Randall-David, Betsy - interviewed by Rose Norman / Southern Lesbian-Feminist Activist Herstory Project / Duke Digital Repository

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And I've got every color friend I could possibly get

0:00

in New York City

0:02

'cause I was sure that in Gainesville, Florida

0:03

they only had two colors.

0:05

(Rose laughs)

0:07

I mean, I had no idea where I was going.

0:08

And I went in nursing school there,

0:11

and I already had a undergraduate degree

0:15

and a masters degree,

0:18

but I went in nursing school

0:19

because I was interested in going into nurse midwifery.

0:20

And while I was in nursing school I met

0:24

the women who started the Gainesville Women's Health Center.

0:28

And I had worked in New York City

0:31

at the Eastern Women's Health Center,

0:34

which is one of the first abortion clinics

0:37

in the United States,

0:39

right after Roe v. Wade passed.

0:41

And so I knew about

0:44

working in a abortion clinic

0:49

and knew what kinds of counseling

0:51

we get at Eastern Women's Center.

0:55

And so I started as the head of counseling

0:57

at the Gainesville Women's Health Center

1:00

when it opened in 1974.

1:02

So eventually the person

1:06

who had been hired to be the director of the clinic left

1:10

and I became the director of the clinic.

1:13

But my first job was as the head of counseling,

1:16

and not as the director.

1:19

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Do you remember how many years,

1:21

or what years you were director?

1:22

-

I was the director from '75 to '78.

1:24

-

Okay.

1:29

-

And then I left in '78

1:30

to go back to graduate school to get my PhD

1:33

in medical anthropology at the University of Florida.

1:36

So it was a wild, crazy time.

1:41

I loved every minute of it,

1:46

and it wasn't easy by any means.

1:47

So, I don't know, do you have specific questions

1:51

about my work at the clinic

1:53

that you wanted to ask?

1:55

Or do you just want me to sort of talk?

1:57

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No, I don't have a list of questions.

2:01

I'm interested, now you've already said

2:04

that you were already interested in nurse midwifery

2:07

when you went to nursing school.

2:10

So you had an interest in these things before you met,

2:13

I guess in would have been Judy and Margaret

2:16

and Byllye Avery.

2:19

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Right, exactly.

2:20

Yeah, and, quite frankly, one of the things that happened

2:22

was that I went out to Kentucky,

2:25

to the Frontier Nursing Service,

2:29

and they told me,

2:31

"Well, you know you need to be a nurse first.

2:33

"You can't just be a midwife."

2:36

And so that's why I went back to nursing school.

2:38

And while I was in nursing school I met those three again,

2:41

but I also discovered that the nurse midwifery program,

2:44

the closest one was gonna be in South Carolina.

2:48

And I just was really having a hard time

2:52

imagining how I would be leaving my two two year olds

2:56

with my husband at the time

3:01

and go off to something as intense

3:04

as a nurse midwifery program.

3:06

So I sort of transferred my interest

3:07

to a women's health clinic

3:12

as opposed to doing midwifery.

3:16

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Well it was very much not just an abortion clinic,

3:21

that's one thing I've been gathering.

3:24

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Oh, absolutely.

3:26

No, we provided well women care

3:27

three nights a week,

3:32

and then we did abortions two days a week.

3:33

And then we ended up

3:37

eventually doing a vasectomy clinic

3:41

once every couple of months.

3:43

So we expanded our services

3:46

after we got our feet on the ground.

3:50

But it was a challenging thing

3:54

because our medical director lived in Jacksonville, Florida,

3:56

which is an hour and a half away.

4:00

And we had a local guy,

4:01

I didn't see his name mentioned

4:05

in any of the transcripts you sent me,

4:07

but his name was, interestingly enough, doctor Menzies.

4:08

M-E-N-Z-I-E-S.

4:12

(Rose laughs)

He was our backup doctor,

4:16

but we were very, very, very aware

4:20

that if we overused him

4:22

that he probably wouldn't stay with us for very long.

4:25

By overusing him I mean

4:28

that when women call

4:31

after they've had an abortion

4:34

with a concern about whether they were bleeding to heavily,

4:36

or the pain was too intense, or whatever.

4:39

That if we called him about every single woman

4:42

who called us, that he'd get tired of it.

4:46

And, literally, at the time

4:49

we were paying him $25 a month to be our backup.

4:50

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Wow.

4:54

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So we took an incredible amount

4:56

of responsibility on our own shoulders

4:59

and really tried to

5:02

evaluate as best we could over the phone

5:05

before we called him,

5:10

so that we really did not get him involved

5:11

in most of the follow up care.

5:14

Because we were concerned it would be too much for him.

5:18

So that was challenging.

5:21

And it was a lot of responsibility.

5:23

And I swore after that time

5:26

that I would never wear a beeper again in my life.

5:27

(Rose laughs)

5:30

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Yeah.

5:31

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You know, it really

5:32

it colors how you're gonna spend your evenings.

5:34

I mean, when you're on call you have to be

5:37

of very sound mind,

5:42

and be able to really evaluate carefully.

5:44

So pretty much meant not drinking any alcohol.

5:48

It just did color how we could spend our time.

5:56

I don't think any of us regretted it,

6:00

but I think those of us who carried the beeper,

6:03

which were the nurses,

6:06

did find that a challenging part of the clinic.

6:09

And that's something that Byllye and Judy and Margaret

6:12

just hate like hell wearing this, you know?

6:16

I mean it was interesting to read the transcripts

6:19

because everybody's experience is different.

6:22

And, of course, it's 40 years ago,

6:26

and so many of us may have

6:28

sort of a halo effect

6:32

after 40 years.

6:35

But there were some tensions,

6:36

and it wasn't as rosy (laughs)

6:40

as I felt like some of the people were describing it.

6:44

There was one quote about how

6:50

there were no differences.

6:53

We all got along.

6:54

We all felt the same about everything.

6:56

And that was just really not my experience.

7:00

So, some of the tensions that I feel existed

7:03

was one between the clinical and the non-clinical people.

7:08

Because the clinical people were assuming

7:11

a very different level of responsibility.

7:13

And, you know, we all were getting paid shit.

7:16

I mean, you know, literally,

7:18

as the executive director of the clinic

7:20

I was making $12,000 a year.

7:23

(Rose laughs)

7:26

That kinda gives you some idea.

7:27

And of course it was 40 years ago

7:30

so I'm not saying that, I mean,

7:33

I don't know what that would be in today's money.

7:36

But it sure wasn't a lot of money.

7:40

-

My first teaching job I made $10,000.

7:42

And that was 1974, I think.

7:46

And that was not a particularly responsible job. (laughs)

7:50

Nothing like running a clinic.

7:52

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Yeah, so that was one of the tensions.

7:56

Another tension was really between

8:00

the lesbians and the straight women.

8:03

And it was kind of amusing.

8:07

I did notice that somebody talked about this

8:12

South Eastern Women's Health conference

8:16

that we planned and executed,

8:19

which was really wonderful,

8:24

but one of the workshops that we had there

8:25

was straight and gay women

8:28

conversation, or something,

8:32

I can't remember what the actual title was.

8:33

And it was so popular

8:36

that we actually did two sessions of it.

8:39

And it was so successful at the conference

8:42

that a number of us continued meeting after the conference.

8:44

Just as a sort of an ongoing group

8:49

to talk about some of the issues.

8:51

And ironically, or maybe not so ironically,

8:55

every single one of the straight women,

8:58

myself included, became a lesbian.

9:00

So that's what those kind of groups get ya.

9:03

(laughs)

9:06

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Yeah.

-

But there were tensions about that.

9:09

And there were tensions about people who had male children.

9:10

I had two male children

9:14

and there were some events

9:16

that some of the more radical lesbians

9:19

really didn't want male children to be there.

9:22

And I mean these children were like seven years old.

9:27

I get not bringing 17 year old young men

9:31

to some of these events.

9:36

But, really, seven year old boys?

9:38

C'mon.

9:41

So there were definitely tensions.

9:42

And then there, of course, were some racial tensions.

9:45

And I did see that Deborah David's name was mentioned.

9:48

She was an African American woman

9:52

who was pretty militant.

9:53

I think we were in a pretty

9:55

early evolutionary phase

9:58

of really understanding a lot of the

10:02

racial tensions and understanding

10:07

how we needed to be working more on our stuff

10:11

related to racism.

10:15

So one of the solutions to that

10:19

was to, basically, change the locks from the front door

10:22

and get her out,

10:25

which isn't, to me, the most social updative way

10:26

to handle that.

10:29

I was not there.

10:30

I had already moved on the graduate school.

10:32

So there are people, literally, in Gainesville now

10:35

(coughs)

10:38

that will not come to anything

10:39

that Byllye or Margaret might be at

10:41

because of what happened during that period

10:43

where the staff got locked out of the clinic.

10:46

So it wasn't like we were all

10:51

totally homogeneous and everybody was loving each other.

10:56

On the other hand, those of us who worked at the clinic

11:00

tend to socialize together.

11:03

Even when we were married to men

11:06

we kind of drove that.

11:10

And we'd work all day at the clinic of Saturday

11:11

and then, Saturday evening,

11:14

we'd get together with our husbands and children

11:17

and be all one big social group.

11:20

As things moved along,

11:29

I think there probably were more people

11:31

were not, well, copacetic.

11:34

Which is understandable.

11:38

I'm not trying to paint a black picture of anything.

11:40

But I did find it amusing when somebody said,

11:44

"Oh, we all got along and everything."

11:47

But then it's like, oh yeah?

11:49

Well that wasn't my experience.

11:50

So, it was a very interesting

11:53

and wonderful time.

11:58

And we all worked really hard.

11:59

And one of the transitions that happened

12:02

is that the first group of us really all

12:05

were very committed to the politics of the clinic.

12:09

Yeah, we literally cared about how many women

12:15

were on the schedule

12:19

because we knew that the ability of the clinic

12:20

to continue functioning

12:24

required a certain amount of money.

12:25

As we moved along,

12:28

(coughs) excuse me,

12:31

in the history of the clinic,

12:33

more people got hired who were not

12:37

what many of us would consider staunch feminist.

12:40

They saw it more as a job,

12:46

and the tone shifted a bit.

12:48

I mean, they were all very nice women,

12:51

but they were not radical feminists

12:55

and they saw it more as a job

12:57

than as a calling.

13:01

I think the first group of us

13:02

absolutely saw it as a calling, and a mission,

13:05

and something that we cared deeply about.

13:08

Having those services available for women.

13:14

After a few years I think that got diluted,

13:18

which doesn't mean that weren't other people

13:21

who had that philosophy.

13:23

But those people were maybe more in the minority.

13:26

It sort of shifted to people who

13:32

went to nursing school, wanted a job,

13:36

it seemed like a groovy place to work, good job,

13:38

let me work there.

13:42

Which is different than the first group.

13:44

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When do you think that shift occurred?

13:48

I mean, it was after you left, I think, or was it?

13:49

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Yeah, it was after I left.

13:52

Well, I think, yeah it's hard to know exactly

13:56

what led to it.

14:01

And there were some

14:02

kind of unfortunate things that happened.

14:05

We had two different cases of embezzlement.

14:07

Where people working at the clinic

14:10

embezzled money from the clinic.

14:13

(coughs)

14:15

I apologize, I am at the tail end,

14:17

or maybe not tail end,

14:20

but I'm at the end of a cold.

14:21

I'm coughing a lot.

14:23

So I'm not sure.

14:26

Part of it, and of course Byllye and Judy and Margaret

14:29

sort of broke off and started the birth center,

14:36

so their presence wasn't there anymore.

14:39

-

Was that after you left, or what?

14:43

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Yes, un-huh, yeah.

14:46

It was right after they locked the doors

14:47

and kept all the staff out.

14:50

I had already gone.

14:53

And, by the way, Byllye and I are extremely close friends.

14:55

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Oh, good.

14:58

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You know, Judy had died.

14:59

And I don't keep up with Margaret.

15:00

But, as I said, there are people

15:03

who are so bitter about what happened during that time

15:06

that they wouldn't dream coming.

15:10

And, of course, Byllye goes back to Gainesville

15:14

a fair amount to do public speaking.

15:17

And, so, that caused a lot.

15:20

So I don't know if that was part of it

15:24

or whether we weren't good about keeping,

15:29

front and central, the personal is the political.

15:34

The sort of reasons

15:40

of why we had the clinic.

15:44

I mean it got to be that it was a good thing to have,

15:46

but not that it was all part of the women's health movement,

15:50

and about women reclaiming their bodies.

15:54

But all of the philosophy, I think,

15:58

got littered somewhat along the way.

16:02

Now, having said that,

16:04

there certainly were plenty of feminists

16:07

who continued to work there over the next 20 years, but

16:09

there were also a lot more people

16:15

who weren't what I would call a feminist

16:17

who worked there too.

16:20

So it was a wild and wooly time.

16:23

And then, you know, part of the issue,

16:27

my partner, who I'm with, and who I was with back then,

16:31

really one of my first experienced with a (coughs)

16:36

relating to a woman, is my current partner.

16:41

So we've been together like 34 years or 35 years.

16:43

And we often laugh about all the consensus decision making

16:47

that, literally, we would make every decision by consensus.

16:52

Which is such a pain in the ass.

16:56

I mean, you know, what color toilet paper should we buy?

16:59

Oh, we gotta reach consensus on that.

17:04

(Rose laughs)

17:06

Like, no.

(laughs) No, we don't.

17:07

I mean, about things that are really important

17:08

political decisions and strategy, yeah.

17:10

But we kinda overdid some of that consensus decision making

17:13

and I think that drove some people a little crazy.

17:18

(laughs)

17:20

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Sure.

17:21

Do you want to mention,

17:24

I was thinking in the biographical introduction about you,

17:25

that we could mention your partner by name?

17:28

Or that you've been with your partner now for that long?

17:30

I mention that in several other people's introductions.

17:35

I think I mention it in Byllye's.

17:38

Do you want me to mention her name?

17:40

-

Her name is Sara.

17:42

Oh, well actually her name was Vicky at the time,

17:44

but now it's Sara.

17:46

Her name was Sara Victoria,

17:47

and when we moved to North Carolina

17:49

she decided to claim the Sara part of her.

17:50

But when we were in Gainesville her name was Vicky.

17:53

Vicky Jarvis.

17:57

-

Jarvis, okay.

17:58

Okay, and you've been together since Gainesville then?

18:02

-

Yeah, yeah since the clinic.

18:05

I hired her, actually.

18:08

She was a counselor at the clinic.

18:10

-

So you met your partner at the clinic.

18:12

That's one of the things I wanted to

18:13

get you to talk about a little bit.

18:16

About how that clinic served not just

18:17

for women's physical health,

18:21

but you had CR groups, and it was a social and

18:24

it was a place where political change happened

18:29

just because you worked there.

18:33

-

Yeah, absolutely.

18:35

And we really, as I said, we all socialized together.

18:36

We all supported each other through what was going on

18:40

in the rest of our lives.

18:44

It was a whole lot more than a job,

18:48

let's just say that.

18:51

I mean, I've never had another experience like it.

18:52

Where the borders were permeable

18:56

between the personal and the professional.

19:02

It was all one.

19:06

-

And what do you think, is it because of the times

19:11

and the movement?

19:14

-

Yeah, I think so.

19:15

Because a lot of people

19:16

who weren't even working at the clinic also,

19:17

other women who were straight at the time,

19:21

became lesbians too.

19:25

My best friend, Bonnie Coats, she became the director.

19:26

I dunno she became the director right after me.

19:32

She might have come right after me.

19:35

(coughs)

19:37

She wasn't working at the clinic.

19:41

She owned the women's book store for a while.

19:43

-

Women's book stores work that way too sometimes.

19:50

-

I'm sorry?

19:53

Yeah, yeah right, exactly.

19:54

Then there were women who were doing counseling

19:57

outside the clinic,

20:00

who were mainly seeing feminists and lesbians.

20:02

And so, there was really quite

20:06

a movement in Gainesville.

20:11

It was kind of impressive just how many people.

20:14

And it was also extremely incestuous.

20:17

I mean, we all were with everybody else's partner.

20:20

-

Right.

20:26

-

We talked over (laughs).

20:27

When we moved to North Carolina

20:30

and there's a pretty good women's community here in Durham,

20:31

but we absolutely are not involved with the women community.

20:36

-

Really?

20:44

-

Yeah, we have friends who are lesbians,

20:45

we have friends who are straight,

20:47

and we have friends who are men,

20:48

and then gay men, and straight men.

20:50

But, yeah, the Gainesville experience was so intense

20:52

that I think we felt like we needed a break from it.

20:57

And so we didn't really seek out

21:03

a recreation of Gainesville when we moved to Durham.

21:06

Just became friends with lots of different types of people.

21:12

And some of them are lesbians,

21:15

and some of them aren't.

21:16

-

Now, Corky Cover talks a little bit about

21:20

the split in the movement between lesbian and straight.

21:25

And how closeted Judith Brown was.

21:31

And, apparently, Carol Geraldina is still closeted.

21:34

-

Oh, really?

21:39

-

Well, I say that.

21:40

We're not sure whether we should say in the chapter

21:42

that she was Judith's partner or not. (laughs)

21:46

She has a new book, Geraldina does.

21:49

-

Does she?

21:52

-

Yeah, but she doesn't come in it at all.

21:53

And there's like three pages

21:55

that have anything to do with lesbians.

21:57

It's about the women's movement.

21:58

(laughs)

22:00

-

Really?

-

Yes!

22:01

-

Oh my god, that's interesting.

22:02

-

It's a good book though.

22:04

It's about African American women in the movement.

22:05

She's answering the argument that said

22:08

that they weren't in the movement.

22:11

-

Right.

22:13

-

And she's saying well, yeah they were.

22:14

-

Well, Byllye is a good spokesperson on that one

22:17

'cause she certainly had her ups and downs

22:19

in terms of the other African American women involved.

22:23

-

Yeah, she said she couldn't--

22:28

-

I mean, in the clinic,

22:29

really we didn't have

22:32

nearly as many women of color as our clients

22:35

as Caucasian women.

22:39

And I think most of us really

22:43

paid attention to that.

22:47

And, of course, abortion was still relatively new

22:49

as this opportunity.

22:52

-

Byllye thought that about half the abortion clients

22:57

were African American,

23:00

but that they didn't use the other services.

23:02

-

Well, I guess I don't really

23:07

remember the demographic for all of them.

23:11

I felt like there weren't very many

23:13

African American women there, period.

23:15

But I know, of course, we didn't have (coughs)

23:18

a very diverse staff either, I'd say.

23:21

95% of the staff, at least, were white women.

23:25

Very few African American.

23:29

When I was there.

23:31

Maybe it got more diverse after I left,

23:32

but the first four years of the clinic,

23:35

oh, Deborah was in first.

23:38

Deborah David was the first African American woman we hired.

23:39

-

Oh wow.

23:43

-

And we saw where that went.

23:44

So then, I'm not sure after that

23:45

how many other African American women were hired.

23:48

But I actually was at Deborah's birth.

23:53

I mean, not at her birth,

23:57

but at the birth of her son.

23:59

I helped her deliver her baby.

24:01

And so I was actually pretty close to Deborah for a while.

24:03

-

I asked Byllye about that,

24:08

because Pam had written about that.

24:10

And she talked about

24:13

understanding the perspective

24:17

of where she was coming from

24:19

as a black nationalist, and as someone

24:21

who didn't really know much about white people.

24:24

She had a good answer

24:29

to why Deborah woulda thought that white women

24:33

didn't need the women's movement.

24:37

That's what Pam says,

24:40

she said it was because

24:41

from her perspective white women had, pretty much,

24:45

what black women wanted.

24:49

Which was freedom and responsibility.

24:50

She didn't see the other side.

24:56

-

Uh-huh.

24:59

Well, she was pretty wrapped up in her own stuff.

25:02

Yeah.

25:07

-

I should send you Byllye's interview.

25:08

I've gotten the notes to it,

25:11

and I emailed them to her.

25:13

Her mother died.

25:15

-

Oh, she did?

25:17

-

Yeah, I found this out because when I emailed them

25:18

she had gone to the funeral.

25:21

Had gone down to Gainesville.

25:22

-

When was that?

25:24

-

It must have been about maybe Saturday?

25:26

Friday?

25:28

-

Oh my goodness.

25:30

We'll have to call.

25:31

Her mother was really up there in years.

25:32

-

104.

25:35

-

Yeah, yeah uh-huh.

25:36

Oh wow, oh gosh, that's tough for Byllye.

25:39

-

Yes.

25:43

I interviewed her on a day when she'd been dealing

25:44

with Hospice care for her mother.

25:47

So I guess they knew it was--

25:49

-

Uh-huh, eminent.

25:51

Whew.

25:54

-

But, anyway, I don't wanna send you her interview notes

25:55

until she's had a chance to look at them

25:58

to make sure they're right.

25:59

-

Uh-huh

26:02

-

I'm assuming that your sample here

26:08

is sort of a snowball sample.

26:10

Who was the first person

26:14

and how did you get to the first person?

26:15

-

Well, Women Writes is an organization of lesbian writers

26:18

and we've been talking about this since 2009

26:22

and making lists of people that we had to...

26:25

We started out wanting to solicit memoirs.

26:28

But people really don't wanna have to write their memoirs.

26:32

They just don't.

26:34

But they'll let you interview them. (laughs)

26:35

And then, in many cases it turns into something

26:39

that's more of a memoir.

26:43

Like Margaret Parish.

26:44

Her interview notes,

26:46

you know, the notes I sent her after her interview

26:48

were not very compelling.

26:50

But after she got those notes

26:53

she edited a whole bunch of stuff.

26:55

So that was a lot, maybe half, of Margaret's

26:58

was something she edited after the interview.

27:03

-

Uh-huh.

27:06

-

But there's a bunch of gains for women

27:07

that go to Women Writes.

27:09

That's why we got such a Gainesville connection.

27:10

-

I'm sorry, say that again.

27:13

-

A bunch of Gainesville women.

27:14

Corky comes to Women Writes.

27:16

Barbara Avery.

27:18

-

Oh, I see.

I see, uh-huh.

27:19

-

So there's a strong Gainesville connection there.

27:21

In fact, we're kinda Gainesville heavy right now.

27:24

Florida heavy.

27:26

The fact that you're living in Durham is good,

27:31

because now we have someone--

27:32

maybe you could say a few things about--

27:33

(laughs)

27:35

We have nothing from North Carolina right now.

27:36

I know that we've got Mandy Carter

27:37

lined up for an interview,

27:40

but it's gonna be March or April before we get it.

27:41

-

So one of the things I did

27:49

at the Gainesville Women's Health Center

27:50

is we started the Pelvic Teaching Program.

27:51

I don't know if anybody talked about that.

27:54

-

Somebody eluded to it.

27:56

Tell me more about it.

27:57

-

Well, basically we

27:59

taught medical students.

28:04

Medical students came over to the clinic

28:05

in groups of three.

28:07

And one of us would do an exam

28:09

on another one of us.

28:13

And they would observe,

28:16

and then they would practice.

28:18

They would do a pelvic exam

28:20

and get feedback from us.

28:23

It was a really wonderful program.

28:29

And the students just, you know.

28:31

And they actually paid their own money to come.

28:34

Which, interestingly enough,

28:38

things have really changed since then, but

28:40

they paid money for us to teach them.

28:43

Teach them how to do a humanistic pelvic exam,

28:47

and really involve the woman in her own experience

28:51

and not just see her as some body

28:55

that they were gonna do their thing on.

28:59

And so then, eventually, that program in Gainesville

29:02

got what I call co-opted by the medical school

29:07

and they started,

29:10

well, it was a series of different things that happened.

29:12

First of all they asked us to come over

29:15

to the medical school

29:18

and be the teachers,

29:19

but with a medical faculty person in the room with us.

29:22

And I think some of us did that once or twice,

29:29

and just really balked at that experience

29:32

because we weren't really the teachers.

29:35

We were really more the bodies.

29:38

And that's totally not what we were all about.

29:39

But when I moved here to Durham

29:45

it turns out that there is a women's health

29:48

teaching group here.

29:50

And so I was really excited.

29:51

So I joined that group.

29:55

And that group's still going.

29:56

And it teaches almost all the medical students

29:58

in the state of North Carolina,

30:02

and physicians' assistants,

30:03

and some nursing students.

30:05

So I think there's probably about 8 to 10 women

30:10

now in the group.

30:12

I haven't been in the group

30:13

in probably 10 years or so.

30:15

Maybe, probably not 15 years.

30:17

But I was in it for 10 or so years here.

30:20

It's a wonderful experience.

30:28

It's a really great service, I think,

30:28

for all women.

30:31

Because these jerks (laughs) learn

30:32

how to do a really good exam.

30:36

And we give 'em lots of really targeted feedback.

30:38

Like, no way, you're not doing that.

30:42

And then you need to ask the woman's permission

30:45

before you touch her.

30:49

And you need to pull down on the pelvic muscle,

30:50

I mean the vaginal muscle,

30:54

before you insert the speculum,

30:57

and you need to do it slowly,

31:00

and you need to do this.

31:01

I mean, just step by step.

31:03

And the students here,

31:07

the medical school staff pay the group.

31:11

The students themselves don't have to pay for it.

31:15

But in Gainesville the students paid for it.

31:17

I think that there's not that many programs left.

31:23

Because Byllye and I actually went back to Gainesville

31:28

about four years ago

31:31

and spoke at a program

31:33

at the medical school

31:36

about the Pelvic Teaching Program.

31:37

And now it's been, as I said, co-opted (coughs),

31:40

the medical school actually is the one that does it.

31:45

And it's more of a standardized patient approach.

31:48

Which, I don't know if you know anything

31:54

about medical education,

31:56

but more and more they've started this teaching technique

31:57

of using people who are just regular people

32:02

as surrogate patients.

32:08

And then they teach medical students and residents

32:11

all sorts of skills, and not just GYN skills,

32:15

but how to do

32:19

a well person workup,

32:24

and how to do

32:26

a patient history to determined

32:31

risk for diabetes, or heart disease, or whatever.

32:33

I mean, it's pretty general now.

32:35

When I was going back with Byllye four years ago

32:40

to do that talk,

32:44

I started doing some research

32:45

to see what groups

32:46

like ours existed today,

32:49

and there's really not very many.

32:52

So this group here in Durham is actually

32:54

one of a very few groups that are still doing that.

32:57

And they're going strong.

33:03

They've been, gosh,

33:05

well I've been here for 25 years,

33:06

and they'd been going for about eight years

33:10

before I got here.

33:14

It might be 10 years.

33:16

So it's probably

33:17

35 years old as a group.

33:20

Not the same women,

33:24

but that's pretty impressive.

33:24

-

That would have been 1978.

33:30

That's 35 years ago.

33:32

-

'78 was 35 years ago?

33:35

Oh, okay.

33:37

Really?

33:38

-

Yeah. (laughs)

33:40

-

No, 'cause wait.

33:41

Oh, yeah yeah, '78, right, is 35 years ago, right.

33:44

We've been here 25 years, but (coughs)

33:46

it was going for quite a while before I joined the group.

33:50

So, that was a group of,

33:55

I'd call, radical feminists

34:02

who started that group here in Durham.

34:04

So when you say that you don't have anything going,

34:06

you know, not really anybody has done much

34:10

about North Carolina, interviewing some of those people.

34:11

Especially the earlier people.

34:15

Like Margie Stead.

34:17

-

Now, we're only doing lesbians in this activism.

34:21

You don't have to have been a lesbian at the time.

34:24

Like the fact that you weren't a lesbian

34:26

when you first went to the clinic,

34:28

that doesn't matter.

34:30

But we're not interviewing people

34:31

who were just activists and are straight.

34:33

And have always been.

34:35

-

Uh-huh.

34:36

-

Kinda limits us.

34:38

But then they're covered well elsewhere.

34:39

-

Yeah, well Margie, whose name I just mentioned,

34:43

she's actually a psychiatrist,

34:47

and she's a lesbian feminist,

34:49

and is very active in the American Psychiatric Association

34:52

as a lesbian feminist.

34:58

-

Okay, give me her name

35:01

and if you have her contact information I'll call her.

35:02

-

Okay, you know what, I'll send you by email

35:05

her email contact.

35:10

I'm not sure if I have her,

35:12

I know Sara, my partner, has a number.

35:13

-

Okay.

35:16

-

But she's not home right now.

35:17

-

Okay.

35:18

-

I will.

35:19

Because, actually, Margie's

35:20

one of the reasons that we're in Durham.

35:25

When we wanted to leave Gainesville,

35:28

I was actually giving a paper

35:31

in an anthropology conference

35:33

at the beach.

35:39

Waynesville Beach in North Carolina.

35:41

So we took that opportunity to drive

35:43

totally from one side of North Carolina to another

35:47

to see if North Carolina was a place we might wanna move.

35:50

And Byllye was already in Atlanta

35:54

and really urging us to come to Atlanta.

35:55

It's like, ugh, big city,

35:57

I've already done that. (coughs)

35:59

-

Yeah.

36:00

-

So we actually came to Durham.

36:02

Of course, I'd been in your college.

36:05

And a friend of Sara's knew Margie and said,

36:08

"You might wanna get up with this friend of mine

36:12

"and she can tell you all about living in Durham."

36:15

And, yeah, she became one of our friends.

36:18

And she was a big reason that we're here.

36:20

-

Whoa.

36:25

-

Yeah, and then she kinda told me

36:26

about the women's health group.

36:28

She wasn't in it anymore,

36:30

but she was one of the founders.

36:31

I think of the early group,

36:35

most of those women were lesbians.

36:38

But certainly that's not,

36:40

I mean there were lots of women who, I'd say

36:44

it was more likely that are not lesbian

36:47

who are in the group this point.

36:50

I mean, they don't differentiate, let's just say that.

36:53

Some of the women are lesbians,

36:56

but I think most of them are straight women.

36:57

-

So you grew up in Baltimore, Maryland,

37:00

and then you went to Chapman here?

37:03

Or Duke, or...?

37:05

-

I went to Duke, yeah.

37:06

And then when I graduated from Duke,

37:08

then I moved to New York City.

37:10

That's where I met my ex husband.

37:12

And I had my kids there.

37:14

And then we moved to Gainesville.

37:17

-

In what year did you move to Gainesville?

37:20

-

We moved to Gainesville in '72.

37:22

In the fall of '72.

37:29

And I started nursing school in '73.

37:31

And the clinic opened in '74.

37:36

-

Okay.

37:39

-

I was the valedictorian in my class

37:43

and the people in the nursing school

37:45

were so ready to get me outta there

37:48

because I was such a damn trouble maker.

37:51

(Rose laughs)

37:53

Well, part of it was that I was a lot older

37:55

than the rest of the students.

37:57

I was like (laughs) right now

37:59

saying how old I was, it seems so young.

38:01

At the time I was 33,

38:05

and most of the other students were like 22.

38:08

So they all came to me for support and counseling.

38:12

When they didn't like what was going on

38:19

in the nursing program

38:20

I got to be the spokesperson

38:21

for everything that was wrong with the nursing program.

38:23

So the dean was like,

38:25

"Ugh, let me get you outta this place!"

38:27

But, unfortunately for her,

38:30

I had been chosen to be the valedictorian,

38:32

so I gave this speech at our nursing graduation

38:34

that was all about how nurses

38:39

are not the handmaiden of physicians.

38:40

And, you know, I cited Barbara Ehrenreich

38:42

and all these people that, probably,

38:45

the people in the nursing school

38:48

hadn't even heard of before.

38:48

(Rose laughs)

38:51

They were really ready to get me outta that place,

38:52

I'll tell to what.

38:56

-

Is that University of Florida, or another school?

38:58

-

It's Florida.

39:01

-

Yeah, right.

39:03

-

University of Florida.

39:05

Just regular bachelors of nursing program.

39:07

-

All right.

39:10

That was your orient, and then

39:11

did you get the PhD there too?

39:12

-

I'm sorry?

39:15

-

Did you get--

39:16

-

I got my PhD in anthropology

39:17

from the University of Florida, yeah.

39:19

-

Oh, okay.

39:21

-

So when I left the clinic I went into the

39:22

PhD program and then, yeah.

39:26

So, Byllye and Margaret and Judy used to tease me

39:30

about all my different degrees

39:33

and that I was going backwards,

39:34

'cause of course I, you know.

39:36

(Rose guffaws)

39:39

Getting two bachelor's degrees,

39:40

and two masters degrees, only one PhD.

39:42

(Rose laughs)

39:44

Yeah.

39:45

-

At the end of this.

-

So now one of the things I do,

39:47

I'm an independent consultant

39:51

so I do lots of different things,

39:52

so one of the things I do is teach a course

39:54

in empowerment education at the University of North Carolina

39:56

at the School of Public Health.

39:59

Which, you know (coughs)

40:02

makes for an interesting watching of basketball games.

40:05

'Cause I have a split allegiance between

40:08

Duke, where I graduated, and UNC, where I'm teaching.

40:13

Anyhow, so any other questions

40:19

or things that you wanna know about the clinic,

40:22

or the times, or the people?

40:25

-

Yeah, there's just one thing I wanna go back to.

40:27

You were with New York Radical Women,

40:30

and that didn't last very long.

40:32

So you must have been there at the very early times.

40:35

-

Yeah, I was there in 1970.

40:39

We moved to Gainesville in '72

40:43

and, so, yeah, I was a New York Radical Feminist

40:46

from '70 to '72.

40:52

And then, at that same time I was working at--

40:55

Well, actually, it was probably more like '70 to '71.

40:58

'Cause in '72 we lived outside the city.

41:02

We lived up in

41:06

a place called Golden's Bridge (laughs),

41:11

which you probably haven't heard of.

41:12

Yeah, and then I would ride the train then

41:15

on Saturdays and work at the Eastern Women's Health Center.

41:18

And ride back at night.

41:23

-

So you must have had your consciousness--

41:28

-

Quite a long day, I'm willing to say.

41:30

I think I got up at something like 6:00 and fed the babies.

41:32

'Cause of course I nursed with the twins

41:37

til they were three years old.

41:40

So I would nurse them and take the train into the city,

41:42

and work all day and take the train back,

41:45

and nurse 'em and put 'em to bed, and do that.

41:48

Usually Saturdays and Sundays.

41:52

Sometimes just Saturdays.

41:55

For about a year.

41:56

-

What year were they born?

41:58

-

They were born in 1970.

42:01

-

Oh, the very year that you,

42:03

that they joined you at a women right.

42:04

-

Yeah, I actually had to keep my Saturday,

42:07

that and the public radio station were my salvation.

42:11

'Cause I went from being a professional person

42:15

and doing work in the world

42:18

to kind of being at home a lot, with two little babies.

42:21

And there's a lot of drudgery that's associated

42:26

with changing diapers and watching two little kids.

42:29

So, yeah, the New York Radical Feminist groups

42:34

were really my salvation anyways.

42:38

And WBAI, the radio station, was on the whole time too.

42:41

It would put it on so I kept my contact

42:46

with the world beyond babydom.

42:49

And, don't get me wrong, I loved

42:52

having babies and being a mother,

42:56

but it was a big adjustment for me

42:58

to just be home all the time.

43:00

So I was happy to have these other connections to the world.

43:03

-

Sure.

43:09

What did you major doing in college?

43:10

-

I have a double major in psychology and zoology.

43:15

When I first went to Duke

43:19

I wanted to be a physician.

43:21

And I was one of only a couple of women

43:25

in all my science classes.

43:29

It was really pretty segregated.

43:31

It was really segregated in terms of

43:36

there were no people of color when I started at Duke, none.

43:38

When I was a junior they admitted

43:43

five African American students.

43:45

And that was a huge deal.

43:48

In fact, they just had a celebration a couple weeks ago

43:50

of the first five students of color

43:55

that were admitted to Duke.

43:59

It was really segregated by gender too,

44:04

in terms of science classes.

44:07

A lot of the guys would say to me,

44:09

"Well you're the kind we'd like to marry,

44:11

"not somebody who should be a doctor."

44:13

(Rose groans)

44:15

And I really got discouraged.

44:16

And I also wasn't particularly strong in the sciences.

44:20

So it was tough for me academically.

44:24

And while I was at Duke

44:29

I got a job on the psych ward at Duke Hospital,

44:33

Duke Medical Center.

44:38

And, again, a job I loved.

44:39

And so while I got

44:42

involved in psychiatry,

44:47

I thought, well, psychology is...

44:49

You don't have to be a psychiatrist.

44:51

You can be a psychologist.

44:52

So I switched from being pre-med

44:54

to getting a degree is psychology.

44:58

But I already had so many science credits,

45:01

and that's how I got a dual major.

45:05

Really, the thing I was most interested in was psychology.

45:08

And then when I went to New York

45:11

I went to the new school for social research

45:14

and got a masters in psychology.

45:16

So I was heading in that direction

45:20

and then, really, the New York Radical Feminists.

45:24

That experience, really got me going

45:29

on wanting to be a nurse midwife.

45:31

Wanting to be a midwife,

45:33

and then I got the message

45:34

that had to be a nurse

45:38

before I could be a nurse midwife.

45:40

So that's why I went to nursing school.

45:41

I was not dying to go to nursing school,

45:43

but it seemed like the only way

45:45

I was gonna get to be a nurse midwife.

45:47

And then the clinic came along

45:50

and I changed directions again.

45:52

So I've done a lot of changing directions in my life.

45:54

I mean it all sort of hangs together

45:59

in some sense of the word, but I've been

46:01

various degrees of commitment to different

46:07

disciplines, I guess.

46:12

But, really, the medical anthropology

46:16

has really served my well.

46:18

And my nursing degree has opened a lot of doors,

46:19

even though now if someone's life depended on me

46:22

starting an IV, they would be dead in three seconds.

46:27

'Cause I'm really not a clinical nurse at this point.

46:30

Since the clinic I have not worked in clinical nursing.

46:34

-

What did you do as a medical anthropologist?

46:39

Was it teaching?

46:41

-

Well, I've done some teaching.

46:44

Really I've seen myself through

46:46

as a cultural broker.

46:48

Helping the health care system understand

46:50

the cultural belief and practices of clients

46:52

that they're there to serve

46:56

so that they weave their message into

46:58

the cultural context of the patient,

47:00

rather than asking patients to do things

47:03

that don't work in their own lives.

47:06

So one of the things I did in Gainesville

47:09

is I was employed by the Family Medicine Program

47:11

to take medical students out on home visits

47:14

so that they would see how their patients lived.

47:19

Because they would make recommendations like,

47:23

"Well, you need to take a sitz bath."

47:25

And it's like, these people don't have running water.

47:28

How are we gonna do a sitz bath?

47:30

You know, and just like, oh they don't have a bathtub,

47:32

or they don't have heat.

47:34

And so it was really eye opening for them

47:39

to go out and visit the patients on their own terms,

47:42

and not just what they felt of the patient

47:46

when the patient came to clinic.

47:49

So that was kind of a fun job.

47:51

And so, yeah I've done different things.

47:54

I do a lot right now of developing curricula and training.

47:57

I'm doing a lot of workshops for physicians,

48:03

or PAs, or nurses around different health issues

48:06

or different ways of communicating.

48:11

If you're a medical anthropologist

48:16

and you're not in academia,

48:18

you pretty much have to do a lot of educating

48:20

of potential employers

48:23

about how you might be able to help them.

48:26

Because most people don't put a sign up

48:28

saying looking for a medical anthropologist.

48:32

(laughing)

48:34

Yeah, so you have to kind of help them see how you can

48:35

offer something to them

48:40

or be an asset to their team.

48:42

Now I'm trying,

48:45

trying, trying,

48:47

my partner, more than me, is trying for me to

48:48

(laughs) lie down and do less work

48:51

'cause I'm 69 now and a lot of people my age are retired.

48:53

But I'm not ready

48:58

to just not work.

49:02

So I'm trying to slow down.

49:05

I'm not real successful at it,

49:09

but I'm helped in that process by the fact

49:11

that I have four grandchildren

49:15

who I take a lot of responsibility for taking care of.

49:16

So that helps me slow down

49:21

in terms of not working outside the home,

49:25

because I'm working inside the home taking care of them.

49:28

And, unlike raising twins,

49:32

these children are different ages.

49:35

And so they're at different developmental stages.

49:38

I was just saying to one of their mothers yesterday that,

49:40

you know, twins, I mean,

49:45

people think twins are so hard,

49:47

but twins are in the same developmental stage

49:48

so they kinda track each other.

49:51

But when you've got an eight year old, and a six year old,

49:54

and a four year old, and a three year old,

49:57

they're all sort of in different places

49:59

and what one will be happy doing for four hours

50:01

the other one will last 10 minutes doing. (laughs)

50:06

So they're keeping me young, let's just say that.

50:09

-

Yeah, no that sounds good.

50:14

-

Yeah, I love it but it's a lot.

50:16

In fact, my sister was visiting recently

50:22

and they happened to be here

50:24

and when they left she said,

50:25

"Wow, that's a lotta energy in that house, isn't it?"

50:27

And I said, sure is!

50:29

(Rose laughs)

-

Right!

50:31

-

It's a lot of energy!

50:32

-

Yeah, a lot of that flows, I get it.

50:34

I wanted to check the spelling of your partner's name.

50:39

Sara with an h?

50:42

-

No.

50:43

-

No h?

50:44

No h, okay.

50:45

-

I was known as Betsy David when I was at the clinic.

50:48

I noticed in a few different transcripts

50:51

that that's how people refer to me.

50:53

I only sorta reclaimed my birth name

50:55

when I got divorced.

51:00

-

So that's the boys' last name?

51:02

Your son's last name is David?

51:04

-

Uh-huh, yeah.

51:06

-

So Randall's your birth name.

51:07

-

Yep.

51:10

-

Okay.

51:11

-

Yeah, my name was Betsy Randall,

51:12

and then we got married,

51:16

and then I just dropped, I dunno why,

51:17

but anyhow I dropped my maiden name

51:19

and just went to Betsy David.

51:22

And then when I got divorces I hyphenated Randall.

51:23

-

When did you get divorced?

51:28

-

Official name.

-

Was that while you were at the clinic?

51:31

-

No, I was still married

51:36

the whole time I was at the clinic.

51:39

Just was Betsy David then.

51:41

But then I changed from.

51:44

Well, I got divorced (coughs)

51:47

officially when the boys were 13.

51:49

And I left the clinic when they were eight.

51:52

So for five more years I was still Betsy David, I guess.

51:57

Then when I finally did get divorced

52:02

it was just, really, a formality.

52:06

I was living with Sara.

52:08

But I still was married.

52:11

And then my ex husband decided to get married,

52:15

and so we needed to get divorced.

52:18

That was the impetus for changing my name.

52:22

I wanted to have some name,

52:26

a point of identity with my kids.

52:30

So both of my guys are here in North Carolina,

52:33

and they're both district attorneys.

52:36

So elected officials.

52:38

(Rose laughs)

-

Wow.

52:40

-

Yeah, and their districts

52:42

are conjoining districts.

52:44

So one of 'em has two counties

52:48

and then the three counties

52:51

on the side of those two counties

52:52

are the other guy's district.

52:54

-

That worked out.

52:57

-

They're a lot of fun.

52:59

I love being a Randall now.

53:01

We're very close.

53:04

So then one of 'em had three kids,

53:07

and one of 'em has one and a third kids.

53:09

So we're gonna have one more baby in our family.

53:12

-

Wow.

53:15

-

And I think that'll be it.

53:16

Well, we'll see.

53:18

-

Well, that's nice.

53:22

-

So I've got

a lot of little children around.

53:23

(laughs)

53:25

-

Yeah.

53:28

-

Yeah.

-

Well, okay, I think I have plenty here.

53:30

I'm gonna--

53:32

-

Okay.

-

I'm going to--

53:34

-

Did take a while--

So you're gonna type up the transcript

53:36

and then send it to me,

53:39

is that how it works?

53:40

-

Yes.

53:40

And it won't be an official transcript

53:41

word for word everything we said.

53:44

Although, you know what I forgot to say

53:46

at the front of this tape?

53:48

I'm gonna have to add it to the front.

53:50

This is Rose Norman,

53:51

I'm interviewing Elizabeth Randall-David

53:52

on February 25, 2013, by phone.

53:55

I hate it when I forget to say that.

54:01

Because we are gonna work on these audio tapes at Duke.

54:05

They have the Sallie Bingham Center.

54:08

-

Uh-huh, great!

54:11

-

So we've got that release form was for that.

54:13

But we need a grant to get somebody

54:17

to do the official transcripts.

54:20

It takes a very long time.

54:23

Like, it would probably

54:25

take eight hours.

54:26

-

Believe me, I know.

(laughing)

54:27

-

But what I will do is

54:29

I'm gonna transcribe my notes.

54:30

I've been taking notes while talking to you.

54:33

And then I will rearrange things in such a way

54:36

that I think it will read well.

54:38

And then I'll send that to you.

54:41

And I can send you a CD with the audio

54:43

if you wanna listen to it.

54:45

But I will listen to audio

54:46

with places where I knew you said things

54:48

I wanted to write down

54:50

but I couldn't write fast enough.

54:51

-

Right, uh-huh.

54:52

-

So it's sort of a hybrid.

54:53

It's not a transcript,

54:56

but it's a fast way of getting to what we can use published.

54:57

-

Uh-huh.

55:02

And when are you thinking that you'll have something

55:03

to give 'em to publish?

55:06

-

Well, we have a November 1st deadline

55:08

for the spring issue of Sinister Wisdom.

55:11

One issue is 35,000 words,

55:16

and we've already got about 50,000 words.

55:18

So I've talked to them about that. (laughs)

55:20

And they said, "Well, send us what you have in May.

55:23

"And we'll tell you whether it can be

55:26

"a double issue or not."

55:27

Social Wisdom is our immediate publication

55:32

for this time next year,

55:34

but we've also got a lesbian publisher

55:35

who we figure anything we don't publish in Sinister Wisdom,

55:40

that where it's gonna go.

55:44

So that's been our driver.

55:48

-

Looks like you have a lot of work cut out for you.

55:49

-

Yeah, but it's fun.

55:52

I enjoy it.

55:53

There's love.

55:54

It's working out.

55:55

-

I'm sure!

Yeah, sounds great!

55:56

-

Yeah, yeah it is.

55:57

-

Alrighty, well I'll look forward

56:00

to getting something from you.

56:02

And I know that you have a lot going on

56:03

in your personal life.

56:05

So I'll just get it when I get it.

56:06

-

And you'll look up Margie's information?

56:11

-

Yeah, now I've made myself a note

56:13

and I'm pretty good about follow up.

56:15

So I will send you Margie's email and phone number.

56:17

And then she has people

56:20

she could hook you up with too

56:25

in terms of that original group.

56:26

-

Yeah, that would be nice.

56:28

-

Several of them stay in touch.

56:30

Yeah, good.

56:33

Okay, well Rose it was really fun to talk with you,

56:34

and I look forward to seeing--

56:36

Randall-David, Betsy - interviewed by Rose Norman

Transcript

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Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History & Culture

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