Pagoda Women at Alapine - interviewed by Rose Norman / Southern Lesbian-Feminist Activist Herstory Project / Duke Digital Repository

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This is Rose Norman, and I am in Alapine Womyn's Community

0:00

in New Mentone, Alabama interviewing six women

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who live here now, but who lived at the Pagoda in Florida

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at various times during its existence.

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And we're gonna begin by talking about,

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or just getting a sense of where they were from.

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Five of these people were not born and raised in the South.

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So I'd like for each of you to say your name,

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where you were born and raised,

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and then we'll come back to those

0:38

who were born in or think of themselves as southern.

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My name is Barbara Lieu.

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I was born in New York State in 1945.

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I first moved south in the early '70s

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and then came back permanently in 1976.

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I consider myself a Southerner,

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however, Southerners consider me a Yankee. (chuckles)

0:59

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I don't.

1:05

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Do you want me to even though I'm--

1:09

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Go ahead, yeah.

1:10

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I was Jean Adele,

and I was born and raised in Pennsylvania

1:14

in a little tiny town called Jim Thorpe.

1:18

It used to be called Mauch Chunk,

1:21

but that's too long a story.

1:23

And what else did you wanna know?

1:25

How did I get--

1:27

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When did you get

to the South, and do you consider yourself

1:28

a Southerner?

1:31

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(laughs) When I went

to the Pagoda is when I went

1:32

to the South.

1:34

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What age?

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What age?

1:35

Oh gosh, 30, I was in my 30s, I'd say about 38.

1:37

I had been married and had children and was divorced.

1:44

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That sounds like a good story.

1:47

(laughing)

1:49

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Wait, after that, didn't you come and never leave?

1:50

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Pardon?

1:52

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Didn't you come

and then never leave?

1:52

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Right.

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I mean, that's amazing.

1:56

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I flew.

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Did you come for a visit?

1:58

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She did.

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Yeah, I came for a visit, I flew back. (laughs)

1:59

I flew back, but that whole visit was something else,

2:02

but everything fell into place.

2:06

My place sold, my lover, my partner at that time,

2:11

wanted to see men again, my youngest son was graduating

2:16

from high school, and my job at the prison was ending,

2:18

and you all said that I could come down

2:22

and live at the Pagoda.

2:25

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Had counters for you.

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And Emily was there and could've found me a job.

2:26

I was down in two months.

2:30

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Yeah, I know.

I remember it was meant to be.

2:32

You were meant to be here.

2:34

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I drove down in my car,

and I flew down for a weekend.

2:36

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I think it was 1980 or '81.

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Yeah, '81.

2:40

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But you were the one

who said you don't think of yourself as a Southerner.

2:42

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Well--

2:45

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Even though

that's 30-some-odd years now.

2:46

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I have my whole family, and I have a lot of ties up north,

2:47

and my grandchildren and my family are all up there,

2:53

and I think I still see myself as northern.

2:56

And I don't consider this south-south, I mean--

3:02

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Alabama?

3:06

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You don't consider

Alabama South?

3:08

Whoops!

3:09

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No, not where we live,

not where we live.

3:11

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You live in a little pocket

of not-the-South. (laughs)

3:14

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Well, the rural South is a little bit different

3:16

from when you go into a city, and we found this out

3:19

by living here, the rural people seem

3:24

to accept almost anything, well that's another story.

3:28

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Some rural people.

3:33

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I'm talkin' 'bout

on the mountain.

3:36

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Bama has a long history

of accepting outlaws, starting back

3:40

with the Native Americans hiding in the caves

3:43

so they didn't have to go on the walk to Oklahoma.

3:48

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Got a lot of artists up here, it's a different culture

3:51

up on the mountain.

3:54

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This is its own place.

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We live between the veils.

3:57

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Yes, we do.

And it's even, in patriarchal terms, we have a veil,

4:00

because our county is Cherokee.

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It doesn't claim us because we're at the tippy-tippy top

4:08

on the borderline of Cloudland, Georgia

4:11

and Alabama, Mentone, so we have a Georgia phone number.

4:14

We have an address in Mentone, and Cherokee,

4:19

which would be where our officials would want

4:23

to have some concern about our activities,

4:27

they don't even claim this place,

4:30

so we're kind of like no-man's land in a way.

4:34

Along with the fact that there are, you know,

4:37

there's a magic to this mountain.

4:41

That's why my aunts came here.

4:43

This mountain is full of fairies.

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It's the only place other than Scotland that has 'em,

4:48

according to her.

4:51

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So your aunts were the ones

who founded the original community here?

4:54

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Well, yeah.

4:57

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Not this community.

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No, but what happened was the camp was started

4:58

in the early 30s, and she bought the lodge,

5:03

one of the few lodges that had been built

5:09

back in the Victorian age, because this place was

5:11

a resort for the rich people that came with the railroad.

5:14

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Miles away.

5:18

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Yeah, and she looked

all over to find a mountain to start this camp

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and said this was the one that had the fairies,

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and that's why she bought that lodge.

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So she started that and ran it for 37 years,

5:27

and it was called Alapine Lodge Camp for Girls,

5:31

and I got to go for free, and in a women's space

5:34

for three full months for free.

5:38

And I experienced women's space that stayed with me.

5:41

And then, when she had a heart attack, they sold it

5:45

and became a boys' camp, and that just really broke me.

5:48

But always, I yearned to be here.

5:52

This is my spiritual home, and when we bought this place,

5:54

and the long, lengthy process we had to go through,

5:58

'cause my aunts I think had put a nice spell on it.

6:00

So many clouds on all of the pieces

6:04

that there were several lawyers who couldn't clear it,

6:08

and we spent time with magic, meditation, with my aunts,

6:11

and got this property, and when we first went down

6:17

to the Cherokee County, there was a gay boy

6:20

who was in the office who pulled out Alapine Village

6:24

that had gone defunct in the 1977 or whenever.

6:30

There were other things that happened here,

6:34

and I sat here and bawled, just bawled my,

6:36

I mean yes, they started this community.

6:40

And the reason I came up here, 'cause I don't think

6:42

anybody would wanna come to Alabama.

6:45

(laughing)

6:47

Every time I said, "Hey, it's in Alabama,

6:48

"but it's not really Alabama."

6:50

It was because when my grandma died,

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right before I met Fayann, we've been together 25 years,

6:53

right before, my aunts came to me every night

6:56

in dreams, calling me and calling me.

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And we had picked a spot out.

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When my grandma died, I bought a little cabin in Mentone

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with my mom, and we came up here,

7:09

and we wanted some land across the way

7:11

that was just beautiful and covered with rocks.

7:14

And Barbara said, "This is not accessible.

7:16

"We have to find another place."

7:20

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So did Kay.

7:22

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And so did Kay.

(laughing and chatter)

7:24

It was so good to say that because we would've been

7:27

in the middle of a golf course and a ski resort

7:29

and everything, so we had a lesbian friend

7:33

that went to camp with me that I had a crush on

7:39

who was a realtor and her sister,

7:42

and they're the ones that showed us this land.

7:45

So this is where we ended up because we saw that it was

7:47

much more accessible and that it was already

7:50

an old, developed, so we were grandmother-ed in by

7:54

this gay guy to not have to pay big amounts

7:58

to be some kind of a developer.

8:02

So I would credit my aunts--

8:05

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That's a great story.

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To some degree, yeah, and we all when we came,

8:08

felt like, "Oh yeah, this feels really right."

8:12

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But we're gonna be focused on Pagoda for this interview.

8:17

I'm thinking I'm gonna probably take that stuff,

8:21

and maybe I should start a new interview later to--

8:23

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I'm so sorry, I did get off of Pagoda, didn't I?

8:26

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No, no, no, I can, you know, with the magic

8:28

of electronics, I can move it around.

8:30

(laughing)

8:32

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You got the information.

8:34

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I got the information, yeah.

And it makes me know where I wanna go with it, too.

8:36

And coming back to Fayann, you're another one

8:39

who wasn't born and raised in the South,

8:42

but feel like a Southerner.

8:44

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Right, my name is Fayann Schmidt, I was raised in Ohio.

8:44

My mother's people came ashore

8:49

at Newport News, Virginia, and a couple generations later,

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moved to Knoxville, Tennessee,

8:57

and then my grandparents were in Ohio.

9:00

My father's side, when they came to this country,

9:03

came to the southwest part of Kansas

9:07

near the Oklahoma border,

9:10

so that's what I always felt as home.

9:13

And my father then, during World War II, moved to Ohio

9:16

and met my mother, so they stayed there.

9:23

But when I think about home,

9:25

I always think about my family and Kansas.

9:27

And so that's always my reference

9:30

of where I'm from.

9:34

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And your community.

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And your feeling of being a Southerner

9:39

is because you had family that were from the South

9:43

or because you've lived in the South for 30 years?

9:46

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Yeah, I've lived since the mid-70s in the South

9:48

in Florida, or St. Augustine, Daytona Beach,

9:52

Jacksonville area, and then here,

9:55

but when we took vacations, we went home.

9:58

We went to Kansas, we saw the family, we were part of that.

10:01

That was part of our heritage.

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It was not the Ohio environment or culture.

10:07

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And you think that Kansas is Midwest,

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so it's not really southern is it?

10:15

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Well, I don't--

10:17

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It's in like--

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Would you say close to the Oklahoma line, to me,

10:20

that whole line is South, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas.

10:23

When I think of the South, I think of that area.

10:30

But Midwest, yeah that's true, as my shirt probably looks--

10:35

(laughing)

10:40

Or maybe it's more Midwest than, I don't know.

10:41

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Yeah, well if we get somebody from Kansas who wants

10:46

to be interviewed as a Southerner,

10:49

we will definitely interview them.

10:50

Got some Missouri and Arkansas, believe me.

10:52

(laughing)

10:55

Texas, so far not, but we think it's Southwest.

10:56

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See, but Kansas isn't the Southwest.

10:59

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No, I was Texas, but yeah Kansas--

11:04

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It's an interesting question.

11:07

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That is an interesting, and the Kansas Nebraska,

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no let's not go there, and Ellen?

11:12

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Ellen Spangler.

11:15

I was born in a small town in Central Illinois, Bloomington,

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was a small town then, I don't think it is now, in 1934.

11:20

But I moved to the South, to Jacksonville area

11:27

when I was 20, and so for nearly 60 years, I've lived

11:33

in the South and feel like I'm a Southerner.

11:38

Also coming from a small town in the Midwest,

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it was really conservative, really a lot of similarities,

11:46

but I feel much more connected to the South.

11:51

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And say your year of birth.

11:56

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Yeah '34.

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She did.

12:00

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Oh you did, okay, sorry.

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Short version?

12:03

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Yeah.

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I was born in Miami, Florida.

12:05

My mother and my grandmother

12:09

and her father, all were,

12:14

and her husband were all involved in politics

12:19

in the very early stages of the development of Miami.

12:22

And I heard a lot of stories,

12:25

and my family was a political family.

12:28

They ran different offices.

12:31

My dad was a state senator during that time

12:32

when the Panhandle was considered the South,

12:36

and where Miami and lower Florida was not really considered

12:40

the South, in terms of how their values were.

12:45

That's how he got elected, and he was only one of two

12:48

that was progressive, and I was very involved

12:52

in his activities when he ran and very much involved

12:55

in the civil rights movement from the side.

13:00

And so, my mom, you know I'm a Southerner,

13:06

but people would say because of all migration

13:12

in such a wonderful warm state, there are probably more,

13:15

and especially with the Spanish input,

13:18

there's a lot more people from not southern

13:22

in their origin, from the North, you know,

13:29

so the sky, what do they call 'em?

13:32

The'll come down in the winter and--

13:35

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Snowbirds.

13:36

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Snowbirds, and then a lot

of variety of Hispanics of all different kinds

13:39

of continents, so I don't feel when I go home now,

13:45

I feel kind of like I'm in another country now.

13:50

Coming up here, I knew this was the South,

13:54

and it was my haven and my safe place, and I love my aunts,

13:58

and this community, I would say, was even more important

14:02

in determining that than my home in Miami,

14:06

as far as feeling, 'cause that's a city down there.

14:11

This was, you know, just so nurturing and Southern.

14:15

We got on the railroad, you know?

14:20

And came up from Miami and got off in Valley Head

14:23

and came up to the mountain, and we were definitely

14:26

in the South, could see it's the real South.

14:28

And, like we say, this mountain is,

14:36

my uncle and aunt lived here

14:38

all their life and buried in Valley Head.

14:41

So when I first came up, I was family here.

14:44

A lot of the people that have since passed knew a lot

14:48

about Alapine and my great aunts,

14:52

and they accepted her lesbianism.

14:54

And there were a lot of lesbians up here,

14:56

but then they got together and had salons.

14:59

Martha Berry from the college was part of that group.

15:04

Zora Neale Hurston used to come up here.

15:07

There was a tea house that a lesbian ran

15:11

that I found when my great aunt died

15:17

that talked about women's space at her tea house

15:20

where they would come and have salon

15:22

based on similarities that had happened in Europe.

15:24

So when I met the big guy in the community,

15:30

Nancy's daddy, who recently died--

15:37

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Jack.

15:42

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Jack Jones at 90-something,

he said, "If your Alice Mae Vicker's daughter,

15:44

"she was quite a woman and a lesbian too,

15:50

"and if it was okay for her, it's okay with me for you."

15:55

And of course, his daughter Nancy is,

16:00

and she has her own space a women's camp.

16:03

And so yeah, this is South, definitely.

16:06

I'm South in every way, every way, progressive South.

16:10

(laughing)

16:17

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It is progressive South.

16:18

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I'm Emily Green, and I was born in '46,

16:21

and I did start out living in Arlington, Virginia,

16:26

so I guess I started my life in the South.

16:29

My mother grew up and was from Asheville, North Carolina,

16:32

so I have that side of me, and we went often

16:38

to see the relatives, but by the time I was five,

16:42

we moved to Cape Cod and then Massachusetts,

16:45

until I was 15 when we moved back down to the D.C. area

16:49

and lived in Maryland at that time.

16:53

Most of my adult life has been in the South.

16:57

I spent a year in Texas, I've spent, I don't know

17:00

how many years, 30 years in Florida, and 10 years up here.

17:05

And so, I basically was the one

17:11

in the family who went south.

17:13

(laughing)

17:16

The rest of my family's all up north--

17:17

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And anyways--

17:18

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And they don't have

any desire to come down to the South,

17:23

but I've learned a lot from living down here,

17:25

and I have a lot of contact even with my southern relatives

17:28

who live in Georgia and North Carolina still.

17:31

So, I consider myself more Southern than I do Northern,

17:35

but I do consider the North very much a part of me.

17:42

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Part of that is because you travel to the North

17:47

to do activist work that is vital and is one of the few

17:50

that's healthy enough to do it.

17:56

I keep telling her, "If I get better,

18:00

"I'm gonna go with you one time."

18:01

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I love it--

18:03

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Can you see me

with my cane trying to walk?

18:05

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You want to mention

what that activist work is in case we don't get back to it?

18:08

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Well, recently I guess, just to tell you the recent stuff,

18:13

I've been involved with the tar sands, the XL Pipeline,

18:17

went to Texas where they have the camp,

18:22

and that group, wonderful group

18:26

of probably 35 or 40 young people (chuckles)

18:27

yeah, I can say "young people" 'cause I'm old,

18:33

who are so dedicated.

18:34

They'd been there since July, and I just was so inspired

18:37

by going and living for three days in their camp,

18:40

cooking meals for them, washing dishes for them.

18:42

I didn't get out on the front line

18:45

'cause I couldn't at that point.

18:47

I also have gone to D.C. three times now,

18:49

once in 2011 when they had the big gathering

18:52

on Freedom Plaza in D.C.

18:57

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Occupy.

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It really wasn't Occupy, that's what was called NOW D.C.

19:01

They actually started forming before Occupy in September.

19:06

They started back in the spring organizing this gathering

19:11

that was gonna happen in October, and it did October 6th.

19:14

And it was a gathering for many different groups of things

19:18

that people wanted to see change, but their whole motto

19:25

was "Stop the machine, and create a new world."

19:26

So they were really encompassing a lot.

19:30

Recently, I went to the inauguration, not to go

19:33

to the inauguration, but to protest, to protest the drones,

19:36

to protest the climate change that is not being addressed

19:40

by Obama's administration, and just to really try

19:45

to be part of that voice that was showing him, "Hey, there's

19:50

"another way to look at this."

19:55

The second time, I went for what was really

19:57

a wonderful gathering of 40,000 people run by Bill McKibben,

20:01

organized by Bill McKibben, for Climate Forward

20:06

to stop the tar sands in the XL Pipeline.

20:10

It was a bitter cold day, 40,000 came out for that day,

20:14

and Obama, I have to say this 'cause I think it should be,

20:18

Obama chose to go and play golf with the CEOs

20:23

of the oil companies on that day, and he has yet

20:28

to make one comment about the 40,000 people

20:31

when he says he wants people to show him what they want.

20:35

He has yet to make one comment about that day

20:39

when 40,000 people showed up, walked around the White House

20:43

to try and tell him, "We care about what's happening

20:46

"on this earth, we want to stop the pollution."

20:50

And so anyway, that's--

20:53

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And D.C., that was

this year?

20:55

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That was this year, oh yeah,

both the inauguration and the--

20:57

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That was the inauguration in 2012.

20:59

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2013, in January.

21:04

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January 2013

from the election from 2012.

21:07

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And then the first one was in 2011.

21:10

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I have to add that part of the reason I think you went

21:13

was also so you could have a lot of fun

21:16

'cause there were a lot of balls.

21:18

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Well, it's true, you know, I had got to go

21:20

to the Peace Ball where Amy Goodman, Alice Walker,

21:22

Angela Davis, Ralph Nader, the lineup of people

21:28

that they had at this Peace Ball.

21:32

It was the alternate ball from what all

21:34

of Obama and his entourage were having balls.

21:37

We had our ball.

21:40

(laughing)

21:41

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So, if I can't dance, it's not my revolution!

21:44

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That's right. (laughs)

21:47

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You can see why before you put the recorder on,

21:49

when I said, "The Pagoda was not a lesbian feminist activist

21:51

"place," why Emily spoke up, because Emily's been

21:55

an activist since back then.

22:00

She was involved with Seeds for Peace.

22:01

Even though Pagoda didn't carry a banner,

22:03

she's been carrying a banner for 30 years.

22:05

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See, we consider activism just forming Pagoda.

22:09

That was an activist--

22:12

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Yeah, it was.

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Cultural activism.

22:13

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It was.

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Cultural activism, I mean, forming

22:15

a lesbian writer's group, that's a cultural activism.

22:18

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I just wanna be clear that for most people's idea

22:23

of activism, it's what Emily does and we did not,

22:26

very purposefully, and if you're interested in

22:30

what was the Pagoda, that's an important distinction.

22:33

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Okay, and we'll be sure to, we will get to that.

22:36

Okay, I wanna stay the path a little bit more

22:38

and go to the women's liberation question and ask,

22:43

I forgot who wanted to talk about that.

22:46

Morgana, obviously, and Ellen, okay.

22:50

Anybody else wanna talk about being involved in--

22:53

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You can just say I started out

22:55

in Women's Political Caucus, moved to Charleston in 1976

22:56

and went looking to get involved and ended up being involved

22:59

with NOW in Charleston, South Carolina

23:02

before I moved to the Pagoda.

23:05

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Could we hold off one second?

23:08

I have to turn the tape over.

23:10

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Okay, let me pause it.

Then, let me, okay it's going.

23:14

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Now, just say that was Barbara Lieu who talked

23:17

about Women's Political Caucus and that.

23:18

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Good, okay, so we're gonna hear from,

23:22

let's hear from Ellen first.

23:24

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Okay, and this

is Ellen Spangler, and in Jacksonville, Florida,

23:26

again remember which is much like South Georgia,

23:29

in 1970, and I had four kids, two of them were preschool,

23:32

two of them in grade school, and I was trying

23:37

to take one college course at a time.

23:41

And I was taking a speech course, and I made a speech

23:44

about when women got to vote.

23:48

We were supposed to do the research,

23:50

and after the class, the woman teacher asked me to stay,

23:54

and quietly, she said to me, "There's a handful

23:57

"of us that are organizing

24:02

"for the women's movement here in Jacksonville.

24:04

"We're having our first event in three weeks,

24:06

"and I think you would be interested in coming."

24:11

And so she told me when the meeting was,

24:13

and so in 1970, I think there were 14 of us

24:16

that demonstrated on the steps downtown

24:21

of the Federal Building, and it was whatever

24:24

the anniversary date that everybody was celebrating then,

24:29

maybe the day that the vote, I don't remember.

24:32

But we got very little media coverage, of course.

24:37

(laughing)

24:41

But--

24:41

-

August 26th

is Women's Equality Day.

24:42

-

That's what it was, yes.

And I was in, and I was in solidly,

24:47

and pretty much gave my life to it for the next many years.

24:50

And my kids were helpful and supportive of my doing that,

24:58

but I won't get into the Pagoda.

25:07

-

What did giving your life to it mean?

25:11

Just going to meetings all the time or--

25:12

-

Say that again.

25:15

-

What did giving your life

to it mean?

25:16

-

I meant hours, energy,

creativity was how to help women move out

25:20

of some of the awful holes that we were in,

25:25

like I was really key in starting the Refuge Home

25:28

for battered women 'cause I was one, had been one,

25:34

and we were the 13th one in the country.

25:39

-

In Jackson?

25:42

-

In Jacksonville, yeah.

Among other things, we opened the Rape Crisis Center

25:45

against all kinds of odds from the hospital

25:47

and the whatever else, you know.

25:51

There was a small, active group, but we were fearless,

25:54

and--

26:00

-

And you also worked

for a woman when I first met you.

26:03

-

Yes, I was, part of how I supported myself.

26:06

-

Yeah, do you remember first attempt

26:09

at my belly dancing pamphlet was run off--

26:11

-

Oh that we--

26:17

-

That you helped me do

in her office on the mimeo machine.

26:19

-

Right, right, we had a newsletter, and--

26:22

-

In my office?

26:24

-

No, in the woman

she worked for.

26:26

-

Oh.

-

That I worked for.

26:28

-

Yeah, I think that's kinda

how I met you, and then after that, of course,

26:31

we had our women's collab--

26:34

-

I think I met you in Tallahasse 'cause I kind of traveled

26:36

around the state when there were things going on--

26:39

-

The ERAs and stuff, yeah.

26:41

-

And I think I first met you in Tallahassee,

26:42

and those of us that were active kept trying to connect

26:45

and support each of the things that were happening.

26:49

-

Well, and also you talk about the women's collective.

26:54

I mean, that was a very activist thing, too.

26:58

I know Leslie lived there, and a lot of the original buyers

27:02

of the Pagoda were part of your collective.

27:07

-

That's true.

27:10

-

And you built the stage

for us, so--

27:12

-

Okay, you're

a little jumpin' ahead, she's not quite ready yet.

27:15

-

Well, the collective part, though.

27:17

I mean, we went to you because you had the collective.

27:20

-

When I was in Jacksonville, I was one of the first

27:22

out lesbians, in terms of being interviewed

27:25

on a radio station and so forth,

27:29

and that was more into the middle-70s.

27:32

In fact, I changed my name from the married name

27:36

to a different last name to protect my kids,

27:39

because at that point, they were subject to really a lot

27:43

of discrimination if people knew their mother was a lesbian.

27:49

-

So they kept their old last name?

27:54

-

Yes, I actually took my mother's maiden name

27:57

because I only knew her mother, who had been widowed

28:00

and had two daughters, and they both

28:05

just had daughters, so that felt like connecting

28:09

to a women's line, the Spangler.

28:11

And I was working for this woman who did paralegal things,

28:15

and so I did my own divorce papers and could just say

28:21

I went back to my name of Spangler, and anyway,

28:25

among other things, she was really supportive

28:31

of helping women do their own divorces and--

28:33

-

I remember her, she was a fighter.

28:37

-

She fought the Florida Bar, yeah.

28:40

-

Well, this sounds like a whole other story.

28:43

-

It is an interesting story.

28:44

Say what her name was just for the records.

28:45

No, not Ellen--

28:48

-

Rosemary Furman.

-

Rosemary Furman was a very important woman in Jacksonville

28:52

because she gave women legal power

28:54

when nobody had legal power.

28:56

-

Actually, they changed the law so people could do

28:59

their own divorces, so that really helped women, yeah.

29:03

And she nearly went to jail in the process of that,

29:12

which panicked her.

29:15

-

But she was tough.

-

She was, she was tough and--

29:18

-

And was also funny.

29:21

-

Yes.

-

Do you remember her funniness?

29:26

-

Oh yes.

29:28

-

I didn't see her except

when I was there with my thing to print, but she was funny.

29:30

I remember I really liked her, she was very funny and warm.

29:33

-

Clearly, I need to set up separate interviews

29:38

to go into more depth to this stuff.

29:41

-

There's a lot of stories.

29:45

-

I'm gonna be here until sometime tomorrow.

29:46

We can talk about this afterwards.

29:47

Okay Morgana, you've got the--

29:50

-

Okay, well I'm gonna try to go through this quick

29:53

'cause I got a long history here.

29:55

Like I said, I always had been involved in politics,

29:58

and I've considered myself a feminist,

30:02

well when I was little and I made the scooter

30:04

that my brother got to ride in, and I couldn't make my own

30:08

because they didn't allow girls to enter.

30:14

And I had to watch him win first place

30:18

when it was really me who built that sucker.

30:20

(laughing)

30:25

Remember saying to my mother, "Something's not right here."

30:27

And my mom was a feminist, I mean, she went back to school,

30:29

you know, as soon as she had the kids, after the war,

30:34

and became a nurse, and was always very, very much

30:37

a feminist.

30:40

-

Soapbox derby?

Is that what they were?

30:43

-

Yeah, soapbox.

-

Yeah, there you go.

30:45

-

Can't remember.

I think I was eight years old when that happened.

30:47

And so anyway, and I ran for student senate president

30:51

in junior high, and I lost by one vote.

30:57

And then, I ran for student president in high school,

30:59

and I also lost by two votes, but they made me the chaplain,

31:04

so I considered that the beginning

31:09

of my spiritual development.

31:11

-

Excellent.

-

Yes, I was the chaplain of the school, and in the morning,

31:15

I had to read, you know, and at the time, they wanted me

31:17

to read some biblical stuff,

31:22

and my dad said, "That's illegal, you can't do that.

31:24

"You get in there, and you read inspirational stuff."

31:26

So I felt like I was doing something to confront the system

31:29

that way in separation of church and state.

31:34

So anyway, in 1965, I graduated from high school,

31:38

went to Florida State University, had no idea really

31:43

that it was gonna be radical, and I wasn't a radical

31:46

when I was married to my high school sweetheart

31:49

two years later, but at that point was when all

31:53

of the information, and I have them all actually,

31:59

I kept 'em in a box of resources of every pamphlet

32:04

that came out, the Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm,

32:07

you know just everything.

32:10

And so in 1968, in my junior year, I joined

32:14

the student senate, and I won, and I started

32:18

the first daycare center on campus

32:22

so women could come and leave their kids.

32:25

And partly formed with another guy,

32:30

the CIA, Committee for Immediate Action,

32:32

and that was literal, and it was the beginning

32:38

of the whole protest against Vietnam.

32:41

And I always had this little fear in the back

32:42

of my mind if I get too radical, my dad's gonna freak out

32:44

'cause by then, he was a federal judge,

32:48

had been appointed a federal judge.

32:50

And so I was like the ruling-class little girl,

32:51

and 1969, the next year, I did a lot on campus though,

32:55

as a feminist, but in 1969 is when I got arrested

33:00

because Angela Davis came to talk to campus,

33:05

and the university said, "No, you can't go."

33:10

And the ACLU came, and they actually had a sit-in

33:13

and were there to pay the bail, and my heart was pounding

33:18

'cause I wanted to sit in there so bad.

33:21

-

I'm confused.

33:24

-

What?

-

Angela Davis came to campus--

33:26

-

In 1969.

33:28

-

And who wouldn't go?

-

Oh the school said, "No way."

33:33

-

She can't speak.

33:35

-

Oh, she came to campus,

but they wouldn't let her speak.

33:38

Who brought her to campus?

33:40

-

Student senate, I was in it.

33:41

-

Oh.

But then, she got there and they wouldn't let her speak,

33:43

so there was a sit-in.

33:47

-

The powers that be.

-

Well, yeah, and talk about the South.

33:49

(laughing)

33:53

Florida State was in the middle of Tallahassee,

33:55

and they had a posse on horseback with guns

33:58

and the whole, I mean it was pretty scary.

34:04

And I made the decision, because I'd always heard

34:07

if you get arrested, then it's on your record.

34:11

You're gonna not ever get a job or whatever,

34:13

so I said, "I'm gonna go out and collect bail money."

34:16

And my sister was at school with me, my younger sister.

34:19

She and I were together, and we were collecting money

34:22

to bail out the people, and a cop grabbed me

34:25

and threw me into the paddy wagon box.

34:29

I went, "Well, shit, why didn't I just sit in

34:32

"if I'm gonna end up in jail?"

34:35

And they were all looking at me like, you know.

34:36

So finally, we're in jail, and my sister calls my dad

34:38

and said that they had put me in jail,

34:43

and he said, "I know, I'm on my way up there.

34:47

"The cop said she was throwing rocks,

34:49

"and the FBI was watching, and he said the cop lied,

34:51

"and he got kicked off the force.

34:55

"And I'm gonna come get you outta jail."

34:57

I said, "No, don't come get me outta jail!

34:59

"I'm the only one in here, there's a ruling class!

35:01

"There gonna think, I can't, you gotta leave me!"

35:04

"Gonna give the ACLU money, don't take me outta here!"

35:07

(laughing)

35:13

That was my big radicalization

35:14

'cause he came and took me out, so what did I do?

35:15

I said, "I'm no longer in the CIA, I'm gonna be with SDS."

35:21

It was really radical, and it was starting to form.

35:24

And a lot of people in there, and a few women,

35:29

were very much SDS, and at that point, we hadn't had

35:31

the infiltration and all that that went on.

35:36

That was in 1970,

35:38

and in SDS, we for a year until 1971,

35:42

joined the Crate and Box factory worker's union fight.

35:48

They did a boycott, and we would march in the streets.

35:55

And we also closed down, well, in SDS they wanted to appear

36:00

that they were open to feminism, because it was at that time

36:08

where there were lots of people writing

36:11

about, "Well, we don't wanna do your coffee."

36:12

And they did that with Amazing Grace,

36:15

which was SDS's newspaper, and I wrote all the articles

36:17

on famous women, but it was really same old story,

36:21

treating us, they were misogynists.

36:25

So I said to them, "You know what?

36:30

"You should make me president,

36:31

"and then you'll show you're with the time."

36:33

And they did, and then Kent State happened,

36:38

and we wanted to shut the whole place down for four days.

36:42

So we took over the Roxy building

36:45

where my husband was outside marching,

36:47

'cause he was in the army at the time, or ROTC.

36:49

And they were gonna arrest us.

36:54

A posse came, and the Dean of Women stopped them

36:58

and said, "No, we're gonna have a meeting

37:04

"of the faculty senate, and we want the president

37:07

"of SDS to come tell us why we should leave this shut down."

37:11

So I had to get up and speak in front

37:18

of the whole senate, and I was fired up.

37:20

I mean, you can tell her passion, when she talks about,

37:24

I said, "You know what, I'm not the leader.

37:28

"They wanted me to be the president 'cause women need

37:31

"to be in roles like this, but all I can tell you is I'm not

37:34

"in control, I mean if you don't let this happen,

37:36

"I can't be responsible for what's gonna happen.

37:39

"We've been nonviolent, but you don't let this,"

37:42

You know, it's the Martin Luther King thing.

37:45

So they shut the whole school down,

37:47

and all the faculties shut the classes down.

37:49

That was the high point of my life, one of 'em.

37:54

(laughing)

37:57

-

No offense, Fayann! (laughs)

37:58

-

That, and dancing on the lesbian float in New York.

38:00

I could've died after that, and I would've been happy.

38:03

(laughing) But anyway, lemme go quick here.

38:08

-

I didn't follow, when you were invited

38:11

by the Dean of Women to speak, where did you speak?

38:14

-

I spoke at the faculty senate gathering

38:18

in a huge auditorium with every single teacher

38:22

in the whole university to tell them

38:26

why they should not come to class for four days

38:29

and why they should shut the school down.

38:33

And that was in support of Kent State.

38:36

They'd killed four people, so I appealed to them,

38:39

you know, "We really need to mourn, we need to grieve.

38:43

"I mean, there's people so mad, they might burn

38:47

"that building down instead of just taking over it."

38:49

'Cause we had taken it over, and they knew we were serious.

38:52

Much later, I met a woman who said, "Oh,

38:56

"you were my favorite radical!"

38:59

(laughing)

39:01

20 years later, I met her, she was a home ec teacher.

39:03

(laughing)

39:09

But anyway, so the thing that is interesting about this

39:10

is that Dean of Women was lovers with my mother.

39:15

-

Lovers?

39:21

-

Lovers with my mother

when my mother was in Sigma Kappa,

39:24

17 years old, very precocious.

39:27

My mother skipped four grades.

39:30

She was in college, second year at 17,

39:32

and Juanita Gibson was her name.

39:36

And when I first came to school, she called me in her office

39:40

and wanted to know, I mean I was just

39:44

a wide-eyed idealist social welfare, you know,

39:46

until I saw all this mess the system was in.

39:49

But she told me, you know, "I loved your mother

39:52

"and your father, and I'm just wondering

39:54

"how they were going."

39:56

That's who got me to speak,

39:58

who knew that I would be the speaker.

40:02

Okay, I found out much later at the Pagoda

40:04

when my mom came, and I was with somebody

40:08

that I don't even remember who, she says, "Well you know,

40:12

"I just don't get it, you know?"

40:14

And I said, "Mom, you shouldn't knock it 'til you try it."

40:17

She opened up her mouth, "I did try it."

40:20

I said, "You did?"

40:23

She said, "Juanita Gibson and I."

40:24

And I went, "Oh my god, she was your maid

40:27

"of honor at your elopement!

40:29

"How could you have done that to her?"

40:32

(laughing)

40:35

I got goosebumps, so anyway--

40:35

-

Were they at FSU when that happened?

40:38

-

Yeah, it was a women's college at the time,

40:41

and that's where she met my dad, and then the war came.

40:44

So she made a big mistake, but--

40:46

(laughing)

40:48

-

But you wouldn't be here if she hadn't.

40:49

-

That's what she said all the time, "You wouldn't be here."

40:51

So anyway, what happened next, I'm gonna go very quickly

40:54

through, it was the worst period of my life.

40:58

And it's something I wanna write a book about before I die.

41:04

I was involved in this Crate and Box factory.

41:08

This was after we had closed the school down,

41:11

and still very active as a president.

41:17

And we had meetings all the time,

41:19

and other women got involved, and CIA kind of disappeared.

41:21

And it was a photographer who was taking pictures

41:28

of everybody in the marches and at the meetings,

41:31

and I was still straight, I thought.

41:34

I mean, I'd had girlfriends all my life

41:39

that I made out with and everything,

41:41

but in my mind, I was still straight.

41:42

-

And were you married?

41:45

-

Oh yeah, but we were separated.

41:46

He wouldn't speak to me.

41:47

He was still on campus at the time.

41:50

And, well I'll tell you real quick,

41:53

I felt I was basically seduced by this guy and fell in love

41:56

with him because I lost my mind, literally,

42:03

because he immediately started giving me hallucinogens

42:09

without me knowing.

42:13

-

This is the guy you married?

-

No, no, no, no!

42:16

He was a nice boy who went in on ROTC and who received,

42:17

because of what the government did to me through

42:22

this infiltrator that I fell in love with,

42:24

he was sent, during Vietnam, to Garmisch, Germany,

42:27

the R and R center as an accountant.

42:31

Now tell me that wasn't because they were giving him

42:34

a little help after breaking our whole marriage up

42:38

and everything.

42:41

-

So I think you need to start

back and tell that in a direct line, that there was somebody

42:43

who infiltrated SDS?

42:46

-

Yes, and I fell in love

with him, I mean the guy was like Che Guevara,

42:50

I mean, beautiful art, and we had a house.

42:52

I never questioned, "Who's paying for this house?"

42:55

This big house, and we started getting into heavy drugs

42:57

and orgies, and it was really horrible, because I finished

43:03

my first year of graduate student as an assistant professor

43:09

and I taught the first women's liberation on campus

43:16

that was legal, and women's first course that was recognized

43:21

whereas before, off-campus with the Women's Center.

43:24

-

Like ad hoc.

43:28

-

It was alternative, yeah.

And I had written a book that my,

43:30

this was a very radical department.

43:33

We studied Marxism and all--

43:36

-

What department were you in?

Are you in graduate school?

43:39

-

Social philosophy

in graduate school, and that was the year I was

43:40

into Ronnie, but I was also still holding on.

43:42

-

He was the infiltrator.

43:46

-

Right.

I was writing the first compilation anthology

43:47

of all of those articles I had collected

43:53

through the last three years, and Dr. Fawn was putting

43:57

it together, and he was gonna publish it for me.

44:00

And he was gonna help write the introduction.

44:06

And what did I do?

44:10

I was so into drugs at the time, I left that.

44:11

I dropped it, I went with him, with--

44:15

-

Ronnie.

44:18

-

With Ronnie.

The whole SDS fell apart, everybody was freaking out

44:21

on drugs, his wife at one of their meetings sent

44:25

a letter saying he was an agent of the government,

44:30

watch out for him, and I said, "Oh no, she's just,"

44:33

you know, I really had lost my mind.

44:37

It was the one time when I really lost my mind, so I left.

44:39

I left everything and went to New York with Murray Bookchin,

44:43

who was an anarchist communist writer at the time and had--

44:48

-

Wait now, you're with Ronnie now, or you've left Ronnie?

44:51

-

No, no, Ronnie--

44:54

-

Ronnie took me!

-

Ronnie took you to New York.

44:56

-

Oh yeah, he took me and a few bunch of us.

44:58

-

Who's this Murray guy?

45:01

-

Huh?

-

Who is this Murray guy?

45:03

-

Murray was a well-known

writer who was an anarchist in the sense of communities,

45:07

how to develop anarcho communism in a way that's like we'd

45:11

think of today, grassroots work and you know, getting rid

45:16

of the 99, I mean, he was before his time.

45:22

-

What's his last name, sweetie?

45:26

-

He died about four years ago.

45:28

Bookchin, B-O-O-K-C-H-I-N, and he has books out

45:30

that are really good that we were reading,

45:34

and we were in a study group along with his collective--

45:37

-

In New York?

45:40

-

In New York

in his apartment, we got an apartment, I don't know

45:42

who paid for it, I didn't, you know, I was like.

45:46

But on the way up as we hitchhiked to New York

45:49

to have money, I sold my whole china, silverware, glasses,

45:54

all my stuff from the wedding, and I had

45:59

the money to help us get up there.

46:02

And we would stop along the way at these houses

46:04

that were like mansions and stay,

46:07

and then we would go on some more.

46:11

And when we got there, we joined that collective,

46:14

but then, it split up, and so we just formed

46:19

our own collective, and then Ronnie started bringing

46:23

in more radical people into it.

46:26

And the whole thing was communal sex,

46:29

and that was revolutionary because you got

46:33

over being bourgeois, you got over marriage

46:35

and all those institutions, and of course,

46:40

boys got to fuck a bunch of us.

46:42

But it was an introduction to me for the lesbianism.

46:46

And I was like, "Oh my god, if these guys would just leave,

46:50

"this place would be fantastic!"

46:55

(laughing)

46:56

So I worked on Wall Street, and two of the other guys,

46:58

also girls, worked as secretaries while

47:03

the men played music with different rock bands

47:05

'cause Ronnie was also a rock singer.

47:10

And I lost about a year there, and then I had

47:15

a nervous breakdown because the girls all went

47:18

and got IUDs so we wouldn't get pregnant,

47:21

and Ellen, who did not like me, this is a different Ellen,

47:25

took out hers and got pregnant.

47:28

And they broke the news, "Oh, we're having a baby!

47:32

"You're gonna raise this baby!"

47:35

And oh my gosh, I said, "No, I'm not."

47:37

And it wasn't very long after that

47:41

that I had a nervous breakdown, and Murray put me

47:42

on the plane, and I went home.

47:44

And I went back to school after that,

47:49

a brief stay to get myself together.

47:52

My mother was a psychiatric nurse,

47:54

so she let me have a bedroom and Cinderella

47:57

and the wild animals and the whole thing

47:59

that we did with ILA, you know, let's do that.

48:02

I went and saw my husband briefly,

48:04

but I went back to FSU, and who was there?

48:06

The whole collective had come back, and he was there again.

48:09

And I swore--

48:12

-

He, Ronnie?

-

Ronnie, and I swore I didn't want anything to do with him

48:14

and that there was some kind of brainwashing

48:16

that had happened, and he would come to my window

48:20

when I lived in the women's collective there,

48:22

what we were making a women's center that started

48:24

in the powder room and ended up having three buildings

48:27

that used to be for married housing.

48:31

We had a library, we had a art room where we make t-shirts

48:35

and we printed magazines, and we had a coffee house.

48:40

I mean, we really, at that point--

48:44

-

Oh, at the women's center?

48:47

-

That finally got through, and that was the beginning

48:49

of that, but I lived in a women's collective

48:52

on the first floor, and at night, he would come.

48:55

-

I don't wanna hear any more about him.

48:58

I want you to not talk about him anymore.

48:59

-

Okay, well but what I'm gonna say is that I finally got

49:02

more and more involved and became a lesbian,

49:06

and it was no longer in my life.

49:11

But it was very difficult for me.

49:12

I knew I had been brainwashed,

49:15

so I had to really stay away from him.

49:17

And 1972 was when I was in New York, and I went back

49:23

and started the women's center with Dorothy, and with

49:28

I just said with Yanesta, started those classes.

49:31

-

Okay, tell me who started the women's center?

49:36

-

Dorothy Allison, Nesta King, Yanesta

49:38

she calls herself now, Judith Jones, and myself,

49:45

and others, but the four of us, we wrote

49:50

like a hundred letters of peace demanding this, you know,

49:53

and then different hand-writings, and they gave us

49:56

these three buildings, and it was a really big success.

50:00

And that was when the first class was taught

50:04

of the alternative class as a goddess class,

50:06

and that was Dorothy and myself.

50:09

And that was right when WITCH came out,

50:12

Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell,

50:14

so we were witches, and we taught witchcraft,

50:16

and we read about it, and we were into the goddess.

50:19

And that was going strong, but I needed a job,

50:25

so I worked at Goodwill Distaff House

50:28

with women for about a year, women that were deaf,

50:31

multi-handicapped, some were let out

50:37

from the institutions for mental health.

50:39

It was really a wonderful place for me to be with them

50:44

and have feminism and work with people,

50:47

but they fired me because they had

50:50

a gal who went in my room.

50:53

Unfortunately, it was a part of the building

50:54

when I was off-duty, and found my love letters,

50:56

and they kicked me out as a lesbian.

51:01

So that was the end of my involvement in Tallahassee,

51:02

and when I left, the bookstore was still goin' strong.

51:07

The women's center was still goin' strong.

51:11

Even 20 years later, they had a reunion

51:14

and invited Nesta and I to come and speak,

51:17

and it's still going strong, so that feels good.

51:21

Then, I left, that was devastating to be fired as a lesbian.

51:26

I didn't have the energy to try and confront it,

51:32

so I went back to Miami for a while

51:35

and fell in love, completely, totally in love,

51:38

and that's when I knew I really was a lesbian.

51:41

(chuckles) I came through the feminist way, you know?

51:44

And my lover did not want to leave

51:47

when I wanted to move to St. Augustine.

51:51

That brings us to the Pagoda very close, because in 1976,

51:55

Rena Carney, who was one of the workers

51:59

in my Distaff House, who was a lesbian.

52:02

-

Say her name again, Rita--

52:04

-

Rena, R-E-N-A,

Carney, C-A-R-N-E-Y.

52:07

-

Carney, C-A-R-N-E-Y.

She was hired by me because of sign language abilities,

52:10

and there were deaf women in there, so we became friends.

52:14

And she and her lover, Cathy, I knew very well.

52:17

Well, when she graduated by the time I left my job,

52:22

she was at St. Augustine to work, Rena was,

52:25

and her girlfriend, to work at the School for Deaf and Blind

52:30

and I was back in Miami interning with Poldi,

52:35

who was a dance therapist 'cause I'm a dancer.

52:41

And I wanted to do dance therapy, and I was really pulled

52:45

because she was getting involved in other things and--

52:47

-

She who?

52:50

-

Poldi,

and she wanted me to take over her therapy classes

52:51

that were locally, but I said, "You know what,

52:54

"I started having dreams about St. Augustine.

52:57

"I saw the marshes, I saw the school."

53:00

I had never been there before, and so I just borrowed money

53:03

from my grandmother 'cause my mom didn't give me anything

53:07

and went there, that was in 1976.

53:10

Okay, we're almost at the Pagoda.

53:14

1976, we formed a theater group called Terpsichore

53:16

who was the muse of dance, and Cathy was an artist,

53:22

and Rena was a great actress.

53:28

I was a dancer, and Suzy Chance, who I met when I went--

53:30

-

Who was a grunt. (laughs)

53:34

She carried things around. (laughs)

53:35

-

Yeah, we made her play the bird in the Persephone thing,

53:36

and everybody would laugh when it wasn't supposed

53:42

to be funny, it was always supposed to be--

53:43

-

Can I get a spelling of those names, the people

53:47

that were in Terpsichore ?

53:49

-

Oh okay, well I know--

53:52

-

Yeah, and can I just say I'm not sure

53:54

that you wanna publish these names?

53:56

Rena lives in Melrose.

53:57

You can get her permission to publish her name.

53:58

Cathy is not--

54:01

-

Cathy, I don't remember--

-

Rena would know where Cathy is probably,

54:03

but why don't we just say Cathy, Rena, and--

54:06

-

Why don't we edit this in the editing phase, then?

54:10

You can just--

54:11

-

It was a connection

I had made before with someone who was a lesbian

54:16

and in the theater, which is what I wanted to do too

54:19

with my dance, and so they called me and said, "Get up here.

54:22

"We just bought a house, there's one

54:27

"down the street for $9,000.

54:28

"It's fantastic, two-story Victorian."

54:31

-

Wait a minute, before or after you--

54:34

-

Can we do a timeout?

54:36

It is 4:00 Georgia time, 3:00 Alabama time.

54:38

We need to consider that if we're having a potluck

54:42

that we have to do some cooking, and then coming back.

54:45

-

Well, I'm actually done.

54:49

-

No, I'm not asking you

to stop, no, no, I'm just telling her.

54:51

She asked for somebody to do a time check,

54:52

so I say we probably have an hour.

54:55

Anybody, can we go 'til 5:00?

54:58

-

Sure.

-

Yeah.

55:02

-

That's Georgia time.

And then we can come back here at 7:00?

55:04

-

Why don't we move on into you starting Pagoda?

55:06

-

Well, I'm at 1976 when we were Terpsichore, yes,

55:07

we traveled around and performed, and one day, we drove

55:10

by the Pagoda, which was for sale, four of the cottages.

55:14

-

Wait a minute, I'm still lost in the, Rena Carney was sent

55:19

to St. Augustine--

55:25

-

To intern, yeah.

-

And you started having dreams about St. Augustine,

55:28

but you'd never been there, so you borrowed money

55:33

and went there--

55:35

-

She told me, "Come."

-

Okay, well let's go back and say she told you to come.

55:36

Was that before or after you started having dreams?

55:39

-

She told me to come because she said, "This is

55:41

"where we can do women's theater, and we're here,

55:45

"and I'm here to live, and Cathy's with me.

55:47

"And let's do our theater, and we can move around."

55:49

And we also wanted a local place to set a theater up,

55:52

which is why we went looking and found the Pagoda.

55:55

-

Yeah, they actually lived in St. Augustine

55:59

before they found the Pagoda.

56:02

They had--

56:04

-

Right, homes.

-

Rena and Cathy lived in a house, and Morgana

56:05

and Suzy lived in a house in Lincolnville in St. Augustine.

56:09

-

Which was a black district--

56:13

-

And they saw an ad

in the paper.

56:16

-

Which was very inexpensive.

-

Suzy is your lover from Miami?

56:17

-

No, you know what, she wouldn't come up with me.

56:18

It broke my heart, but she didn't--

56:22

-

Where'd you meet Suzy?

56:25

-

I met Suzy at a party in Jacksonville

56:27

where she was playing her guitar, and I played guitar,

56:30

and I said okay and so we got together.

56:33

And Suzy was neat, but she never really wanted

56:36

women's space or separatism, and neither did Rena or Cathy.

56:38

-

But they saw an ad in the paper

56:44

that said, "A beachfront cottage for sale."

56:47

-

Four, because you had to buy all four.

56:51

-

But you went to buy one--

56:53

-

That's right.

-

And when you got there, you found out

56:56

that they couldn't be subdivided,

56:58

'cause they were on no property whatsoever.

57:01

And so, they bought all four, and this is a picture

57:03

of what the cottages looked like when they were first built.

57:09

This is Reeses' cottages, this is the gentleman

57:13

and his sister and niece who built them.

57:19

And then, this is what the owner that owned them

57:21

when Morgana got there had converted them

57:24

into, "The Pagoda," and she had put these horns

57:25

on each of the cottages, we called them horns,

57:31

to make 'em look like they were Japanese,

57:33

and they got there--

57:37

-

And also the crescent moon--

-

I'll scan these.

57:40

-

And they got there,

and she said, "What about four cottages?"

57:43

-

Yeah, and $1,000 down and $6,000 is all they cost.

57:49

It was like a miracle.

57:52

-

All of 'em?

-

Each.

57:55

-

Each of them was $6,000.

-

So I sold my car, and somebody borrowed this and that,

57:57

and we bought 'em, and then we wanted to start doing

58:01

the theater, but as soon as we did is when the others

58:03

opened up, and that's when Ellen came into the picture.

58:09

-

Right, let's give a little clarification.

58:13

They did buy the cottages, but they needed a place to live,

58:14

and you weren't living in the cottages, so they rented

58:19

this main building that you can see right here.

58:23

This building was on the street,

58:28

and behind it were the four cottages that they bought.

58:32

-

Was it a motel when you bought it?

58:35

-

It was a motel, it had been built

58:36

in 1936.

58:38

-

Yes, and there were men

in the cottages, and we used to make 'em leave when we--

58:40

-

You're getting ahead of yourself.

58:43

They got there, and they bought the cottages,

58:44

and they rented the main, what we ended up calling

58:46

The Center, what became Pagoda Temple of Love.

58:50

They rented that building from Jane.

58:53

She had moved out into some other cottage

58:55

because there had been a bad fire in that big building,

58:58

and she was reluctant to stay there.

59:03

-

She was the owner.

59:05

-

So they were able to rent.

She owned the whole thing, and she sold them

59:09

the four cottages, and she rented them the big building.

59:10

And somehow, Morgana, who as you can see, creates things--

59:14

-

I'm gonna ask that we quickly wrap that up

59:21

so I can change tape.

59:24

-

Yeah, we'll stop at this part.

59:26

-

Okay, but I won't get this.

59:27

-

Morgana, who creates things

got Ellen to come and build

59:30

a stage in the garage downstairs.

59:31

Now, we're gonna take a break.

59:34

-

Yeah, I'm out.

-

Take a break, and then y'all can go on from there,

59:36

'cause I wasn't there, but I've heard the story and--

59:39

-

Yeah, but you--

59:41

-

What'd I miss?

-

You missed the fact that as soon as we got there,

59:44

we started doing--

59:47

-

Can you hold your thought,

just for a second?

59:50

-

Get the other strip

the guy had bought--

59:53

-

You can tell that

as soon as she changes her tape.

59:55

-

Now when it came up, we went and found,

59:56

and we said, "Ellen and your collective,

59:58

"you buy these cottages."

1:00:00

-

No, that's not quite how it happened, but we'll get there.

1:00:02

-

Can we wait just a second? (overlapping chatter)

1:00:04

-

So you built that before you--

1:00:07

-

She's trying to--

1:00:08

-

No, but I'm just

gonna clarify for you, did you build that stage

1:00:09

before you actually bought a cottage?

1:00:13

-

Yes, because we came, I'll do this again

1:00:15

when you have the tape, Val and I came the day

1:00:19

the folks who owned the other strip came to say

1:00:22

to you, "Do you know anybody who would wanna buy this?"

1:00:24

And then, Ellen had already built a stage

1:00:28

because when we got there, you were rehearsing

1:00:30

on the stage for your opening.

1:00:32

-

That's right, we had our opening.

1:00:35

-

So we'll get it clarified what came first.

1:00:37

-

And that was our big opening, right?

1:00:38

Berkeley Women's Music--

1:00:39

-

Okay, you can start.

Can you say that again?

1:00:41

-

Keep going.

-

So you bought the four cottages, and you rented

1:00:42

The Center Building, and you knew this collective

1:00:44

from Jacksonville that Ellen was a part of.

1:00:47

She had women living in her house, lesbians living

1:00:50

in her house, and how did you get Ellen to come

1:00:53

and build the stage?

1:00:56

-

Well, I don't know.

-

Okay, there's a piece of my story.

1:00:59

At the same time that you all were buying those four,

1:01:02

Suzy Chance, I had moved out of my family situation

1:01:06

'cause the kids' father said he would, for a change,

1:01:12

be in charge of the kids, and I was

1:01:16

in a little apartment, and Suzy was a roommate.

1:01:19

We were not partners, and the group in Jacksonville,

1:01:21

we were kind of getting worn out

1:01:27

from all the political stuff, and we said, "Gee, we wish we

1:01:30

"had a coffee house or something where we could just gather

1:01:33

"for pleasure and have a dance and do whatever."

1:01:35

And people were kind of thinking about, "Where could we do

1:01:40

"it that the police won't come and whatever?"

1:01:42

And Suzy's telling me what's going on there,

1:01:44

and I said, "I'm gonna go check it out

1:01:48

"'cause we're only 30 minutes away,

1:01:51

"and actually it could be an advantage, in many ways."

1:01:53

And so that's how, it was through Suzy that I came

1:01:57

and looked at, and said, you know, "Could this be open

1:02:01

"like a coffee house, can it be for any women,

1:02:04

"lesbians and other women to come and do social things?"

1:02:08

-

It was always women, right.

1:02:12

-

This downstairs was a three-car garage down here,

1:02:14

this building that eventually became The Center Building

1:02:18

that they were renting and living in

1:02:20

when they bought the four cottages.

1:02:22

And so, Ellen got the two-car part of the garage,

1:02:23

left this third part out, and created this stage

1:02:29

in this double garage.

1:02:31

-

A little theater.

-

But it fit 50 chairs, and Rena knew all about lights.

1:02:34

We had a great light board and gels in there,

1:02:40

and it was right at the time

1:02:43

when the cultural music revolution was happening.

1:02:46

And the very first women that were going on tours

1:02:52

would come through the Pagoda, and many times,

1:02:55

Barbara was a producer then--

1:02:59

-

Okay, let's not jump ahead.

Let's stay with Ellen's building the stage.

1:03:01

-

Let me finish one of the things--

1:03:04

-

Oh okay, but then you bought something.

1:03:06

-

Because my coming in was different.

1:03:09

I never lived there full-time, but I was, I think,

1:03:10

the only person with carpentry skills initially,

1:03:13

and these cottages were all run down.

1:03:16

-

(chuckles) Where did you get carpentry skills?

1:03:18

-

What?

1:03:20

-

Where did you get

carpentry skills?

1:03:21

-

Oh, that's another

long story, but lifelong--

1:03:22

-

She used to make dulcimers.

-

She grew up with it.

1:03:25

-

Yes, and in spite

of people trying to stop me 'cause I wasn't a male,

1:03:27

but anyway, so every weekend or Friday night, I would come

1:03:30

with all my tools and help do repairs and teach.

1:03:35

And you were one of the--

1:03:40

-

Right, but we're

still getting ahead of ourselves.

1:03:43

-

Okay, that's right, you weren't there yet.

1:03:44

-

We only have four cottages and renting the building,

1:03:46

and Morgana somehow gets an agreement

1:03:47

from the Berkeley Women's Music Collective

1:03:51

to come and perform at the opening.

1:03:54

They closed down the cottages on 7/7, '77.

1:03:58

They bought the cottages and went to the closing.

1:04:04

-

I wasn't clear on that.

1:04:08

Was that our cottages?

1:04:09

-

The four cottages

on 7/7, '77.

1:04:10

-

You're saying

that there were three strips of four cottages each

1:04:13

and the big house.

1:04:16

-

There were a total of four

deeded lots 55 feet wide by 60 feet deep, I'm sorry,

1:04:18

by 260 feet deep, and on the first and second

1:04:25

and fourth strips, there were four cottages.

1:04:30

But on the first and second strips,

1:04:34

which are the ones that we ended up with initially,

1:04:36

there were four cottages and a two-story building.

1:04:39

So they were taking strip number two with the four cottages.

1:04:42

They closed on 7/7, '77, bought the cottages,

1:04:46

and by November, they had an opening for the theater

1:04:50

that Ellen built in the main building with Morgana

1:04:54

and Rena and a couple of other women performing a tap dance

1:04:59

to Leaping Lesbians, and with--

1:05:04

-

That was wonderful.

1:05:08

-

The Berkeley

Women's Music Collective performing--

1:05:09

-

And Flash was also there.

1:05:12

-

And Flash was Silver Moon

from Melrose, also.

1:05:15

-

Is this Berkeley,

B-E-R-K-L-E-E, like--

1:05:18

-

L-E-Y, right?

Berkeley Women's Music Collective.

1:05:20

-

So it's California, not--

1:05:24

-

California.

-

Okay, so you had come by then.

1:05:28

-

So we came on the second wave with Ellen.

1:05:30

We came, my partner and I came through

1:05:34

in October, just before the opening.

1:05:36

They were in rehearsal for their opening,

1:05:39

and stayed the weekend, and the Sunday morning

1:05:42

when we were there, the first strip of cottages,

1:05:47

which was four cottages and a duplex house,

1:05:50

had been sold to two married couples.

1:05:54

And they had an expectation that they were going

1:05:57

to acquire the entire property,

1:06:01

which included not just the four strips

1:06:03

that had cottages on them, but eight land lots

1:06:05

all together, the other four being oceanfront.

1:06:10

And so, this married couple had bought strip number one

1:06:14

plus the oceanfront lot, and they expected

1:06:18

they were gonna be able to buy everything else

1:06:20

from the woman who owned the Pagoda initially.

1:06:22

Her name was Jane Schilling, S-C-H-I-L-L-I-N-G.

1:06:25

This is Barbara Lieu speaking.

1:06:29

-

She was not a lesbian.

-

No, she was married and had children.

1:06:32

-

Yes, but Cathy did have an affair with her

1:06:35

in the very beginning, which was--

1:06:36

-

Always important to know what lesbians are doing

1:06:38

behind the scenes.

1:06:40

(laughing)

Cathy had an affair with her, but anyway--

1:06:41

-

But not a lesbian.

1:06:44

(laughing)

I'm not a lesbian, but my girlfriend is.

1:06:46

-

And her husband knew my dad, was one of his best friends

1:06:48

when he was a commentator for sports

1:06:53

when my dad played professional baseball.

1:06:54

-

Football?

1:06:56

Baseball?

1:06:57

-

Baseball in Gainesville.

-

Her husband was a commentator.

1:07:00

-

So he took care of us, he was like the daddy, you know?

1:07:02

-

They were known as Pappy and Mammy Schilling,

1:07:04

and so when the two married couples realized they were

1:07:05

not going to be able to buy the whole property

1:07:11

because Jane had sold those four cottages out

1:07:13

from under them, them not realizing that was happening--

1:07:16

-

While she patted us on the behind--

1:07:18

-

There you go.

1:07:20

-

When we went in the door.

(laughing)

1:07:22

-

The Sunday morning we were visiting, the two wives

1:07:23

of the couples came to the what became The Center Building,

1:07:28

the building that they were renting, Morgana and Rena

1:07:32

and Suzy and Cathy, and said, "We're ready to sell.

1:07:35

"Do you know anybody who would like to buy?"

1:07:40

-

(laughs) Really?

1:07:43

-

So we raised our hand,

and we said, "Who else can you get?"

1:07:46

-

Right, but I asked first a question.

1:07:50

I wanted you and Val for sure,

1:07:52

but what was the question I asked you?

1:07:55

-

"Are you Marxists?"

1:07:56

(laughing)

-

That's right, "If you're not a Marxist, you're invited."

1:07:58

-

Valentine said, "No, I'm a Democrat."

1:08:01

(laughing)

1:08:03

And for clarification,

this would be Connie Lavender Valentine.

1:08:07

She started out as Connie Ackerman.

1:08:13

We took the last name of Lieu, L-I-E-U.

1:08:17

She became Lavender Lieu, she became Valentine Lieu,

1:08:20

and before she died, she was Valentine Ackerman again.

1:08:24

So, Morgana said she would get a group together.

1:08:29

We went back to Charleston and came back later that fall,

1:08:32

after your opening--

1:08:37

-

Didn't you see the opening?

After the opening?

1:08:38

-

I never saw the opening.

-

You didn't?

1:08:40

-

I saw you rehearse.

-

'Cause after the opening, Berkeley Women--

1:08:43

-

Said, "We'll take a cottage."

1:08:46

-

"We'll take a cottage."

1:08:47

-

Three of the four Berkeley

Women's Music Collective said they would buy a cottage and--

1:08:49

-

And then, I brought in, I bought one and brought in--

1:08:53

-

Several women that--

1:08:57

-

Yeah, so that--

-

All right, so the original buyers were--

1:08:59

-

So you bought one, okay.

1:09:02

-

Yeah, the original buyers were, did you buy the first one

1:09:03

or you bought it from Beth?

1:09:07

-

No, I bought the first.

-

You sure you didn't buy from Beth?

1:09:11

I feel like it was--

1:09:14

-

I think you did because--

-

From Beth.

1:09:16

-

Maybe so.

-

I feel like it was, starting at the ocean end,

1:09:18

Barbara and Valentine, then came Vickie,

1:09:22

then came the Berkeley Women's Music Collective,

1:09:27

then came Vickie's partner Pat.

1:09:29

The downstairs of the duplex was Beth, and the top was you?

1:09:32

-

Yeah, I rented for--

1:09:38

-

Yeah I know,

but this is years later, we're talking 1978.

1:09:40

-

They owned it.

1:09:43

-

They own it when you came--

-

Yeah.

1:09:46

-

But I'm, no it was not you.

It was Beth and Sherry, Sherry bought the downstairs

1:09:48

of the duplex, Beth bought the upstairs of the duplex,

1:09:52

and you bought from Beth.

1:09:55

-

Okay.

-

She was fired, well she wasn't officially fired,

1:09:57

but she knew she was gonna get fired from UNF,

1:10:01

and she went to Massachusetts, and you bought from her.

1:10:04

Ellen bought from her, so the original group, we met,

1:10:08

now there's quite a few stories here

1:10:12

about actually acquiring a property, and I want you

1:10:14

to shut me down if it's too much details,

1:10:17

because it's a very interesting story,

1:10:20

but it's a lot of details.

1:10:22

The only way to buy this property was to buy

1:10:24

the four cottages, the duplex, and the oceanfront lot.

1:10:27

And these two married couples had a mortgage

1:10:32

on this property, and we were going to assume the mortgage.

1:10:35

It was a locally-owned bank.

1:10:41

We were gonna assume the mortgage.

1:10:42

So we had this meeting, and there's all these women sitting

1:10:44

around in a circle in what became The Center Building,

1:10:46

and standing back against the wall

1:10:51

is Martha Strozier with her arms like this,

1:10:53

because she's not gonna be part of any collective,

1:10:55

and she is not gonna get involved with these women.

1:10:57

She knows them from Jacksonville.

1:11:00

She's not gonna be a part of this,

1:11:02

but at some point, she decided she would like

1:11:04

to own the oceanfront lot, and so this made a deal.

1:11:07

-

In the front of the Pagoda, there were

1:11:12

several--

1:11:14

-

This is now two building

lots that we're purchasing, one has four cottages

1:11:16

and the duplex house, and the other is

1:11:18

a beautiful oceanfront lot with the sundeck on it.

1:11:20

We had a sundeck at that time.

1:11:23

-

That's right.

1:11:25

-

So and the screen house.

There was a screen house there.

1:11:27

This had originally been a motel built in 1936.

1:11:28

It originally had 10 lots, a hydroponic garden,

1:11:32

a swing set, a sunroom, a meeting room with screens

1:11:37

so that people who came to the cottages could use it.

1:11:43

-

And a swimming pool.

1:11:45

-

And a swimming pool.

Well, she put the swimming pool in.

1:11:47

This photograph does not show the swimming pool.

1:11:49

This is a postcard from before the swimming pool went in.

1:11:51

Jane put the swimming pool in.

1:11:55

-

Okay.

-

The Reeses had all this other stuff, so we managed to get

1:11:57

this large group together that's gonna assume this mortgage.

1:12:02

And of this large group, only two were gainfully employed.

1:12:09

Beth was working at UNF, and Pat was working in some office

1:12:11

somewhere, and the rest of us didn't have jobs.

1:12:15

And we didn't have any declarable income

1:12:17

to get this mortgage, so we had to assume this mortgage.

1:12:19

And so as we proceed along, we get a call from the,

1:12:23

" Oh, Martha will buy this lot if it can be released

1:12:27

"from the mortgage, she will pay outright

1:12:32

"for the oceanfront lot if it can be released

1:12:35

"from the mortgage because she does not wanna be involved

1:12:38

"with this group of women who are having trouble coming

1:12:41

"up with money to pay this mortgage."

1:12:44

(laughing)

1:12:46

So we get a call, me and Val, oh okay, Valentine and I moved

1:12:49

to the Pagoda in February of '78 and rent Morgana's cottage

1:12:54

because we don't yet own the second strip of cottages.

1:13:00

Morgana's living in The Center Building

1:13:04

and renting out these four cottages,

1:13:08

as are these other units being rented out

1:13:09

by the two married couples that own them,

1:13:11

as are Jane's units being rented out,

1:13:13

the four that she retained.

1:13:15

So, we are living there, we're making arrangements

1:13:18

to assume the mortgage, we get a call from the bank,

1:13:20

and the banker says, "The board will not release the lot

1:13:23

"to Martha, you cannot have the property."

1:13:27

-

What was that all about?

1:13:32

-

What was that all about?

We didn't have declarable income.

1:13:35

We didn't look good enough, yeah,

1:13:36

so this is a banking decision.

1:13:39

-

She had the money.

1:13:40

-

She had the money

to purchase the lot, but they didn't wanna lose

1:13:43

the riverfront lot, which was the only thing

1:13:45

that was valuable to these crappy cottages here

1:13:45

that were built in 1936 to be

1:13:49

the only security for this loan.

1:13:50

So a couple of weeks later, we get a call.

1:13:54

He says, "You can come down.

1:13:56

"The mortgage has been approved."

1:13:58

We go, we sign, we pay, the mortgage for all those six units

1:14:00

was something like 200-and-some dollars a month.

1:14:04

Our monthly mortgage on our cottage was $36.

1:14:07

(laughing)

1:14:10

Years later, I found out that Martha went down

1:14:11

to the banker and said to the banker, "How much money

1:14:16

"do I have to put in a CD so that you will release

1:14:20

"this property so those girls can buy those cottages?"

1:14:23

-

Martha had money, her father was--

1:14:28

-

Obviously, and she was--

1:14:29

-

Little angel behind

the scene who wasn't gonna get involved with these women.

1:14:34

-

And she ended up buying a cottage.

1:14:37

-

Yeah, she did end up buying a cottage,

1:14:39

and then she--

1:14:40

-

Lived there quite

a long time.

1:14:42

-

She and her partner,

her partner bought a second cottage,

1:14:44

but that is a whole 'nother story.

1:14:45

That gets you up to the purchase.

1:14:46

-

Are we done?

1:14:48

-

Well, we're almost done.

-

No, she--

1:14:50

-

The purchase

of the second set of cottages happened in April.

1:14:52

They were rented out to disparate people off the street,

1:14:57

monthlies mostly, we didn't do nightly,

1:15:01

and they didn't do nightly and weekly.

1:15:03

We close on the cottages, that second strip,

1:15:06

and Morgana, who at that time was a part-time employee

1:15:10

for the Money for Women Fund, has to go to New York City

1:15:13

for a Money for Women Fund board meeting,

1:15:15

and she takes the money that they send her

1:15:21

for a airplane flight and gives it to Martha

1:15:23

to put gas in a new motor home that she just purchased.

1:15:27

And Suzy and Valentine and Morgana and me and Martha drive

1:15:30

a motor home to New York City--

1:15:35

-

I forgot that!

1:15:37

-

First to Washington D.C.,

and then to New York City and leave a family from California

1:15:40

in charge of the rental cottages.

1:15:47

(laughing)

1:15:49

-

Well, we had faith, you know, at that point.

1:15:52

-

We did have faith.

1:15:53

-

And I would like to add

that we did have the curse conflicts that happened--

1:15:56

-

Oh, we had conflicts before I even got there.

1:15:59

-

Yes, but I'm talking--

1:16:01

-

But a major one.

-

I'm talking about once we were a community.

1:16:04

-

Oh, well now you're moving on to the next phase,

1:16:06

which was--

1:16:08

-

A couple

of women said, "We don't wanna pay.

1:16:09

"You need to have to have men until these are paid."

1:16:11

-

All right, here's what happened.

1:16:14

We started renting out the cottages

1:16:15

by the night and week for the summer.

1:16:17

We came back from New York, the summer is coming on,

1:16:18

and as Morgana says in her interview,

1:16:21

which I'm giving you a copy of from Lesbian Land--

1:16:23

-

I have Lesbian Land, but I'll take the copy.

1:16:28

-

Take that copy because the first paragraph

1:16:31

is extremely inaccurate.

1:16:33

-

Oh--

-

So, we sent out this flyer

1:16:35

that I mentioned earlier before you put the tape on

1:16:40

that said "Lesbian Feminist Resort," and we started renting

1:16:43

the four cottages by the night and week

1:16:46

and the duplex by the night and week to lesbians.

1:16:50

And we did that for a summer, and at the end of the summer,

1:16:54

we said to the original group that had purchased

1:16:59

the cottages, "This feels so good.

1:17:02

"We would like to keep it this way."

1:17:03

And that wasn't acceptable to them

1:17:05

because they needed money from the rental of the units,

1:17:06

and so we had a parting of the ways.

1:17:11

Beth had gone up north, and Ellen had bought that unit,

1:17:12

and this is when Emily comes into the picture,

1:17:16

so Emily will tell you her story.

1:17:19

-

Who did you buy from?

1:17:20

-

I'm not quite sure

I followed that.

1:17:22

-

So we've got a set of six living units

1:17:24

that are owned by a gazillion women.

1:17:27

-

A collective, right.

1:17:30

-

It's not a collective.

-

It's not a collective, but it--

1:17:32

-

We're just women.

1:17:34

-

Just women coming together.

-

We're just women coming together.

1:17:35

There is no collective, there is no--

1:17:36

-

And some of them weren't living in 'em.

1:17:37

That's why they needed to rent 'em

1:17:40

to have the money to pay the mortgage.

1:17:42

-

Yeah, they weren't separatists.

1:17:44

They weren't wanting women's space.

1:17:45

-

Well, they needed the money.

1:17:46

-

Eventually, they might,

but we said, "We gotta hold on."

1:17:49

-

The investment.

1:17:51

-

Well, they just wanted

their mortgage paid for by renting the units off the street,

1:17:53

and we had never said we're buying

1:17:56

these units to make a lesbian space.

1:17:58

We just said we're lesbians buying a rental space,

1:18:00

and so after the summer, it felt so good

1:18:05

that we said, "We wanna keep it this way,

1:18:06

"and we're gonna keep it this way.

1:18:10

"And we're here, and we're the ones

1:18:12

"who are renting the spaces.

1:18:14

"So you're not here, you're in Jacksonville.

1:18:15

"We wanna do this."

1:18:18

And that was a conflict, that's true.

1:18:21

But what they said was, "If you're gonna do that,

1:18:23

"we need to sell, you need to find somebody

1:18:24

"to buy these units from us."

1:18:26

-

What was the year about when all this happened?

1:18:29

-

We did it in the--

1:18:31

-

'78 going into '79.

-

Yes, we ran that summer of 1978 as lesbian space,

1:18:36

and we didn't wanna go back, so it was the fall of '78.

1:18:40

-

And what was happening in my life was

1:18:45

that I was living in Orlando at the time with a partner,

1:18:46

and we were always looking for beachside places to go.

1:18:51

And we happened to see in this little lesbian newsletter

1:18:56

this place saying, "Pagoda by the Sea,"

1:19:01

and "Lesbian feminists," I don't even know

1:19:06

what was all in it, I know I thought, "Oh my god."

1:19:09

-

It probably said "Women's Space."

1:19:11

-

Yeah.

1:19:12

-

Well, it said more than

that because I was scared to death about it

1:19:14

because I had not been involved in the feminist movement

1:19:17

before going there, and so Wiggy and I called

1:19:20

and got our little reservation and went up there

1:19:25

and we were greeted by Lavender, and we'll never forget

1:19:28

the moment she just, with all that southern charm--

1:19:31

(laughing)

1:19:35

She said, "Well come right in, lemme show you your place."

1:19:36

And she had this wonderful southern accent.

1:19:40

-

"And here's your cottage."

1:19:42

-

We were in the upstairs of the duplex.

1:19:45

We were in Ellen may have had at that time or--

1:19:49

-

Yes, by then, she probably did.

1:19:52

I don't think Beth held it very long.

1:19:56

-

Right, and so we rented, and we were up in The Center,

1:19:57

and I don't know how many, four or five of you

1:20:01

were gathered in the kitchen around the table.

1:20:03

And you and I or Wiggy and I are just in the library looking

1:20:06

around at the books, and we hear them saying, "If we could

1:20:12

"just find some women with $3,000."

1:20:14

-

Lesbians.

1:20:19

-

Yeah, "Lesbians

with $3,000," and we looked at each other,

1:20:21

and we said, "What?"

1:20:23

'Cause we were already in love with the place.

1:20:25

We knew something special was going on here,

1:20:27

and so we walked bravely into the kitchen,

1:20:29

and said, "Could you tell us what this is all about?"

1:20:34

And they said, "We have two cottages

1:20:36

"that if we don't find lesbians to buy,

1:20:39

"are gonna be sold to men."

1:20:42

And we said, "How much?"

1:20:44

'Cause we thought maybe $3,000 a month or something.

1:20:47

I don't know what we thought,

1:20:49

and they said, "Well, you'll need about $3,000 down

1:20:51

"and maybe about $40 or $50 a month."

1:20:53

And we're like, "Oh my god, this is like,

1:20:59

"too good to be true."

1:21:02

-

They were both nurses.

-

And so we looked at them, and we said, "We want one

1:21:05

"of those cottages, and we are going back to Orlando.

1:21:08

"We'll be back in two days."

1:21:11

You know, and we did, and we didn't have a clue.

1:21:13

We were both nurses, we were working,

1:21:16

but neither of us had saved any money.

1:21:17

We borrowed money from her mother,

1:21:21

and then I took out whatever I could get

1:21:23

from my savings, and we came back up and bought the cottage.

1:21:27

And that was in the fall, I think it was like October

1:21:32

or November of '78, yeah.

1:21:36

And we couldn't move there quite yet

1:21:39

because we were living with Wiggy's mom.

1:21:41

Wiggy was sort of the primary caregiver.

1:21:44

Her mom was pretty much dependent, so we just bought it.

1:21:47

And then we began that wonderful journey of fixing it up

1:21:52

to be livable and so forth, but yeah that's, I came in,

1:21:56

and then who was the next one?

1:22:00

-

I'm trying to think who bought--

1:22:02

-

It was Karen Jones bought Vickie's cottage.

1:22:03

-

Who is Vickie?

1:22:07

-

She was one of the original

of, we called them, strip one and strip two,

1:22:09

and she was one of the women from Jacksonville

1:22:14

who purchased with the second wave and then didn't want

1:22:18

to stay because she needed her money out of it.

1:22:21

And so she--

1:22:26

-

And one thing

that we did in the very beginning, thanks to Barbara

1:22:29

and Val, was we did make it clear that it wasn't gonna be

1:22:33

an investment, that if you sold your cottage,

1:22:38

you had to sell it for what it cost you plus

1:22:42

the amount of cost of index.

1:22:45

-

It's the consumer price index inflationary rate,

1:22:48

and so what you would have when you came out of there

1:22:52

was the exact same buying power with your money

1:22:56

that you had when you went in.

1:22:59

And we did that for many, many, many years,

1:23:03

that if a cottage would turn over, I used to get

1:23:05

a monthly mailing from the government of what

1:23:08

the current consumer price index inflationary rate was,

1:23:10

and each time a cottage would sell, we would take

1:23:13

the down payment money that the woman had paid

1:23:16

and what the current value of it was,

1:23:21

given that the mortgage been paid off

1:23:23

to a certain extent, and then increase it

1:23:25

by the consumer price inflationary rate.

1:23:28

-

Which is one reason why we survived so long.

1:23:30

-

Yes, nobody could, yeah.

1:23:32

-

Otherwise, it had just kept going up and up,

1:23:35

and only rich people--

1:23:38

-

'Cause it was

a gorgeous access to the beach. (laughs)

1:23:40

-

Yeah.

1:23:43

-

And I think that we all came

in, or I think most of us came in, at that point,

1:23:47

with the feeling that we wanted

1:23:50

to make this affordable for women, for lesbians.

1:23:53

We didn't want to jack up the prices of the cottages.

1:23:57

We paid everybody the same salary, $5 an hour,

1:24:01

whether you were the cleaning coordinator

1:24:05

for the cottages, or you were

1:24:07

the lawyer doing the paperwork.

1:24:09

We all got paid $5 an hour in the beginning.

1:24:11

I know we had to change that after a while,

1:24:13

but we really wanted to try to be as fair

1:24:15

and equitable with each other as we could

1:24:20

and to be different from the world out there

1:24:23

that didn't wanna do it this way.

1:24:26

-

Okay, we have half an hour until our brief break time.

1:24:28

-

One thing that I think should be said is we first,

1:24:34

as we were finding who wanted to live here

1:24:39

and who was willing to take a loss that month

1:24:43

if it was a lesbian but not enough to pay that bill,

1:24:46

we gradually became what we called a residential community

1:24:53

with The Center, which we bought in 1979

1:24:59

with the women who were committed, who had moved there,

1:25:06

and pooled our money and bought the Temple.

1:25:11

-

Okay, let me do a little bit, here.

1:25:16

I would like you to hear from Ellen and Morgana

1:25:18

about The Matriarchy Conference, which happened

1:25:21

at the Pagoda and brought some new women,

1:25:23

but before we do that, I'd like to clarify

1:25:26

just because we're running out of time,

1:25:28

the time frame on The Center Building,

1:25:30

the purchase of The Center Building.

1:25:34

And I'm gonna give you this, which is

1:25:35

the legal documents list of when things happened.

1:25:37

So in Florida, four women, whose names are on here,

1:25:40

three women whose names are on here, incorporated something

1:25:44

called The Mother Church in March of 1978.

1:25:47

So before we even had bought the second set of cottages,

1:25:50

they had incorporated The Mother Church.

1:25:54

-

From NOW.

1:25:57

-

They were from NOW, yes.

And they designed a credo, which was the doctrines

1:25:59

of The Mother Church, in '78, and--

1:26:05

-

Had incorporated in the state only.

1:26:08

-

They did incorporate in '78, and by 1979, March of 1979,

1:26:12

they realized they weren't gonna be able

1:26:22

to make this thing go, and so they knew

1:26:25

that we were doing circles at the Pagoda,

1:26:28

and they offered us this incorporated Mother Church.

1:26:30

And we took it over in, it says here, "Mother Church moves

1:26:33

"to Pagoda as per Florida Secretary of State, 3/14, 1979."

1:26:38

-

Who had started it?

1:26:45

-

Three NOW women,

whose names are on this list.

1:26:48

You can copy 'em if you want 'em.

1:26:50

And so we then received our recognition as tax-exempt status

1:26:54

under the IRS, as a church, they were incorporated

1:27:02

as a church, in November of 1979.

1:27:05

-

We were one of the first, besides Seas

1:27:11

to be recognized as a goddess-worshiping church--

1:27:13

-

And we changed the name--

1:27:17

-

In the nation.

-

We changed the name to The Pagoda Temple of Love

1:27:21

from The Mother Church in February of 1980.

1:27:24

-

We also changed the credo, Valentine and I worked

1:27:30

really hard on it, we kept a lot of the NOW concepts,

1:27:32

which at the time, seemed pretty reformist.

1:27:35

But we wanted to honor the women that did it,

1:27:39

and also then added in all our Pagan kinds

1:27:41

of rituals in there and took out

1:27:45

that men could join and then sent that in.

1:27:48

And the reason did it as a church was because we wanted

1:27:51

to have women-only events in that building.

1:27:56

And if we had become educational 501c3,

1:28:02

we would've had to have men, and we were in a bind.

1:28:06

And I remember I was on vacation and visiting my family,

1:28:10

and I said, "Okay Dad, what can I do

1:28:14

"to have lesbian-only space?

1:28:16

"Please tell me that there's something that we can do."

1:28:18

He says, "Yeah, freedom of religion.

1:28:21

"You say your religion only allows women, and that's

1:28:24

"the last thing that's gonna go, so you'll be safe."

1:28:27

So we did it that way, and it felt right

1:28:31

'cause we already were, but I don't think

1:28:34

that I would've really wanted to start a church.

1:28:36

And yet, it allowed us to become women-only space legally.

1:28:40

-

Well, it allows you to be women-only space

1:28:47

that was tax-exempt.

1:28:49

-

Yes.

-

As well.

1:28:52

-

To be a nonprofit

tax-exempt.

1:28:53

-

'Cause you can

have women-only space--

1:28:55

-

Oh yes, but not

to get the nonprofit status, and I remember something

1:28:56

in the wording was something about, "Men would form

1:29:01

"their own gathering," anyway, I helped work

1:29:07

on some of that--

1:29:14

-

Yeah, we didn't take it out.

We just said they can do their own thing,

1:29:15

of course knowing they wouldn't.

1:29:19

-

So also, this building now that The Pagoda Temple

1:29:21

of Love is existing in and meeting in

1:29:25

and having circles in is not owned by us.

1:29:27

It is still owned by Jane, the original Pagoda woman.

1:29:30

So we decide we need to buy the building,

1:29:35

and she was willing to sell it, and 13 of us put in $600

1:29:38

a piece to make the down payment to her

1:29:42

and buy the building, and that then became the building

1:29:47

that belonged to The Pagoda Temple of Love.

1:29:51

-

The big room, we had a great big vagina on the wall

1:29:55

and a nice altar, and that's where we had meetings

1:29:59

and circles.

1:30:01

-

And it became

the community building for the community.

1:30:04

-

And it became, for quite a while, a little store

1:30:06

that you ran.

1:30:08

-

Right, that's on this list,

when the IRS approves us to have a store--

1:30:10

-

Right, and we had rental room upstairs and downstairs.

1:30:13

-

And in the basement.

1:30:16

-

We published two books.

Barbara Deming, who started the Money for Women Fund,

1:30:23

for which Morgana was the part-time administrator,

1:30:25

wanted to release a book, and she has already published

1:30:30

a number of books, but she asked us if we could do it

1:30:34

under the auspices of The Pagoda Temple of Love.

1:30:36

She paid the whole thing, and it never made any money,

1:30:38

but she published this book and also a book

1:30:42

that I don't have a copy of, I'm sorry

1:30:45

to say, of her lover Jane's book.

1:30:47

-

I might have Jane's.

1:30:50

-

Yeah, and there was one

other thing I wanted to say, I thought,

1:30:55

that fit in with this.

1:30:57

Oh, I wanted to clarify that one of the reasons this article

1:30:59

is a little bit inaccurate in Cheney's book,

1:31:03

Joyce Cheney's book, is that these two entities,

1:31:07

or actually these three entities, the strips of cottages

1:31:13

and The Pagoda Temple of Love were never one legal entity

1:31:16

because these were, as far as the cottages were concerned,

1:31:21

they were simply land deeds that women had an agreement

1:31:27

to share things with, we had shared infrastructure,

1:31:31

shared gas line, shared water lines, shared septic tanks,

1:31:34

shared mortgages, and the temple building was something

1:31:38

separate, so that there were women who lived in the cottages

1:31:42

who never, ever participated, never came to a concert,

1:31:46

never came to a meeting, never came to group,

1:31:50

which we had every Thursday night,

1:31:52

which was to resolve conflicts.

1:31:54

They lived happily in the environment

1:31:55

of a lesbian community but did not participate,

1:31:58

so there was no obligation that you had to participate,

1:32:00

and there was no legal connection between

1:32:03

the community building and the cottages.

1:32:06

There was just affinity connection.

1:32:09

-

Right, and they were very close together,

1:32:14

so it made it a little difficult,

1:32:16

'cause the lines got blurred when women came

1:32:18

to stay with us, in terms of--

1:32:20

-

All right, so you wanted to talk about

1:32:22

that we were transitioning.

1:32:24

We did buy the community building, but we were transitioning

1:32:26

from renting by the night and week, which was exhausting.

1:32:29

There were none of us that wanted to clean any more toilets.

1:32:33

None of us wanted to wash any more sheets.

1:32:37

And so, we decided, as a community, that we would transition

1:32:41

to residential, and at that time, and I think you mentioned

1:32:44

it in your Cheney article, that women said, "But what are we

1:32:49

"gonna do about Nancy Breeze who likes

1:32:53

"to come here and stay here?"

1:32:58

And other women who liked to come,

1:33:01

and that's when we would make the community building

1:33:01

into a supporter building where women could come

1:33:04

and stay if they support, you could either pay to stay,

1:33:08

or you could send monthly support.

1:33:10

-

Plug that in, I'm out of battery.

1:33:16

-

Okay.

1:33:18

-

Not the recorder.

-

You wanna pause that?

1:33:21

-

Yeah.

-

And it had to happen pretty early

1:33:24

because Wiggy and I broke up, and--

1:33:26

-

How do you spell Wiggy?

1:33:28

-

W-I-G-G-Y.

-

Wiggy.

1:33:33

-

Later became New, in truth,

but anyway, because I was on the list--

1:33:35

-

Yes.

1:33:40

-

In '80--

-

Right, in '80, so fairly early on.

1:33:42

When we decided, who knows?

1:33:44

It may have happened when we decided to buy that building

1:33:47

and make it The Pagoda Temple of Love and put it under

1:33:50

the auspices of the 501c3 church

1:33:52

that we decided we needed supporters.

1:33:55

But the important thing about the supporters was

1:33:57

we said, "One of the benefits of being a supporter is

1:33:59

"that you will be on the list in the order of your becoming

1:34:03

"a supporter to buy a cottage at the Pagoda."

1:34:07

So even though we were separate legal entities,

1:34:10

we were trying to work together, and we effectively were

1:34:13

one small group running everything,

1:34:18

even though it was separate legal entities.

1:34:20

And so that was an incentive for women to become supporters

1:34:22

is that it got their name on a list.

1:34:25

And what Emily is talking about is that when she

1:34:29

and New broke up, or Wiggy, broke up, there was a concern

1:34:32

about who was gonna get kicked out of a cottage.

1:34:36

And we said, "We will move Emily to the top of the list

1:34:41

"because she's already here, and the next cottage

1:34:43

"that comes available, Emily will get."

1:34:46

And that's how we resolved that problem.

1:34:49

-

It was a complicated situation.

1:34:54

-

It took time.

1:34:57

-

I don't think I've heard

from you.

1:34:59

-

I don't think I told

how I'm living in--

1:35:01

-

Yeah, how did you get

to the Pagoda?

1:35:05

-

Oh that's funny. (laughs)

I was in Maryland, and I'd never heard of the Pagoda.

1:35:08

I was part of a group of women.

1:35:12

We were lesbians, I guess.

1:35:15

I'm trying to think, not all of us were.

1:35:16

I came out as a lesbian with one of the interns.

1:35:18

We were in the community of, not Columbia, Maryland,

1:35:21

or maybe it was, it's a new age community near Baltimore.

1:35:26

Two women who were lesbians, so I guess some of us--

1:35:31

-

Doesn't matter, go ahead.

1:35:34

-

Doesn't matter.

They were teaching us how to go out into the community

1:35:36

and teach--

1:35:41

-

Assertiveness skills.

-

Different kinds of things, workshops,

1:35:45

teaching the community--

1:35:50

-

Empowerment.

-

All kind of things, right, right.

1:35:53

So we went away weekends and learned how,

1:35:55

and it was wonderful, so about a year after we were there,

1:35:58

I guess, the two women had been to the Pagoda,

1:36:03

I didn't know this, and they came back,

1:36:05

and they knew everything was not going well

1:36:08

for me in my second year,

1:36:10

and they said, "You should go down and look at this place.

1:36:11

"We spent the weekend there."

1:36:15

They used to teach, what was it they taught?

1:36:16

The went to the Pagoda and did a workshop there, you know,

1:36:20

where you determine if you're this or you're that--

1:36:23

-

Myers Briggs.

1:36:26

-

Myers Briggs.

-

Oh yeah.

1:36:27

-

They were Myers Briggs

teachers, yeah, and they said, "We went down there,

1:36:28

"and that's a really nice lesbian community."

1:36:31

By that time, I had come out, my partner wanted

1:36:34

to go to--

1:36:37

-

Speak up 'cause it's audio.

-

Oh I'm sorry, so I listened to this for a while.

1:36:40

I heard what they had to say, and then when everything

1:36:44

was going kaput in my life, I went to them,

1:36:47

and I said, "Tell me more about this place."

1:36:50

I think maybe I always wanted to go.

1:36:54

I always saw myself in a warm place.

1:36:57

My father had a store, and I always saw myself some place

1:36:59

like Florida, but I'd never been there.

1:37:03

I like warm places.

1:37:05

Okay, so I said, "Tell me about this Pagoda place."

1:37:08

So they did, and I don't know how I got in touch

1:37:10

with somebody, they knew, they knew how to get me

1:37:14

in touch, and that was when I got on the plane.

1:37:16

And I flew down, I stayed at a motel.

1:37:21

Valentine had given me directions.

1:37:24

I rented a car, Jesus, I had never been to Florida.

1:37:27

I got to the Pagoda, I stayed overnight in one

1:37:32

of the cottages that we were renting,

1:37:36

the Women's Collective maybe in the second--

1:37:40

-

Berkeley Women's Music Collective, maybe.

1:37:41

-

Yeah, yeah, and I was there for the weekend.

1:37:44

I get up early, organist greeter,

1:37:46

big sign says "Greeter," right? (laughs)

1:37:49

By 9:00, I'm knocking on the door.

1:37:53

-

We hated that greeter sign, we passed it around--

1:37:56

-

I invited 'em in, Morgana, "Yes?"

1:37:57

-

I was kind of an early riser.

1:38:01

-

(laughs) Valentine was there.

1:38:04

You had to know Valentine, she was charismatic.

1:38:07

Okay, she had a bathing suit on with a woman in a--

1:38:10

-

She had a black bathing suit with an Isis on it,

1:38:14

with a winged Isis like this that went from one armpit

1:38:18

to the other, beautiful color.

1:38:21

-

She said, "I'll take you for a walk

1:38:23

"on the beach, I like to walk."

1:38:25

I, "Okay, okay," and so we walked on the beach,

1:38:27

and she's tellin' me about she likes to play tennis

1:38:29

and all the different things she likes.

1:38:32

Oh my god--

1:38:33

-

'Cause you like

to play tennis.

1:38:37

-

Yeah!

I mean, everything.

1:38:38

-

Speak up.

-

I'm tryin' to think of what happened next.

1:38:41

Then we had an afternoon shower, and it rained and rained

1:38:43

and rained, and then it cooled everything off,

1:38:47

and then I thought I'd gone to heaven.

1:38:49

And then, all these women were around, and I don't think

1:38:52

you had a potluck or anything, but they were coming,

1:38:54

Wes and Dory were there, and they were walking the dog.

1:38:57

New was there, and she had her coffee with a cinnamon stick.

1:39:00

(laughs) I mean really, I came out, I couldn't believe it.

1:39:06

I thought I was in, and then, then I went to The Center.

1:39:10

-

Dream, uh huh.

1:39:15

-

I went to The Center,

and I went up there, and you had a library, okay?

1:39:18

And the library was out on the porch, for some reason.

1:39:23

You must've been--

1:39:25

-

We were moving it

from one room to the other.

1:39:27

-

So I sat on the porch, right, in a nice swing,

1:39:29

and I'm going through the books, you know,

1:39:34

and there is a Seth book.

1:39:36

Now, I had studied some Seth stuff,

1:39:38

so I knew a little bit about it.

1:39:40

I opened the book, and there's Seth,

1:39:41

and he says, "You create your own reality."

1:39:44

That's (laughs) the honest-to-God truth, (laughs)

1:39:48

so I went back, and I got off the plane,

1:39:53

and my partner said, when the--

1:39:55

-

Wait, wait, before you did that,

1:39:59

did she tell you you could have a job?

1:40:00

-

Yeah, that was the same time, wasn't it?

1:40:03

-

Emily.

1:40:04

-

I went swimming.

-

Was the Director of Nursing.

1:40:05

-

I went swimming, right,

and Emily was in the pool, that's right, exactly.

1:40:08

I forgot one. (laughs)

1:40:10

And she goes, "Oh, you're a nurse.

1:40:14

"Well, I'm a director of a nursing home in town,

1:40:16

"and I think we could use you."

1:40:19

She said, "If you find out about, I'll send you stuff

1:40:23

"about the licensing, and yeah, right, right, right."

1:40:26

There's the other thing, oh my god. (laughs)

1:40:30

I get off the plane, and my friend Ethela,

1:40:34

she was from, oh what's the country, another country.

1:40:36

-

Chile?

1:40:40

-

Chile.

I got off the plane,

1:40:42

and she said, "You're going back there!"

1:40:44

She was aghast, "I can tell!"

1:40:46

-

Speak up.

-

I said, "I haven't made up my mind.

1:40:52

"I just had a nice time."

1:40:54

But she's kind of psychic, and she was really mad.

1:40:55

And I said, "Well, you told me you wanted

1:40:59

"to go off with men, anyway. "What do you care if I do?"

1:41:00

"Oh," she said, "I didn't want you to move away.

1:41:02

"I wanted you to stay here."

1:41:04

(laughing)

1:41:07

Oh my god, so then, I was in my own little condo

1:41:11

with my son, and I remember the letter came at the door,

1:41:15

and my hand was actually warm, and I am not psychic.

1:41:20

My hand was warm, and I opened it up, and there a job,

1:41:25

well Emily was telling me how I could definitely get a job

1:41:30

and what to do this for the licensing.

1:41:32

Valentine wrote and said, "There's a place you could rent,

1:41:35

"right now, until a cottage comes open, blah, blah, blah."

1:41:38

I mean, it's just like everything fell into place.

1:41:41

-

You were meant to be there.

1:41:45

-

I was outta there,

and my condo sold, you know this'll never sell

1:41:47

in this market, boom, sold.

1:41:51

My son got out of high school, graduating.

1:41:53

I said, "Do you wanna come to Florida with me?"

1:41:56

He said, "Oh no," he said, "I like this."

1:41:58

He called it the Plastic City,

1:42:01

found a woman he wanted to marry.

1:42:03

Okay, I'm stayin', I found him an apartment to go into,

1:42:05

and then where I was workin' was a hospital,

1:42:09

a correctional institute, and the woman

1:42:11

that was the director, she did everything for us.

1:42:15

She led us to sick hall and all that stuff.

1:42:21

She was leaving, and I thought, "Oh god,

1:42:23

"I gotta get outta this job."

1:42:25

'Cause this lady kept 1,800 prisoners, and she was leaving,

1:42:27

so it's like everything fell into place.

1:42:32

Isn't that amazing?

1:42:36

-

I wasn't amazed.

-

Got four minutes until I have to change out.

1:42:39

-

And it's 10 minutes before we have to stop.

1:42:42

Is there any chance we could get a couple of minutes

1:42:44

on The Matriarchy Conference, which is another way

1:42:45

that women found out about the Pagoda,

1:42:49

'cause Rose, I think, came

1:42:51

because Jane Gapen was coming.

1:42:54

I don't know that story, I wasn't there.

1:42:57

Do y'all remember any of it?

1:42:59

-

Could be, that rings a bell.

-

Okay, do you wanna just set up what it was?

1:43:01

-

I don't know what it was, it was a conference

1:43:05

that Barbara Love and somebody else from New York came

1:43:07

down to do at The Center Building.

1:43:12

Ellen facilitated a workshop, I'm sure you facilitated

1:43:14

a workshop.

1:43:17

-

Right, it was

a weekend affair, I mean, it was, you know--

1:43:20

-

Do you remember anything else besides Barbara Love?

1:43:25

Was it Barbara Love?

1:43:28

-

Yes, and they produced

a newspaper after the conference, which is buried somewhere

1:43:33

in my stuff, that tells exactly what happened and--

1:43:38

-

I'm sure there's a copy in The Lesbian Herstory Archives

1:43:42

in New York if you need it--

1:43:46

-

Right, the matriarchy, and also, I think

1:43:47

what was important was, for me, was I was coming

1:43:51

at it culturally and spiritually.

1:43:55

Some of the women that were coming were more looking

1:44:00

about complete separatism--

1:44:05

-

Can we stop?

-

Okay, gotta stop.

1:44:09

-

Oh.

-

Gotta change out.

1:44:11

-

So this was not

at the Pagoda?

1:44:14

-

Yes, it was.

It was in The Center Building, that's why it's important.

1:44:15

I know, I know, I'm just asking questions for them

1:44:17

to cover, it's not, they'll go over it.

1:44:21

Did Barbara Deming come or just Jane?

1:44:23

-

Just Jane is what I remember.

1:44:27

-

See I don't think Barbara ever came to the Pagoda.

1:44:28

-

Oh she did come to the Pagoda.

1:44:31

-

She did once?

1:44:33

-

She did, I met her.

-

She came when Trudy was putting on a play.

1:44:35

Money for Women came to my house for the board meeting.

1:44:38

-

Oh okay, all right--

1:44:41

-

And Barbara and Jane were

there--

1:44:43

-

Okay, but not

at The Matriarchy Conference.

1:44:45

-

Uh uh.

-

And that was like '79, The Matriarchy Conference?

1:44:46

-

Yeah, it was very early on, women were sleepin' all around

1:44:49

on the floors, and--

1:44:52

-

Okay, all right hang on,

'cause Emily wants to hear some of this.

1:44:53

-

Yeah, wait just one second, I'm almost there.

1:44:55

-

Okay, see I wasn't involved, and I know it was important,

1:45:00

and don't you think that was when Rose came?

1:45:05

I'm just talking not about the Pagoda--

1:45:07

-

I do.

1:45:09

-

Yes, that's

when you met Rose.

1:45:10

-

I had been thinking

in the last couple days,

1:45:11

when was it that Rose first appeared on the scene, but--

1:45:13

-

All right, are you goin', Em?

1:45:16

-

Okay, we're on.

1:45:17

-

Okay, Rose was another woman

who eventually bought a cottage at the Pagoda,

1:45:21

and she and Ellen were partners for a while.

1:45:25

And she used to go to the Keys, where her brother

1:45:28

and sister-in-law had a house.

1:45:33

And her brother said to her one time, "You need to meet

1:45:36

"those women on the other side of the fence.

1:45:38

"I think you'd like to know them."

1:45:41

And it was Barbara Deming and Jane Gapen,

1:45:43

and once she met them and Jane said she was coming

1:45:46

to The Matriarchy Conference at the Pagoda,

1:45:49

I think she got Rose to come and meet her

1:45:52

at the Pagoda, and that's how Rose got involved

1:45:55

and how you met Rose.

1:45:57

-

I think you're right.

-

And part of the reason that they came to Pagoda,

1:45:59

from my memory, is that we had started a women-only,

1:46:04

lesbian-only residence, women could also come--

1:46:12

-

To The Center Building, Pagoda Temple of Love was

1:46:17

never lesbian-only, The Center Building was

1:46:20

never lesbian-only, it was women-only.

1:46:23

-

Yeah, so we could recruit. (laughs)

1:46:25

-

That's not true!

1:46:27

(laughing)

1:46:29

-

Do you remember Rena coming out and playing Anita Bryant?

1:46:31

-

Oh she came to the garage door.

1:46:38

We were gathered for a concert.

1:46:40

(laughing)

1:46:43

Oh, this was the funniest thing.

1:46:48

We were gathered for a concert.

1:46:50

We're all sitting in our chairs in the theater,

1:46:51

and the doors are closed, and all of the sudden,

1:46:54

there's a knock on the door, and we said, "What's that?"

1:46:56

And we thought, "Oh my gosh, maybe someone

1:47:00

"from the outside is come and discovered us."

1:47:02

So someone went to the door and opened it up,

1:47:04

and she pushed the door open, and in she walked,

1:47:06

"I can't believe you girls are doin' this kind of stuff!"

1:47:09

You know, and--

1:47:13

-

She looked just like her.

-

She was dressed like Anita Bryant.

1:47:16

-

A wig on.

1:47:18

-

This was Rena,

who was one of the original four who bought

1:47:20

the first four cottages and who is an actress,

1:47:24

and that's why she could pull this off.

1:47:28

-

Oh yeah.

1:47:30

-

I mean, we thought, at first

she was for real.

1:47:32

(laughing)

And Rena was never one to sit through 12-hour meetings.

1:47:38

(laughing)

1:47:42

She pretty much, you know, had a lot to do

1:47:46

with the cultural, especially the plays, you know.

1:47:50

A couple years where we did some really good women's plays.

1:47:53

We got a resident playwright.

1:47:58

-

Right, and we even performed

two of the plays in St. Augustine,

1:48:00

and I was acting in it with her.

1:48:04

I've never acted in my life, and so she really brought a lot

1:48:07

that way, but she was not political.

1:48:11

-

Not up to your standards of political.

1:48:16

She has to determine herself whether she's political or not.

1:48:18

-

Well--

1:48:20

-

She might disagree with you.

-

It would've helped me if she'd been a little more involved

1:48:22

in helping with the hardest parts, but that's okay.

1:48:26

I mean, if it wasn't for Rena, we wouldn't,

1:48:30

and it turns out, Rena--

1:48:32

-

Rena is the one

who still owns a cottage at the Pagoda of the original four

1:48:34

and of the second wave.

1:48:37

-

Her mother, from Monticello,

Florida, where she's from, was my dad's girlfriend

1:48:40

when he was from Monticello, Florida at the watermelon farm,

1:48:46

so she always called me "cousin."

1:48:50

(laughing)

1:48:52

-

Well, anything else about The Matriarchy Conference?

1:48:54

Anybody else who came the first time

1:48:57

to visit the Pagoda or anything that went on?

1:48:59

-

I remember it was a huge turnout,

1:49:02

much to our amazement.

1:49:03

-

And you were trying

to say when the tape was off that there were people,

1:49:06

women, sleeping everywhere.

1:49:08

-

Oh yeah, even up on the,

I remember the deck, we had workshop places,

1:49:12

and upstairs, we also had--

1:49:16

-

And we used the screen room

back and we used every space.

1:49:19

-

And it was brand new actual concept, matriarch,

1:49:24

just really the thought of, "We're recreating matriarchy

1:49:30

"and understanding matriarchy existed for so long."

1:49:35

-

There's another woman who was involved,

1:49:38

whose name I wish I could remember, 'cause I believe she

1:49:40

still writes, and I can't think of who it was.

1:49:42

-

I'll have to find that out, I'll find the newspaper,

1:49:47

and you probably will find it.

1:49:48

And it didn't last.

1:49:50

After they met, there wasn't another publication.

1:49:52

But it brought separatism into the, validated,

1:49:55

and how important it was and how they could feel,

1:50:03

women that came, could feel the power,

1:50:07

that they were in a space where there were no men,

1:50:10

and how different that was,

1:50:12

and how we needed to reclaim the land.

1:50:14

-

It is actually shocking that women could feel

1:50:16

this feeling in the smallest amount of space

1:50:18

with neighbors on either side.

1:50:23

It's very surprising, I'm telling you it was 110 feet

1:50:26

across and 260 feet long, and the ocean was

1:50:30

on the other side of those lots.

1:50:34

-

And road on the other side.

1:50:36

-

And there was a road

on the west side, but women would come, one of the things

1:50:38

that used to happen is that Valentine would be doing yoga

1:50:43

in the main room of The Center.

1:50:48

Now, we will admit that she did it naked,

1:50:51

and she and, oh let's say, Hazel, who was living there

1:50:54

at the time and working as one of the jobs that we had.

1:50:56

We had the reservationist, the greeter, the cleaner,

1:51:00

the laundry woman, and the bookkeeper.

1:51:05

And they would be up there doing yoga,

1:51:07

and some new visitor lesbian would come,

1:51:10

and they'd watch them walk down to the beach,

1:51:14

and they'd watch them take all their clothes off

1:51:16

to go in the Atlantic Ocean, and they'd go, "Oh shit."

1:51:18

And they'd have to get up and go down there

1:51:20

because we were not Women's Land.

1:51:23

Some women would come, and they would say, "This isn't

1:51:25

"Women's Land, it's not a farm."

1:51:28

Well, Women's Land doesn't have to be a farm,

1:51:30

and we were a very small amount of space,

1:51:32

but women, lesbians, would come,

1:51:36

and they would say, "This is lesbian heaven."

1:51:37

It just had an energy that they felt--

1:51:40

-

And it was too bad because--

1:51:45

-

Even though we had

to be careful because we lived there all the time,

1:51:47

and you'll hear Morgana say that in this article

1:51:49

that she is in, in Lynn Cheney's book.

1:51:51

-

I remember when New Rue came.

1:51:54

-

Or not Lynn Cheney, Joyce Cheney.

1:51:56

-

When New Rue came and went down there and stripped.

1:51:58

(laughing)

1:52:01

It was so hard to say, "You're not allowed to do that,"

1:52:03

to New Rue, I mean, you know, I just said, "Please hurry

1:52:05

"because if they come, we're gonna get in trouble."

1:52:08

She went, "Oh, well I didn't think about it."

1:52:11

-

You have to know is that cars were allowed to drive

1:52:14

on the beach, from Daytona Beach to Jacksonville.

1:52:15

All that beach was drivable, and so there were trucks

1:52:18

and rednecks, and no offense to the folks from inland,

1:52:21

but you never knew who was gonna be out there

1:52:25

on the beach, and so you had to be careful.

1:52:29

-

Right, but it was amazing, we never had a problem

1:52:31

with the outside community.

1:52:34

-

Very few, very few.

-

But once the pool became available--

1:52:35

-

Then, they got naked in the pool.

1:52:39

-

Then, nudity was fine--

1:52:41

-

At the pool.

-

'Cause they did a privacy fence

1:52:43

around the pool.

1:52:44

-

Until they built houses--

-

Originally, that's the last bit of cottages were men.

1:52:45

In the last three cottages--

1:52:49

-

There was a fourth strip

of cottages, as I said, there was strip one, strip two,

1:52:50

the pool strip, and then the fourth strip of cottages.

1:52:53

And Jane held onto that property until 1988,

1:52:56

and she rented those out, either she lived there

1:53:00

or she rented out the cottages.

1:53:03

And so, there were always men around, and there were men

1:53:04

on either side of us and across the street from us

1:53:07

and on the beach.

1:53:10

-

And a three-story condo

that got built--

1:53:11

-

Lemme tell you

a funny story, tower, and I went over there one day

1:53:13

'cause women that were renting, it was something for sale--

1:53:17

-

Talk to the machine.

1:53:20

-

And I said, "Okay, I'll go

"with you," 'cause I knew a realtor, and you know--

1:53:23

-

Okay, let me clarify, this is a three-story building,

1:53:27

four stories actually, because it was a high as it could be,

1:53:30

35 feet, and it was build smack up against our property

1:53:32

because it was one of the original 10 lots

1:53:37

that Mr. Reese owned when it was 10 building lots.

1:53:41

And so it was smack up against the second strip of cottages.

1:53:45

Jean went over there with some women who were looking

1:53:49

to buy or rent.

1:53:51

-

With the real estate woman,

and they looked, and women were walking

1:53:54

by, "Oh, there's the Pagoda," they said.

1:53:57

The woman didn't know they came from the Pagoda,

1:54:01

the real estate woman, and these women were walking through,

1:54:04

they weren't holding hands, but they were walking through.

1:54:07

And the real estate woman said, she's been there forever,

1:54:09

"Well, whatever they do, they do inside."

1:54:11

(laughing)

1:54:15

I couldn't keep from laughing.

1:54:18

-

She said this to people who were looking to buy?

1:54:21

-

They happened to be lesbians who were staying

1:54:23

at the Pagoda, but she didn't know that.

1:54:25

-

Renting a cottage.

1:54:27

-

We even had to appear

one time before the County Commission

1:54:29

when she tried to build a building between us and the pool

1:54:32

before she let the pool go.

1:54:41

-

This is on the other side,

but this is years later.

1:54:42

-

But it was just

the same idea that she says, "Well, I don't know

1:54:44

"what they do in there."

1:54:46

(laughing)

1:54:48

-

It's 5:00, I just wanna be clear

1:54:49

about what our time frame is.

1:54:52

-

Could we possibly do another 15 minutes, 'til 5:15?

1:54:55

-

Were there questions you have on your list

1:54:59

that have not been covered, or--

1:55:03

-

I want to know--

1:55:05

-

Do you at least want to hear

when Fayann got to Pagoda?

1:55:08

-

Yes, I do wanna hear

when you got to Pagoda.

1:55:10

-

Well, I've got it

off right now, so let's kind of portion out.

1:55:12

We want to hear Fayann's involvement,

1:55:15

and then you were saying there's one section you wanna--

1:55:18

-

The historical moment when it happened.

1:55:22

I wondered what you thought about that,

1:55:25

and then why you think it lasted as long as it did.

1:55:27

You've said several things about that along the way,

1:55:29

but we might as well get them all at once.

1:55:33

-

Let me ask you something, it seems like that's gonna take

1:55:35

longer than 15 minutes--

1:55:36

-

Yes, it does.

-

Are we okay to go to 5:30?

1:55:39

-

Sure.

-

It's just that I won't have food to give anybody.

1:55:41

-

Well, we'll have to eat a little later.

1:55:44

-

Well, are there other women who are coming

1:55:46

to this potluck who will be expecting to be here

1:55:48

at a certain time?

1:55:51

-

We're gonna have to--

-

There's just two other, Rand and deJoly.

1:55:53

-

We could notify them to come at 7:00 and not 6:30.

1:55:55

-

Well, I thought we were already coming at 7:00.

1:55:58

-

Okay, 7:30?

1:56:01

-

Yeah, but I haven't told

Rand and deJoly, I forgot about them.

1:56:02

-

I suspect they'll be enough food.

1:56:03

-

No, I need to cook.

1:56:06

-

Emily needs to cook.

I need to cook.

1:56:08

-

Okay, okay.

-

So you know, but I need a little over an hour to cook,

1:56:10

so I'm fine with going 'til 5:30

1:56:14

if we don't mind 7:00, 7:15 for--

1:56:16

-

Sure.

1:56:19

-

Yeah, that's fine.

-

Do you want me to leave

1:56:21

and go call them and tell them now?

1:56:22

-

No, I think we should--

1:56:24

-

No, we can tell them.

-

Schmidt, and the story of how I got involved

1:56:25

at the Pagoda, I don't remember the year, but my partner

1:56:30

and I were living in Jacksonville, Florida,

1:56:34

and she and several other women bought a house

1:56:36

that was on the ocean next to the Pagoda.

1:56:40

And they were doing timeshares, and so she and I,

1:56:46

on her week, would go down, and we didn't really interact

1:56:50

much with the Pagoda, but I always thought it was neat

1:56:56

that it felt peaceful and it felt good.

1:56:58

And I've always needed water in my life,

1:57:01

needed to live near water, it just was really, really neat.

1:57:06

So a couple of years of going back and forth,

1:57:10

and the pool came up for sale, and the way the pool was paid

1:57:15

for was different women would put $100 in or make payments

1:57:21

over a year period of time, and that paid for the pool.

1:57:26

And I did that.

1:57:29

-

Lifetime ownership.

-

Yeah, and we couldn't bring the pool here, so it--

1:57:32

-

I will say, parenthetically, I have spoken

1:57:36

to women in Florida who say, "Where's my

1:57:40

"lifetime membership to the pool?"

1:57:42

(laughing)

1:57:44

This year, they said that to me.

1:57:45

-

Yeah, me too.

1:57:47

-

Anyhow, and I'd heard about this woman that danced,

1:57:49

and I thought that was neat, and I was involved with a group

1:57:53

of women that were putting on a one-day festival,

1:57:58

women's lesbian festival in Jacksonville.

1:58:01

And I was part of the entertainment committee,

1:58:05

and I thought, "Well, it'd be neat

1:58:07

"to have someone come up and dance."

1:58:09

And so I called Morgana, and I asked her if she'd like

1:58:10

to dance, and yes, and I had no idea really what she did.

1:58:14

I'd never seen her, and she came up and danced, and--

1:58:20

-

Are you talking about at the show

1:58:26

where the lights were on?

1:58:28

'Cause that was--

1:58:30

-

That was in Jacksonville,

the first time I saw you in Jacksonville at the festival.

1:58:32

-

The outdoor festival that--

1:58:36

-

Yeah, you did not ask me

to come to that, Flash told me to go,

1:58:38

'cause at that point, I was not going anywhere.

1:58:42

I was trying to get over Leslie, and I was really mourning,

1:58:44

and Flash called me 'cause she said, "I want you to dance

1:58:47

"with me, and you're gonna meet somebody."

1:58:50

And I saw in a dream the face of Fayann, who I did not know.

1:58:52

And when I went there, you saw me dancing, and I went

1:58:59

the the AA meeting that you were,

1:59:04

and there was one seat left next to you.

1:59:06

-

That's right, and my heart beat real fast.

1:59:10

(laughing)

1:59:12

-

And you were taller than me, than I was in my dream.

1:59:15

I was at Rose's table where she was selling her stones

1:59:20

up on a hill, and you came and walked up to me--

1:59:27

-

Is this in the dream, or is this real?

1:59:30

-

This is for real.

1:59:32

-

Well, she dreamt this,

but then it also happened.

1:59:35

-

Because--

-

I was up on a hill, and you were down where Rose was,

1:59:37

there was--

1:59:42

-

She looked really tall

because I was having to look up at her, but when she came,

1:59:44

I don't remember, but it was like I recognize a face,

1:59:47

but I thought, "Oh, this is the face," but, you know,

1:59:50

so that's how we got--

1:59:52

-

Boy, she was just getting

out of a relationship, and she told me she didn't want

1:59:57

a relationship, and I thought, "Oh my god.

1:59:59

"I need to get outta here."

2:00:02

(laughing)

2:00:04

-

After that, though, you did sponsor me to perform.

2:00:05

-

I did, that's right.

2:00:08

-

At a wonderful lesbian event

and then you asked me for my first date.

2:00:11

-

Yeah, and--

2:00:16

-

And then, you moved in.

-

Yeah.

2:00:18

-

Immediately,

even brought her bag, first night, it's okay.

2:00:20

I think that's all lesbians do it.

2:00:24

-

All right, well let's let Fayann--

2:00:27

-

And I was just, I watched her dance, and it was

2:00:31

the most graceful, beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life.

2:00:35

And she had this sparkle in her eyes and this smile

2:00:40

on her face and this veil moving around her.

2:00:43

It was just so mysterious and magical at the same time.

2:00:48

It was just, I was just taken, and that's,

2:00:54

when I think of Morgana, that's how I see her,

2:01:00

and that's what I think about is that dancing,

2:01:04

that most graceful--

2:01:09

-

And you helped produce me for years after that.

2:01:14

-

I did, I did.

2:01:16

-

And we traveled, performed

festivals and all over.

2:01:20

-

And so, I did live

2:01:25

at the Pagoda with Morgana, and I didn't see it

2:01:28

as being an activist or anything.

2:01:33

I just loved this woman, and I just wanted

2:01:36

to live with her, and that's what I did.

2:01:37

And it wasn't a--

2:01:41

-

And worked hard.

-

And I worked hard, and it was not a statement of anything.

2:01:41

This is just what I wanted to do, and I didn't think of it

2:01:45

as being revolutionary or anything else.

2:01:49

We were living together like anybody else

2:01:52

would live together, and there was such a safety in it

2:01:55

and such a warmth, and I enjoyed so much coming home

2:01:58

from work and being there, and one of the most fun things

2:02:02

was when the sun would start to go down, I'd go out there

2:02:08

and take my clothes off and get in the pool.

2:02:11

(laughing)

2:02:14

And I can remember it being so warm sometimes in the summer.

2:02:15

It was just like bath water, and it was just the best thing.

2:02:17

And I'd swim for exercise, but it was so nurturing to me.

2:02:21

And it was the first time I'd ever been exposed

2:02:27

to lesbians living together, the culture, the musicians

2:02:29

and the poets and the storytellers and the dance

2:02:35

and the spirituality of women, and it just opened up

2:02:39

a whole new world for me that I'd never been exposed to.

2:02:44

But it wasn't something that I said, "Oh, I'm a lesbian,

2:02:51

"and I'm gonna go find this community."

2:02:54

I kind of fell into it, and I guess that's the magic of it

2:02:55

is that we're just doing what we're supposed to be doing,

2:03:02

and it's easy, and that was about 25 years ago.

2:03:06

-

Right, and you lived at Pagoda from '89 until '93

2:03:14

and worked, and I worked, and then--

2:03:22

-

Little louder.

2:03:25

-

We both were together

for three, maybe four, years at Pagoda,

2:03:28

when we started talking about we need

2:03:30

to start thinking about where we need to go in our older age

2:03:33

because we saw the beach was disappearing,

2:03:37

and the dunes were disappearing.

2:03:41

And we had always done psychic work together

2:03:43

with other psychics, Jean's lover was a excellent psychic.

2:03:48

-

That's a whole 'nother story.

2:03:54

-

Let's not go there.

2:03:56

-

But anyway, we knew we had

to leave, and you, when my grandma left me the money,

2:03:58

and I bought that house when I first met you.

2:04:03

That's where we went, and we hadn't even been inside.

2:04:08

So that's how we got up here.

2:04:12

My aunts told us to come.

2:04:13

-

She told me

that she was buying a house in Alabama.

2:04:15

Would I like to go there and see it?

2:04:17

And I thought, "Who in the hell

2:04:19

"would ever buy a house in Alabama?"

2:04:20

I couldn't get that in my mind,

2:04:23

but really I fell in love with the area, too.

2:04:27

-

And you worked hard, then, the three of us,

2:04:29

on getting this land, which was not easy.

2:04:33

-

But I'd like us to, instead of focusing on Alapine--

2:04:36

-

Yeah, that's what I wanna say, Kay was

2:04:38

an important story part of the Pagoda.

2:04:41

We don't have to go into it right now,

2:04:44

but Kay was a psychic, and Ellen ended

2:04:47

up doing her business that she ended up doing

2:04:50

in South Carolina because of the classes we took from Kay.

2:04:52

Jean ended up in a relationship with Kay,

2:04:53

so there's a whole 'nother Pagoda story.

2:04:56

We're not going into it now, but of course,

2:04:58

there's a million things that we can cover,

2:05:00

but she was very much a part of--

2:05:02

-

Yeah, and when we did circles, we did serious circles.

2:05:05

I mean, we kept hurricanes away, we did.

2:05:08

We've got a tornado to come get our sign down

2:05:11

'cause people thought we were a motel still,

2:05:15

and it was huge, and a little tornado came in

2:05:18

and knocked it down for us, and then went straight through

2:05:21

and knocked over the--

2:05:24

-

Dumpster.

-

Dumpster where our greeter's sign had been shoved

2:05:27

by somebody who hated us so much

2:05:29

they didn't want it in front of their house.

2:05:31

-

Both Ellen and Jean have something they wanna say.

2:05:33

-

We really did a lot of magic, we did.

2:05:36

-

Yeah, goddess magic, good, positive magic.

2:05:38

-

Kay said this area here was sacred when she came up here.

2:05:40

-

Kay is the psychic who said this area was--

2:05:46

-

Before she died, she had a lot.

2:05:50

-

I wanna speak to your question about why it lasted

2:05:51

so long and did so well, and I'm speaking,

2:05:57

I wasn't a full-time resident,

2:06:01

even though I sure lived there a lot.

2:06:03

But again, my observations will be a little different.

2:06:06

And I think it's for a combination of things,

2:06:09

like it was a safe place for lesbians,

2:06:13

and there was so few places in the world that that was so,

2:06:15

and where the whole spirit of women was really honored,

2:06:19

spiritually, physically, emotionally.

2:06:23

And because everyone who was involved that stayed involved

2:06:28

very long, I feel was very committed to making it work.

2:06:33

Sure there were difficulties, we're all different

2:06:37

and had different ideas, but that commitment

2:06:40

to trying to make it work was key.

2:06:43

But there's another thing that I think was important,

2:06:46

and that was the programs that came, the workshops,

2:06:49

the things that focused on lesbianism and women,

2:06:53

whether they were entertainment, so to speak,

2:06:57

or deeper things, that the place that that happened,

2:06:59

it felt like a center for that happening.

2:07:04

And I know, as somebody who didn't live there full-time,

2:07:06

that was one of the key reasons that kept me

2:07:09

really involved, 'cause that fed my soul.

2:07:12

-

Yeah, I wanna also add to that, what Ellen's saying,

2:07:18

and why I think it lasted as long as it did

2:07:23

is because I think we were committed, we got together

2:07:27

on a weekly basis to deal with our conflicts,

2:07:30

to deal with our issues, and we met maybe for too long

2:07:33

a period of time for a lot of people.

2:07:37

But I'll tell you, I think it transformed my life.

2:07:40

It made me really dig deep inside as to what way

2:07:43

I really wanted to live, and we formed a bond

2:07:47

that, to this day, with many of us in this room,

2:07:52

we still have, and it will always be there

2:07:57

because we struggled through issues.

2:08:00

We struggled through conflicts.

2:08:03

We've tried so hard, such as with the battered women,

2:08:05

battered lesbian issue, to come up with what was

2:08:08

the fairest, kindest way to deal.

2:08:12

And to me, this is a big part of feminism and what made

2:08:14

the Pagoda continue to exist up until recently.

2:08:17

And you had a question on there about

2:08:22

what is the difference between now and then.

2:08:24

Now, they don't have that.

2:08:27

Now, they don't meet and try and resolve--

2:08:29

-

And they rent the cottages to men.

2:08:33

-

Well, they've sold two of them to men.

2:08:35

-

Totally, totally.

2:08:38

-

That happened when we needed

the money to buy the land.

2:08:41

-

Let's just hear

why we lasted as long as we did.

2:08:45

-

Yeah, and I'm sure some of you also feel that, too.

2:08:47

There were times when women in the core group needed things,

2:08:51

and we stepped right in there, so there was obviously

2:08:59

a real caring going on among the ones who were living

2:09:04

within the community, and that's why I think we lasted

2:09:09

as long as we did.

2:09:12

-

For something like that,

this is Fayann, for something like that to stand

2:09:14

and evolve and be there, it takes somebody that's committed

2:09:17

that will do that work, and sometimes,

2:09:22

it's a volunteer position, you know.

2:09:26

So, it takes somebody with a commitment to the idea

2:09:29

and willing to do whatever it takes for that to happen.

2:09:35

And if there's not somebody there,

2:09:38

then it's not gonna happen, and I think that there was

2:09:41

a big commitment for the women in the beginning.

2:09:44

And I was not part of that, but before I was ever there,

2:09:50

there was a big commitment by women who wanted

2:09:54

to live together and do whatever

2:09:57

they had to do to make that happen.

2:09:58

-

Yeah, I would say the same thing, and I think,

2:10:04

on a spiritual level, the women that were drawn

2:10:08

in the beginning, were drawn to a place that was

2:10:11

a world of it's own, that had a light force there already.

2:10:18

It didn't matter to me that the tower came,

2:10:25

even though we knew it was coming, we read cards.

2:10:30

It really didn't bother me on the other side

2:10:35

because we had created, through our circles

2:10:37

and through our connection with heart

2:10:39

for at least 10 years before the last strip came

2:10:44

when things changed a little bit,

2:10:48

and that's the reason I think it kind of changed.

2:10:52

But it was as if it was a world of it's own.

2:10:54

And the women that came there that were supposed

2:11:00

to be there felt it, and those that didn't got critical

2:11:02

and brought in their isms, and we'd struggle

2:11:07

through 'em all and try to resolve the best we could.

2:11:10

And we did, in a lot of ways, but some women fell out

2:11:13

because they it didn't gel right.

2:11:23

I don't know how to explain it, but we were a family,

2:11:26

and you have to feel that with somebody,

2:11:28

even before your struggle.

2:11:31

When they showed up, the first two, I wasn't even surprised.

2:11:33

I was a little surprised, but, "Yeah, this is the Pagoda.

2:11:38

"You wanna buy a cottage?

2:11:41

"If you're not a Marxist, you can buy that one."

2:11:42

-

This is Barbara.

2:11:45

Morgana had put out the call psychically for somebody

2:11:47

to come to take it to the next step

2:11:52

because there was internal conflict, even within the four

2:11:54

who were there originally.

2:11:58

-

Big time.

-

And somehow, we heard psychically, the call.

2:12:00

-

Right, well and also to get the cottages

2:12:04

across the way sold when she said that they had bought it.

2:12:05

And I knew right then, we were gonna own them,

2:12:09

and it was real fast that it happened.

2:12:12

-

It was very fast.

2:12:17

-

So yeah, I think

in some ways, I am a visionary, and I think all of us are,

2:12:19

to some degree, but I was lucky enough not to have to work.

2:12:24

I could practice my visionary stuff, you know?

2:12:29

And I could do things because I had a job

2:12:34

as a lesbian feminist for 10 years with Money for Women.

2:12:38

$5 an hour is all I got part-time,

2:12:42

but my mom always game me a car.

2:12:44

I made a little bit here, and every now and then,

2:12:46

I had a little job, but I had such privilege, in a way.

2:12:49

-

I'd like to talk about that privilege.

2:12:53

This is Barbara.

2:12:55

One of the things that I took upon myself to do

2:12:57

in the late '70s and early '80s was when I was away

2:12:59

from St. Augustine, to come out as frequently as possible

2:13:03

because I was one of the very few lesbians

2:13:06

who wasn't gonna lose her child and wasn't gonna lose

2:13:09

the roof over her head and wasn't gonna lose her job

2:13:13

because I had the same privilege that Morgana did,

2:13:16

that I was able to work for $5 an hour.

2:13:18

Maybe it was cleaning toilets.

2:13:20

Maybe it was doing the books, but it was there

2:13:22

where we were earning money within the community,

2:13:24

and we were safe, and so I took that as an obligation

2:13:28

to come out when I was away from there as much as possible

2:13:33

for those women, those lesbians who couldn't.

2:13:38

-

Right, and being at the Pagoda gave you that energy.

2:13:40

-

It did.

2:13:43

-

Yeah, it spiraled out.

The women that visited that would go from around the world,

2:13:46

we'd get letters, I've got boxes of letters.

2:13:48

Just, we gotta get 'em in scrapbooks.

2:13:52

How much it changed their lives, and--

2:13:57

-

When I answered that question, which I did,

2:13:58

and I look back, and I think it's because,

2:14:01

maybe for some reason, that makes sense that we were--

2:14:05

-

Called, you mean?

2:14:11

-

Yeah, maybe.

I mean, I didn't put that in there, but--

2:14:13

-

The tribe comes back together?

2:14:16

-

But when we'd get together and we would make decisions

2:14:17

by consensus, and we would have meetings to,

2:14:19

when I think about what we did with running that center,

2:14:24

we would have long, long meetings about how to do that.

2:14:27

And we were volunteers, a lot of us, and we didn't think

2:14:33

anything about doing some volunteer job.

2:14:36

And I don't know, we were just very compatible,

2:14:39

and we all got along, as far as I knew,

2:14:42

and we all liked each other, you know.

2:14:45

What changed was when the last group of cottages was sold,

2:14:48

and different women came in--

2:14:55

-

When we expanded

the community.

2:14:58

-

Yeah, the last group, and--

-

Wanted to ritzy it up, and--

2:15:00

-

Let's not play

the blame game.

2:15:04

-

But it changed.

The dynamics changed when the Pagoda got bigger

2:15:06

and did expansion, and there were some women that came in

2:15:11

and weren't compatible to our values, I guess you'd say,

2:15:16

and I--

2:15:20

-

And some of us were

kind of burned out, so--

2:15:22

-

Well, "You just raise your hand," I remember Marilyn

2:15:24

saying, "You don't do this talking and consensus.

2:15:27

"You just raise your hand and say yes or no."

2:15:30

I thought, "Uh oh, uh oh."

2:15:33

-

That's a whole 'nother story.

2:15:35

-

Yeah, but you wondered, I think, about,

2:15:37

didn't you ask a question about what helped

2:15:39

to make it go, and what was ending?

2:15:43

Okay, so I saw it as a combination of some factors

2:15:47

like that, different women coming in

2:15:50

with different values, and they also called us,

2:15:54

"Just a bunch of middle-class women," they said.

2:15:57

-

Doin' therapy on each other.

2:16:01

-

We had a process that worked for us for 10 years.

2:16:04

It was called group, we met every Thursday night.

2:16:10

There was no obligation to come, but women did come.

2:16:13

And Morgana talks about it in the Joyce Cheney article.

2:16:17

We did have, as a bottom line, if you had a conflict

2:16:20

that you could not resolve with another woman

2:16:24

at the community, we asked you to come

2:16:26

and bring it to group, and we did group for 10 years.

2:16:29

And then, when we expanded, the way we handled group was

2:16:33

not acceptable to some of our newer residents,

2:16:37

and they asked us to change things, and we tried

2:16:41

to accommodate them, as we had always tried to solve

2:16:47

a problem, like Emily was talking about,

2:16:49

or to work it out or to find something innovative to do.

2:16:52

And I don't have an explanation, except to say

2:16:55

we were unable to do it at that time.

2:16:59

And that's when we started falling apart.

2:17:03

There were some other specific reasons about bookkeeping

2:17:05

and different ways that things were done business-wise,

2:17:09

but I think the hardest part for those of us,

2:17:14

this is Barbara speaking, the hardest part was

2:17:18

that something that had worked for us

2:17:20

for so long wasn't meeting their needs.

2:17:23

-

And was challenged, it was challenged, as well.

2:17:28

-

For us to change.

2:17:32

-

We tried, and that's what

may have been our undoing.

2:17:34

-

Yeah, the final thing was

when the bridge came, though, and that was, you had left

2:17:39

by then, hadn't you?

2:17:46

-

Well, Morgana alluded

to this earlier, this is Barbara,

2:17:50

that she had started thinking about more space.

2:17:52

I wanna be as brief as possible on this, 'cause this is

2:17:55

a whole 'nother subject, but starting in 1982,

2:17:59

we started meeting about the Crone's Nest Project,

2:18:02

and we wanted to design a residential living situation

2:18:06

for long-living women, and we worked on it

2:18:12

a very long time, very hard, and one of the things was

2:18:14

there wasn't enough space at the Pagoda.

2:18:19

And so, Morgana did start looking around for more space,

2:18:21

and so that was also a contributing factor to us wanting

2:18:26

to move on, although we would've been happy to see

2:18:30

the space continue, but there were also internal problems.

2:18:34

-

Right, and also there was the fact that the city

2:18:38

and the state built a huge bridge that could've been

2:18:42

a little bit behind us--

2:18:45

-

A little bit north of us.

-

A little, and it would've gone down to the sea

2:18:47

if somebody had missed--

2:18:50

-

It came to our front door.

-

It came right to our front gate, and we had 35 accidents.

2:18:52

-

No, we had three cars through the front gate

2:18:57

in the first year.

2:19:00

-

No, no, no, no.

Yes, but overall, it was 35, I remember

2:19:02

because the lawyer, I can't think of her name right now.

2:19:03

-

Garnet.

2:19:13

-

Garnet and Edith went

and tried to get some results.

2:19:15

I went and tried, and then Rena, Rena keeps coming back,

2:19:16

and I wrote a letter to the senator, a representative,

2:19:21

and the local, and all they did was just make it be

2:19:25

at night, when the drunks were the ones

2:19:28

that were coming through, it was red,

2:19:32

and then only when you got up to it, it switched to green.

2:19:34

-

She's talking about the traffic light.

2:19:38

There was a high-rise bridge that crossed

2:19:40

the St. John's River that came right to our front gate.

2:19:42

-

And I don't think it was a mistake.

2:19:46

-

The Intercoastal Waterway, not the St. John's.

2:19:48

-

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, thank you Ellen,

2:19:50

across the Intercoastal Waterway to Vilano Beach,

2:19:52

which is where we were, and we worked

2:19:55

with the Department of Transportation.

2:19:58

There was a committee, we would meet at the Pagoda,

2:20:00

and then we would go and meet with them.

2:20:02

And there were some other possible places for the bridge,

2:20:04

but they ended up choosing this spot, and--

2:20:08

-

And it was very dangerous because the theater was

2:20:11

right there if a truck had come in.

2:20:13

-

However, Pagoda still exists.

2:20:14

Those buildings still stand, no one has--

2:20:16

-

That's because they changed, finally.

2:20:19

-

The traffic light, okay.

2:20:21

-

Yeah, you didn't come--

-

There was something specific about the traffic light.

2:20:23

-

If you didn't know, and you'd never been there,

2:20:25

you got a green light, you just keep going,

2:20:26

and there we were, boom, right into us.

2:20:28

So to me, that was my sign. (laughs)

2:20:32

-

We were concerned about hurricanes.

2:20:36

-

I sold in 2000.

2:20:38

-

These are cottages

that were built in 1936, you know, this is--

2:20:39

-

Rising sea levels.

2:20:42

-

Rising sea levels.

It got very, very hot, there was no more afternoon showers

2:20:45

like Jean was talkin' about to cool us off.

2:20:49

Emily had left us and gone into town.

2:20:53

-

Yeah.

2:20:56

-

Yeah.

(laughing) Yeah, that bridge thing was a real conflict

2:20:57

because one of the ways they wanted to come

2:20:59

was the--

2:21:01

-

Sure,

through your neighborhood.

2:21:02

-

Right, and the reason why,

sadly, I think it probably was the better route

2:21:07

that they chose is that they didn't have to widen

2:21:10

the road to go over the overpass.

2:21:12

-

She had a house in town, she doesn't know.

2:21:15

-

Right, but going down the street that I lived on

2:21:18

when I moved into town, they would've had to widen that.

2:21:20

They would've had to buy all of the houses up and down

2:21:24

that street in order to create a bridge over

2:21:26

a little bit north of where they did.

2:21:30

-

But there was another location farther north

2:21:32

that they could've chosen.

2:21:33

-

Yeah, now if they'd gone

there, that would've been much--

2:21:35

-

Those are signs, though.

2:21:37

-

Yeah, they are signs.

-

They were all signs, and it was right about that time

2:21:39

that I had gotten the money from my grandmother

2:21:42

and gotten my aunts calling me up here.

2:21:46

So it wasn't clear, and I remember Rose kept sayin, "We

2:21:48

"gotta get outta here, we gotta go up there.

2:21:52

"And make it happen because I'm gonna be too old."

2:21:55

And I'd say, "I know, but I gotta feel

2:21:57

"where it is I'm supposed to go.

2:22:00

"I don't feel it yet."

2:22:02

And then, as soon as I got the message

2:22:03

from my great aunts, I said, "Okay."

2:22:05

And I told Rose, and she got involved.

2:22:07

But it has been hard on her because she was older,

2:22:09

and now, with how long it's taken, I feel really bad.

2:22:12

I think we should've left earlier, actually.

2:22:18

(laughing)

2:22:20

But then, this might not have happened, so who knows?

2:22:22

-

Anything else?

2:22:26

-

Well, I think what I'm gonna do is get this,

2:22:28

I'm gonna edit this, mess around with it,

2:22:33

get it in a shape for you to review,

2:22:37

and then you can add anything you want to.

2:22:39

I know you've written things you

2:22:40

probably haven't been able to read,

2:22:42

and you can pull those back out and add it in here.

2:22:44

There's no reason why you can't add it

2:22:47

because we didn't do it, talk about it today.

2:22:48

-

I think it's amazing what we got done.

2:22:50

-

I do too.

2:22:52

-

Yes, yes.

And this is something that I have been dreaming about

2:22:54

since the Pagoda is that we would be able to have

2:22:57

a gathering like this where we could talk about

2:23:01

this incredible thing that happened for a good 12 years.

2:23:05

You know, it was very strong for 12, maybe even 15 years.

2:23:09

Even after the things started to fall apart,

2:23:13

it still was going until the more recent years.

2:23:17

-

Until 2000, really, 'cause when I sold my house,

2:23:20

that was when Jenny had sold the first cottage

2:23:24

to a man and had put a fence around it.

2:23:27

-

But there are still lesbians who live there.

2:23:30

Myriam still lives there,

2:23:32

and have you seen A Parallel Revolution?

2:23:34

This is a DVD, if there's any chance you get to see it

2:23:37

before you go, the second half is largely about the Pagoda.

2:23:40

It's a film that Myriam Fougere has done

2:23:44

about separatist communities in the 70s,

2:23:50

and it's in French and English, and she interviews women

2:23:54

from different separatist communities from that time.

2:23:57

And the second half of it, there are tons of photographs

2:24:01

from the Pagoda, which you got from Emily.

2:24:03

-

And Emily talks 'cause--

2:24:05

-

And Emily talks.

Ellen talks, and she still has a cottage--

2:24:07

-

And also, she interviewed Julia Penelope.

2:24:11

She interviewed Carolyn Gage, a whole bunch of women.

2:24:14

-

And she still has a cottage there,

2:24:16

so I don't wanna diminish how it feels

2:24:17

to the lesbians who are living there now.

2:24:19

I don't say, "It doesn't exist."

2:24:21

It exists in its current form, and they do what they choose

2:24:24

to do the way it is now, but it's just

2:24:27

not The Pagoda Temple of Love, and it's different.

2:24:30

There's no Center Building available, in that way.

2:24:35

-

And there's no women's space.

2:24:40

-

Well, they consider it women's space.

2:24:41

-

There's men living in it.

2:24:43

-

Well, they do

the best they can.

2:24:44

-

It's a different way

of looking at it, but it's different than just out there--

2:24:46

-

It's not women's space for you.

2:24:49

I just don't wanna diminish the fact

2:24:52

that Myriam has her heart and soul in her cottage,

2:24:54

which is beautiful, and she's still connected there, and--

2:24:56

-

I sometimes wish I hadn't sold mine.

2:24:59

I'd love to go to Florida in the winter, and I wouldn't care

2:25:01

if there were men around 'cause I have this the rest

2:25:03

of the year, so I shouldn't say, I hear you, I do hear you.

2:25:05

-

Yeah, 'cause I sold mine too, and it's like--

2:25:09

-

You told me when I said I might go

2:25:12

to the, "Don't go, Morgana."

2:25:16

Do you remember?

2:25:18

-

Oh, to go see it, yeah.

I went two years ago, and it was--

2:25:21

-

It's very hard, I never go back, and women invite me out.

2:25:23

The woman that bought my cottage invites me,

2:25:27

and I've never been to see it, and I'm not going.

2:25:29

-

It's sad.

2:25:32

-

It's very different.

It's not what it was.

2:25:34

-

But neither am I.

Look at me, I am not what I was either.

2:25:36

(laughing)

2:25:39

I gotta go.

2:25:42

-

Yeah, I guess we do have to go.

2:25:44

Pagoda Women at Alapine - interviewed by Rose Norman

Transcript

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Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History & Culture

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