. - Okay, okay. So you build a kitchen. First you build a tool shed. - Yeah. - Then you build a kitchen. - Yeah, we had problems with the water moccasins. Georgeann was standing up on a table shooting her gun at the water moccasin to kill it. It was in our tent kitchen. So then Pat sent the stuff down to build a dome, so then we worked on that, while Bluejay was there. Bluejay and Wolfspider and us. - And it went up pretty fast. That dome went up pretty fast. - Yeah, we had a nice wood floor. Sue was another person, the pharmacist. She donated some wood floor from her farm. They were tearing down a building or something, so we got some nice hardwood floor for it. - Who was Sue? - Sue Watson. - Sue? - Do you know her? - Yeah, I know Sue Watson. She still lives around there, doesn't she? - Yeah. - She moved a camper trailer on our land sometime later, but now she has her own place. - And what was Bluejay staying in? - In the tent with Georgeann, I think. Unless she had her own tent. But she may have... Oh, no. I think she may have had a van. She may have had a van, because they were big on having your own place. - Your own space. - Bluejay was constantly... I don't know if she was after me or what, but she was trying to get Gail and I to have separate bedrooms. - Which Gail was not interested in (laughs). I'm real hard to get to do something if I don't want to do it. - (laughs) - Nearly impossible. - So you're building the dome, got a lot of things donated for that dome kitchen. - And Pat Dunbar was very generous. She bought us boots. She bought us down jackets. She bought supplies. - A down comforter. - She sent food. Things we never thought we needed (laughs). - Right. - Came in handy. - And were you still working on your degrees? Was that why you needed the typewriter? - You had an old manual typewriter in the back of that truck, didn't you? Up on a shelf? - Yeah. - I don't know if you worked on it up there or not. - I don't know. - Once we had the dome kitchen, she could put it in there. But yeah, it was during that time that they wanted her to redo her whole dissertation thing. She thought, well I could... I don't know if it's worth it. I said, "Why don't you not think about it for a while?" I think that was after Christmas. We got water at Thanksgiving, so we didn't haul water that long. - Oh, that's pretty... from February to Thanksgiving? - No, let's see. February to Thanksgiving is a long time. - It's a long time to haul water. - Yeah, yeah. That's right. I guess we hauled it through that summer. - Damn. - You were young. - Uh-huh. - I tell you, you know, I realize now that not having a memory is a blessing (laughs). - We did not haul that water in the car from up at the Goman's up our hill. Pat Dunbar had made an aluminum cart that we pulled up that hill. Luckily, when it was full we were coming downhill. - It was at least the size of this desk. - Yeah, about from here over. - It was big. - Aluminum, we still have it. - Big wheels. - Never rusts. - But it worked, because it was made out of aluminum. It was light. And it had sides where you could just... - Actually, was it that fall? We had been there through the summer? Was it that first fall we got water? Because that was when you decided you needed to go to work, so we could have money to buy a well. So I guess that was the first fall we were there. I was thinking you were-- - I remember Holly Springs to see about a teaching job, but I mean... - They'd start you up. - I took my resume. - Okay, it's still 1980, and you need-- - We got a well at Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving we went to Merrill's. We had blocked everything off so nobody... We thought we had blocked things off, so nobody could come in and steal stuff, because we had some things stolen when we had our tools in a tent. The well man came in and put the well down, and came around everything we parked there. He came in and did it while we were gone. We thought he was going to wait until after we got back. - Wow. - So we weren't sure how deep it was, but I think it's 250 feet. - Yeah. - And that was at-- - Still working. - And you bought the land in 82, right? - Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah, we bought in 82, not... - So all this is in 82. - Let's see. We got together in 80. Yeah, we were messing around at the farm, and that was for two years. - Living in those different places, and then in 82-- - 82-- - That was 82, okay. - You get the land, and then Thanksgiving-- That weekend in 82. - Yeah, and then we got the well over Thanksgiving. - Oh, that was wonderful. - When did you start building your house? Or what was the next structure out there? - The next structure was the geodesic dome kitchen. - No, we already did that. - Oh, we did that? - Well, we did... Okay, we did a tool shed. - Yeah. - And the dome. - And the dome, and the kitchen. - And the yert. - Geodesic dome, is that what it is? A geodesic dome? - Yeah. - Well, I don't... - It's not real big. It's a small-- - I didn't think those had overhangs? - No, this isn't a round kind of dome. - It's kind of triangular. - It doesn't have overhand. - I know, but you said-- - I don't know if I got pictures. What? - I thought you said it needed an overhang. - It did, because when the roof... The roof starts before the side still goes on out. Some of them go in, and some of them go out, and the water hits the side. Rocks the plywood. So we tried gutters. Now, Ayla has covered most of those with metal. So that may last longer. - What was the next structure then? - We worked on our cabin. - You started working on your cabin. Like that year? - Yeah, we must have. Let me see if I've got it in here. - When did the yert go up? - That was in 82, we were working on that. - So a lot of structures the first year. - Yes (laughs). - So it's tent, dome, yert? Or... yeah. - Tent, dome, yert. - Yeah, we had our topper on the back of the truck. That's what we did. - The kitchen is a dome, and Pat's structure is a yert, one of the cabins. Was somebody knocking? - No. - Let's just check. - 82. - Okay, so-- - Let me see what I've got. Okay, here's 82. A spring and summer built dome kitchen and gardened. Okay, we first saw the land Friday the 13th, and the 14th we brought everybody out on Valentine's Day. Alicia, Robin, Pat, Sue... Sue Watson came out. She lived in Oxford, and she had a lover in Memphis, Deborah... Deb. And Georgeann. Why have I got three years? Oh, I've got Georgeann was there three years, and Alicia and Robin were there one month. Group: (laughs) - Say that again. Lisa and Robin lasted a month. - Yeah. - That weekend with the ice storm, right? - Yep, and then they went to California, and they lived on... I think Sally Gearhart's land, or something-- - Wow, Wunderground. - I think they went out there and met her. Georgeann was there three years, Wolfspider, and I've got 22nd was when the Lone Star Farm closed. Same month. - Me too. - Wow. - Robin and Alicia one month. - I've got Sue and Deb built the foundation for the dome. - Sue and Deb did? Hm. _ I don't know what that means, but Sue almost... Oh, no. This was... That may be on Sue's land, because Sue almost lost her thumb. We went down there to help Sue build a greenhouse, and several of us saw something dangerous going on with feeding the wood into the saw, and we didn't say anything, and Sue almost cut her thumb off. So after that one thing around the farm was if you see something dangerous, say it. Don't wait, because she had to go to the hospital. Luckily she got it sewed back on. - And that's women's land, just the two of them, just up the road from you by the house, or whatever. - It was Sue's house, really. - So that never was really Women's Land? - No, and I don't think really Deb lived there. She lived in Memphis, I think. - For a long time. - She just lived there with her son, until she moved out with us. Her son must have moved in with her husband, and she moved out to our land in a trailer. Okay, September we started Cedar Place and Dogwood. Okay, that's September of 82. - Cedar Place and Dogwood is what? - Okay, Cedar Place is our place. We started ours, and Georgeann and Bluejay started-- - Georgeann's? - Georgeann's Dogwood house. That's the one that Ayla lives in now. - That's both of them started in September? - Yeah. I left out, in February and March it was so cold and rainy, Wolfspider and Gail and I took a trip to the Gulf Coast (laughs) for resting. - It was wonderful, too. - We took off in the red truck, animals in... I don't know if we took our animals. I know she took her blue mud. We must've taken Poo. I don't know if we took our cats or not. We may have left them in the house in town. - Yeah, I think they were still in town. I don't think... - In November, we had two new members. - Who were they? - Cher Stewart moved in, my ex lover. She used to live at the farm. She moved a bus in. - Oh, did she? - So not Sheree? - Right. - Okay. - Cher Stewart, New Orleans artist, Memphis artist. She had bought a bus up in New England somewhere and drove it through Knoxville during the Olympics with mud thrown on the plate so she wouldn't have to get a license (laughs). - Is this like a bus-bus or like a school bus? - Yes, like a school bus. - A big bus, and she lived in it for a while, and Sue moved a trailer in, so that was that November. Frannie bought land somewhere else up in Tennessee. Probably that November. - Two new members in November. Cher Stewart and a Sue... - Sue Watson. - Sue Watson. - What year are we up to? - Still on 82. - We're just 82, the first year we moved in. - Oh, my. - And who is Sue Watson? - She was the pharmacist that brought the rabbit shit (laughs). - She taught at Ole Miss. - She was in pharmacy at Ole Miss, had a lover in Memphis. She had been at our ritual. She was the one that said, "We're gonna have to really "Look for land this week." - Oh, Sue Watson was at that ritual? - Yeah, she was at that ritual with Deb. - Oh, I'll have to add that too. - So Deb was at that ritual. - Deb was at that ritual? That's two new women, Sue Watson and Deb Conlin. - I don't remember who all was at that ritual. - That was a big one, yeah. - That was a big ritual. - But Sue already lived out there? - Sue lived in Oxford. - Oh, okay, so she didn't have that land that her and Deb-- - No, she got that later. - Okay. - Yeah, after she lived with us she found that land. I guess she and Deb found that land. - Yeah, because Deb still owns that land. - Okay, I'm lost. - Yeah, you don't have to know all that. - Later on, they bought some land is what you're telling me. - Yeah. - Yeah, Sue and Deb. - Yeah, like within 10 miles of us. - It never was a communal type of place where Sue and Deb lived. - But they did have a festival over there. They had festivals over there. - They had Well Springs Women's Festivals. - Yeah, for two or three years. - For two or three years, which was interesting. - Big thing. - Which we could put in the cultural part. It was a big festival. I went to it all of the times that it happened. It was... I mean... Few hundred people, well organized. (mumbles) I met her out there. - Oh, yeah. - At that very first Well Springs. It was cold, and we camped out on Sue and Deb's land. It was significant that they're part of this initial to write about, that's cool. - Yeah, they were. And they got turned on to women's land going to the southern festival. They went to the Hensen's festival before we went. - And that's what inspired Deb to do this Well Springs Festival a number of years ago, but I can figure out the years of those later. Back to your thing. - It was mainly just Gail and I working. Sometimes we'd get... When we got to the roof part, we had to get Georgeann to climb up there and nail the aluminum on the roof, but we were working the spring of 83. I think Georgeann returned from North Woods, so she must've gone away for the winter. - She did. - To the north for the winter? - Uh-huh. - We moved into Cedar Place as soon as we could, and we just had plastic on some of the walls. We had a roof and plastic and a north wall. We moved in (laughs). - It sounds like that was spring of 83. - It faced south, so we got the solar. - So a year from when you bought it, you moved in, essentially. Pretty close. - Yeah, we must've worked on it that winter. - We did. - March, oh. That March we had a vacation. We were about ready to kill each other by March. - Is it in 83? - March of 83 we were just exhausted. Pat Dunbar offered us a vacation to Denver and Yellowstone to drive her father's car out, because he wanted his car out when he went gambling in Las Vegas (laughs). - When we did it was wonderful. - And going through Yellowstone. - When we drove into Yellowstone there was snow, icy frost, and you can't drive in that. - And I was having terrible stomach trouble. I was... I didn't know what I was having. I don't know if it was gallbladder or... I don't know what I was having, but I was having stomach pain. We'd been trying to do all kinds of healing. The first night out on the road, we drove with Pat and Annabelle toward Denver, and the first morning I got up, Gail did all kinds of healing on me. That first morning, I got up in the motel room and it was gone, and it didn't come back. - Stress. - Yeah, we'd be working on opposite ends of the land. We'd cross each other, and we'd have a little argument. Group: (laughs) - You have so much negative energy. - I don't know what we were doing on opposite ends of the land, but getting away from each other I guess. Anyway, Georgeann and Sue were not getting along. Sue buys her place, so she bought her place in spring of 83. Sells Pat her pole. - Okay, let me get this straight. - Sue moved out off the spring of 83. She and Georgeann did not get along while we were gone to Denver. - Okay, and she left her trailer on your land? - No, she took it with her. - Took it. - She had a small trailer, a travel trailer. - Listen to this woman, she needs to get some information. - What did you want to know? - I'm just trying to get it straight. In spring Georgeann moves off the land. - No, no. Sue moved off. - Sue moves off the land. - Yeah. - She was not getting along with Georgeann. - Well, they had trouble. Their buildings were too close together, and Sue had night fears, and she left her light on, and Georgeann did not like that she left her light on, so she build a private hedge between their houses, which were probably a hundred feet apart or more, which we're still trying to get rid of. - So Sue moves off the land, taking her trailer. - Yeah, and she bought her own place about 10 miles away. - Still lives there. - Yeah. - Okay, so you start with seven and then there's nine, and then there's these two who go. - Now, yeah, so there's still... See, not everybody was living there. Pat and Annabelle were not living there. Alicia and Robin left, so that left Georgeann and us. Then the other two came. - Who? - So that was Sue and... - Bluejay? - No, Bluejay's left. - It's in 83... - It's just Sue and Georgeann while we were gone to Denver. - You had two new members, though. Cher? - Yes, Cher is still there in her bus drinking (laughs). You don't have to put that in. But I was going to ask Cher to leave. Cher has always had an alcohol problem. I was going to ask her to leave. She moved her bus to Sue's land. Group: (laughs) - Oh, me. Down the road and around the corner. Okay, let me get this straight. Okay, we have-- - You can't diagram it on your computer (laughs)? - Annabelle and Pat-- - They never lived there. - Never? - They spent one night in a travel trailer while they were working on their cabin, and Annabelle had never held a hammer. It was very frustrating to Pat. They almost broke up that weekend. Well, I shouldn't say... You wouldn't write that down, but they did not have a good time. - Okay, and then Alicia-- - And Robin went to California. - They spent that bad weekend in the land. - They were there a month. - They weren't real happy with it either. - California... And then Georgeann is not with anybody, right? At first? - She was with Bluejay. - Bluejay. - Bluejay was there at the beginning. - Bluejay is not on there. - Bluejay might have been at that ritual. I'm not sure. I'm not sure when she came in. I'll have to ask. - (mumbles) - So we've got Georgeann, Bluejay, Gail, and Gwen. - And Sue moved in. - And then Sue in 83. - Sue and Cher. - Sue and Cher. - Separately, in separate vehicles. - Okay. - Cher had a bus, and Sue had a travel trailer. - Bus, travel trailer, and Cher has an alcohol problem. - And Sue probably did too, but she ended up going to AA. - Sue moves and buys her own land. - She bought her own land. She and Deb bought their own land. Over at Water Valley. - This is the spring of 83? - Mm-hm. I was going to ask Cher to move in the fall of 83, but I think she did it without me asking her. She would get drunk and get-- - Mean. - Give me hell. - She was real mean at first. - And then the next day she didn't understand why Gail can get drunk and I wouldn't get mad at Gail, but I got mad at Cher. - I was happy drunk. Happy, happy, happy drunk. - Cher would get drunk and be no fun, and then the next day say, "what's wrong with you?" (laughs) Okay, so Cher left in the fall of 83. - And when did Bluejay leave? - She had... I don't remember. - She wasn't there too long. - No, she wasn't. - So she didn't go with... - I think she was living over in Arkansas maybe. She was there for the beginnings. - There for the beginning. - A month or two, I just can't remember. - And then she moved out? - Mm-hm. - And Georgeann was left. So that leaves you and Gail and Georgeann. Group: Yeah. - So those are the three... - And when did Ayla show up? - First visited us in the winter in November. - Winter of 83? - 83. - Okay. - On her way from North Woods. She stayed in Cher's bus. I wonder where Cher was (laughs). - She hadn't moved it yet, I bet. - Well, Cher did artwork somewhere. - She may have gone to New Orleans, I don't know. - She did artwork in New Orleans. - Let's go ahead and get all of this down while you're-- - You don't want to know all of these visitors, do you? - Well, if they stayed for any length of time, I do. - If it's what? - If they stayed for any length of time. - Oh, well. Okay, now here... Jude and Mara visited. I believe, so that means we were building the bathhouse. So spring of 84 we started the bathhouse. Merrill and Mary were there, and Jude and Mara. And I've got Earth down here on her way back to North Woods. - Mara and who? - Mara and Jude. I think goes by... I think she's in Maize now. Seems like she goes by another name. She messed up something in the bathhouse. Anyway, let's see. Gail set Gwen's knees out, scares Georgeann. Lake trip to Jen and Pam's land summer. Merrill came for solstice. So we're working on our house all that spring and summer. I guess, although, our house must've been pretty livable then, because I think Merrill and Mary stayed with us in the house when they came. - Well we got the roof on. - Now, we're still working on the porch, but that was later. We had the porch after we had the cabin. That freezer from (mumbles). - That's a good thing about porches, means you get the roof on. And then you just wrap it up in whatever. - Okay, so Athena arrived that fall. Our little girl that wanted to come to women's land. That was fall of 84. - That's your-- - Apprentice. - Apprentice. - And the Leak happened. - Who? - Yes, the first Leak. - October, we went to Leak. - On women's land. - And I think we took somebody with us, maybe Athena, but there was another woman I think that went with us. But I don't have her name down. Naj, that's who I was thinking of. Naj visited sometime. - Oh, Naj. - How do you spell that? - N-A-J. - How long did they apprentice stay? - She's in Maize now. I can't remember where she is. - I think she was at that (mumbles). That name is familiar, but I don't know... - It's Jan, she reversed the Jan. - Oh, of course. Jan spelled backwards. - I don't know how long she actually stayed. - You have the apprentice. - She left in the spring of 85. She fell in love with Sue. Sue decided Athena was going to be her little Jewish girlfriend. - And what does Naj look like? - Dark, kind of Mediterranean looking dark. - Who? - Naj. - Sturdy, built. - Later I want to show you my way back pictures. Maybe you can identify some of the people. They aren't going to look the same anymore, but... - Maybe. We had some visiting women come the spring of 85. Janet Gold-something. She was writing a book. I think we're in it, and she and her girlfriend... They were in a carpenter collective, and they put up a little shed for us. We had all the stuff, and they said "Well, this'll be fun." (laughs) We had all the pieces, and they put up our shed out by our house. - Which was wonderful when we had a place to store our tools - Because the other tool place didn't hold up. - It was way down at the other end of the land. - Oh, location. - Ah-ha! Gwen's first Women Rights, maybe 85. I don't know. Some of this is iffy. I've got Merrill and Mary 84. Mara and Naj, I think... I've got Jude. I don't know if that's the same person. Started the bathhouse 84. Let's see, Pat and Annabelle building the cabin. That wasn't until 85, they started. August 85 they started the yert. - That was an interesting experience, building the yert. - Building the yert? - Them trying to build together. - Oh, yeah. I'm thinking that Pat may have had some guys from her work come down and do the foundation. - She did. - Because it's the only building on our land that has foundations into the ground, concrete. Just pilings into the ground. And we were having a garden back then. We were trying to grow asparagus and snow peas, and everything else. - (laughs) - We also tried to have a garden up in the back field, which is where there was more sun, and that was a fiasco. No water up there. - Oh, yeah. - Walking up this hill through the pinewoods. - Do y'all know Arden Kate? You know Arden, don't you? - Arden Eversmire? - What? - I know Arden Eversmire. - This one lives over in Fayetteville now. - They were here? - That's who it is. - Evers-what? - Eversmire. She's doing the whole lesbian nursery project. She's had two volumes of memoirs. - I don't know if our Arden would be organized enough to do that. She's going by some other name. I think she's going by her mother's name, her grandmother's name, Arden. - Well, anyway. - She had her 45th birthday in 85, and 46th, so that'd be... - Who are we talking about now? - Arden Kate. Arden Kate! That's what she went by. - Kate, Arden Kate. - K-A-T-E. She lived down in Little Rock at the time. And Ruth Ready was a Mississippi girl, I think, who went with us to that, and found the love of her life over there and moved to Arkansas (laughs). - Went to Arkansas? - Arden Kate's birthday. - Over in Little Rock. - In Little Rock. - That's right, those two just... - Hit it off. - I mean, they-- - They moved to Conway, Arkansas. I think they're still there, last I heard. - Lord. - And then that fall... Interesting, okay. There were two women that came to apprentice with us in the fall of 85. - What? - Katie and Morocco, and I don't have last names right now. - Katie, K-A-T-I-E? - Mm-hm. Morocco. I've got pictures somewhere, and also Kathy and Marianne came. They came here. - Marianne. - Kathy Steed and Marianne Bilyles. They saw us in Maize or LC and they wanted to come visit. So that's how we met them. - (mumbles) - Do they what? - Do they live on women's land? - Well, sort of. They like to grow things, and they usually live in the country, and well yeah, I think Kathy's got a big ol' green house now. - Does she have any other women out there? - They're taking care of Marianne's father. It may be on his land. - I think he's passed on. - Has he? Hm. Spring of 86, Katie and Morocco are still there. They must've stayed a while. Pat and Annabelle move from Memphis to Tuscaloosa. This to Pat and Annabelle on what are Women Rights. Let's see, we visited Marianne and Kathy. Who in the hell is this? Pauline Gold and Karen Osborn from Florida? - I don't know. - Ever heard of them? - Never heard of them. - Jo and Janice Midwest Festival. - Let's see, Natalie Lanning, Sasha, Hertha. - Hertha? - Hertha. - Hertha. Remember Hertha? - She lived in Kansas City after a while. - Really? - Big woman. - Yes, she did. She and Gail shared a vision of our old age. She did readings for both of us, and they were both crying when she was doing my reading. I didn't know what was going on. She said, "Oh, it's just a beautiful old age!" They were over there crying, floating out in the aethers together. - I never had... I had had visions by myself, but I had never shared a vision with another person. It was like I just knew she was right here, and we were looking at the same picture show. - Wow. - It was a trip. - And it was three women. I don't know if it was Ayla or not, but wasn't it three women, and they had black hoods on or something? Black clothes. I don't know what all that meant. It's witchy stuff, maybe. Kate Ellison, I think we met in August. - That's our Kate here, isn't it? Ellison? - Ellison, yeah. - And Beth visited. Oh, Beth. Red, red bird at yert. Who is Beth? Castlebury and Dupree in Little Rock. Wolfspider picked up her stuff. Okay, Wolfspider left fall of 86. October... - Where did she go to? - She went... Didn't she move back out west? - I think so. I don't... It doesn't matter. - Back to San Francisco. And we went to the Fort Smith retreat and met Kathy Buckaloo. She came back with us, I think. In the winter, Gail put her PhD on hold and stopped the winter of 86. - Put up what? - Your PhD on hold. - Oh. - Ah, first bath in bathhouse, December 23rd, 86. Group: (laughs) - It meant we had a well, we had finished the bathhouse early enough (mumbles). - And we had a ritual before... somewhere in there we had a ritual where our Moon Lodge people came out and we slept in a circle. I think with all our heads together, our feet together, or something-- - Heads. - Yeah, there it is. January 1st, head to head sleeping in bathhouse ritual. - In the bathhouse or next to it? - In it. I think before we had... No, we already had the bathtub. - And this is one one 87? - 87. Emily was there, Francy, Denise-- - Well the bathhouse is 16 foot square, so... - This is our own Moon Lodge, even with a couple of straight women. It looks like, maybe Jackie wasn't even there. I've got Jackie, Denise, Emily, G and G, so five people. Maybe it's just the five of us. - No Emily? Emily? - She's a straight woman we know. - But was she there? I'm just trying to get that together. - Yeah. - Emily-- - Those three women are straight women, Emily, Francy, and Denise. - And Jackie is... - No, Jackie wasn't there. - Okay. - Jackie's straight. She's now on the other side recently. So I don't know why we didn't have any lesbians there. Maybe we did. Maybe I just didn't write them down. Okay, the spring of 87 Mara Posa came to visit and live in a tent. In the summer Jeanie and Paula Marie. Let's see... Paula Marie Daughter and Jeanie Neath. Jeanie Neath. I think her name was Neath. N-E-A-T-H. They lived there for the summer. Not for the whole summer. They went to St. Paul, Arkansas in July. - That's a good time to leave Mississippi. Group: (laughs) - I don't have much written down for 87, except Mara Posa, and I can't tell you much about her. - She was on land. - She was from Arkansas, I think. - This sounds so much like the Women Land to me. - Really? - The people coming and going. The vagueness about who's really part of it and who's not really part of it. - Yeah, because I remember Mara Posa was there when Jeanie and Paula was there, and Georgeann wasn't. - But they're just staying there, they're not really-- - not permanent. - Well, you kind of hope they will. - You never know. - You hope they will. - Well, I knew Jeanie and Paula were planning on... We were pretty sure they were planning on moving on. They were trying to save money to buy their own land in Arkansas. I don't know what Mara Posa was doing. - I don't think she knew either. - She was living in a tent, and Jeanie and Paula were living in the yert, but then at one point when Georgeann left, Jeanie moved into Dogwood. So they had separate spaces for a while. It seems like Mara Posa... I don't know if Mara Posa ever lived in one of the buildings. We met Ayla the summer of 88. She had written us, and she was going to be coming around the time of Mary's party. So we said, "Let's meet you in Tennessee." Either at Merrill's or Mary's. I've got Mary's, summer of 88. So we met her there, and I think she came on down home with us. - Who is this now? - Ayla. - Oh, yeah. - So that was 88. We're getting names and everything. I guess that's okay. - I think we need to stop for a while. - Yeah. - We're going to have to (mumbles), because we've already talked for an hour. - Well, and I don't... We haven't really talked much about feelings, but I don't know if you want to. - (laughs) - Yeah, if you want to. I really do want to. It's good to get the framework down of the times, and so, you know, distracted by that. But I think feelings is an interesting part, and the dreams and the visions. - What people really contributed, or stuff they were going to do, or how long they planned to stay. - If I could borrow that book, maybe I could go ahead and make a little timeline, and we can use that to kind of touch base, while you talk. - This is real sketchy. We're up to 88. - Yeah. - And some of this-- - Well, if you let her borrow it then she can see, she might see-- - Some of this stuff in here is not important to you, I don't think. But you can borrow it if you're up to it. - Well, I'll just do it while I'm here. I won't ... Unless I fall asleep. - I've got people's names in here, but some of them were just visitors, you know? - It's okay. I think that would be useful to have. - Because it's how people cross paths and connect with each other. - And this might just be like an appendix to the interview. The, sort of, timeline that you kept up with. Is this like your guest book, or more of your journal? - No, this is my time book (laughs). - Your what? - Keeping a page for every year. - Okay. - Just so you can look over what happened that year? - Yeah, when did things happen. - Quick way. - Well, that's helpful. - That's very helpful. - Some years I haven't put anything. - So much better than like reading somebody's journal. You'd have 15 long journals and 5,000 pages of emotions all mixed in to get fact out of it. This is very more efficient. Because you remember the emotions attached. - Well, you have to kind of get into it to recall them, but maybe you can be thinking. Put the time table off, and figure that's going to be provided for you easily, and think about some of the topics you'd like to remember and talk about that would make good stories, and it would be interesting just to think about. - Mau and Sasha was the people I was trying to think of that lived in-- - Who? - Mau and Sasha, you ever heard of them? - Yeah. - They lived in Arkansas. They were midwives. They were midwives in Arkansas, and they weren't far from that land that Malcolm bought up in Arkansas. - What land did he buy? Did he really put it in some women's names? - Yeah, I'm trying to think of whose name it finally went in. - Like are women living on it today? - It wasn't Debbie Coke. Who was it? Whose name... I didn't find out till later whose name he finally put in. I think she sold it. - So was it up there near Dianne Rivers and those folks? - It was more in the middle of the state. - Oh, really? - Up high. - Like mountain home and somewhere there. - Yeah, let's see if it says where Mau and Sasha live. They used to be in Maize. - And how do you spell them and where is-- - M-A-U S-H-A, Sasha. - They weren't... those people weren't... - Maybe, I'm not... Where did I see their names? - They're all women of color, right? - Mm-hm. - Oh, no, these are white women. - Oh, okay. - What were the dates? Oh, it's in there. Or are you trying to think of it? - I've gone too far. Where did I see them? I've got animal deaths in here too. - What time is it? - It's three o'clock. - Check the readings. - Oh, yeah. Time to go. Sandy, Ayla... Sandy. Marsha. Sandy and Marsha came. - Did they? - Oh, no, no, no. That's Witsin. But they did come through there once. I've got Witsin July 4th trip to North Carolina with Gail's sister and nephew and niece, because Gail's sister had a wreck, so that's in here when she came to live with us and the kids came later. Let's see, nobody else was living with us then. I don't think... It was just us. - Okay, well let me work on this (laughs). - Bless you, girl. - And I'm still... Mao and Sasha, we're thinking... Where did they fit? Are you remembering them? - What now? - Where did Mao and Sasha fit? Those are the ones you were trying to remember for... - They didn't... we visited them when we went to look at the land in Arkansas, I think. - Oh, early on? - Yeah, I don't think they ever came to our place. We just knew about them. We visited. - I got it, okay. - We may have talked to them on the phone. (gurgling drowns out speaker) - No, there's not. What do we have to eat? - You have kinda of lunch... a lot of stuff for breakfast. Breakfast was at 12 or so. You might be ready to eat again. I have a little bit of cereal. Oh, Lordy. - I'm sitting here eating too much candy, myself. - Is there a garbage around here somewhere? - It is so hard to find a garbage can. There's one by the registration desk, and the rest of them seem to be over by the kitchen. - I guess this is your cup, Gail. - I suspect it is. I was wondering why this cardboard was here and then I realized-- - Oh, yes.