Oral Histories and Recorded Memory
Interviews listed in alphabetical order by name of narator. Transcripts can be expanded by clicking on the text box to the right.
Interviews were conducted by Washington University students enrolled in "Documenting the Queer Past in St. Louis," a service-learning course.
For more information contact Department of Special Collections, Washington University Libraries, spec@wumail.wustl.edu (314) 935-5495.
Interviewee: Karin Allen
Interviewer: Eleni Andris
Interview Date: 11/02/2017
Location: Webber Public Library
Length: 1:13:21
Summary: Karin Allen was born on December 29, 1959 in St. Louis, MO. She attended Riverview Gardens High School, and has been in the banking industry for over 30 years. She currently resides in St. Louis, MO. The interview discusses her childhood and her home life growing up; her relationship with religion; and her partner of 27 years, Pat, and the influence Pat had on her life (both positive and negative), her understanding of her gay identity, and the building of her community.
Interviewee: Janey Archey
Interviewer: Ayan Ali
Interview Date: 11/05/2017
Location: Saint Louis, MO
Run Time: 1:29:24
Summary: Janey Archeyis a lesbian activist living in Saint Louis, MO. Her activism work mainly focuses on anti-racism and challenging white supremacy work. The interview discusses Janey’s family, her life as a student at Webster University and as a professor at UMSL. She also discusses her activism in the anti-racist community, as well as her work as a social worker and her work in anti-police brutality groups.
Interviewees: Mary Carpenter and Barbara (Pook) Pfaffe
Interviewer: Jacob Honigman
Interview Date: October 29, 2017
Location: Bauer Hall 152, Washington University in St. Louis, MO
Running time: 1:02:18
Summary: Mary Carpenter was born June 19, 1954 in St. Louis, Missouri. Masters of Education from University of Missouri –St. Louis. College Counselor, Guidance Department Chairperson, and Guidance Counselor at Affton High School from 1985-2014. Currently a consultant at St. Louis Graduates.
Barbara (Pook) Pfaffe was born on April 23, 1944 in St. Louis, Missouri. BS in Zoology from Southern Illinois University –Alton. Staff photographer at St. Louis Zoo, Tram tour supervisors at Missouri Botanical Garden, Darkroom technician for Peace Institute Printer. Now a photographer, graphic designer, and actor for various theatre productions across Missouri, New Jersey, and Tennessee.
Both narrators discussed the history of Wired Women in St. Louis, including the formation, peak years, and disbanding. Wired Women existed from 1983-1999 to serve a growing community of lesbian women in St. Louis that felt that they had no space to congregate where they could interact outside of bars. Mary Carpenter was a founding members and Barbara (Pook) Pfaffe quickly joined and they became faces of the organization that created the first "women's" spaces in St. Louis. Each narrator tied their own personal stories into the larger narrative. Follow up questions included interactions in the larger gay community of St. Louis as well as their personal lives outside of Wired Women.
Interviewee: Barbara (Barb) Goedde
Interviewer: Ayana Arrington
Interview Date: November 5, 2017
Location: University City Library
Running time: 57 minutes 25 seconds
Summary: Barbara Goedde grew up in St. Louis, attended Washington University for art school, and lives in South City today. From post-graduation bookstore worker, she has come to earn wages by being a preschool teacher. Outside of her job, she has designed logos, played travel sports, and survived cancer. Barb describes how she lived in lesbian collectives in South City, how they had connections with collective farms in southeast Missouri and Arkansas, and how she participated in the Gay Games. The collectives in South City had lesbians who were mechanics, working on cars, and lesbians who helped abused women. She also details the bars she went to, partners she had, harassment from other people, and the structure of her family growing up.
Interviewee: Margaret Flowing Johnson
Interviewer:Jacqueline Feldman
Interview Date:10/31/2017
Location:University City, MO
Running time: 1:11:46
Summary: Margaret Flowing Johnson was born 1940 and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, then moved to Saint Louis in 1964. Earned a Master’s degree in mathematics from Kansas State College, then worked as an educator at St. Louis Community College and Washington University in St. Louis. Flowing was involved in the creation of activist groups Women Rising in Resistance, Take Back the Night in St. Louis, and Queer Nation St. Louis, and is currently involved in Black Lives Matter. The interview discusses the St. Louis community 1964-present(2017), queer activism, Women Rising in Resistance, Take Back the Night, Queer Nation, Black Lives Matter,community organizing, coming out, family, intersectionality, AIDS, lesbian visibility, second wave feminism, and changes in the St. Louis activist community over time.
Interviewee: Lawrence Hudson-Lewis
Interviewer: Natalie Hilmer
Interview Date: November 6, 2017
Location: University City Public Library, St. Louis, MO
Running Time: 1:08:58
Summary: Lawrence Hudson-Lewis is a long-time resident of St. Louis. During childhood, his family experienced economic hardship that lead to housing insecurity. As a result, he lived in many different parts of St. Louis. Hudson-Lewis attended private, usually Lutheran, schools throughout his upbringing. He excelled at school but often got in trouble for speaking his mind at inopportune moments. In high school Hudson-Lewis began to make friends who were also in the LGBT community. He found acceptance and community among those friends but kept each part of his life separated from the others at the time. As he got older, he became friends with lesbians, gays, transgender women, and drag queens. He talked about how the LGBT community was a great space of acceptance for him while also being a place in which he saw tensions along race, class, and gender lines. After graduating high school, he went on to college and eventually graduate school. He is currently working as a social worker.
Interviewee: Betty D. Neeley
Interviewer: Lizzi Kehoe
Interview Date: October 3, 2017
Location: Webster Groves, MO
Running time: 1 hour, 7 minutes
Summary: Born in Williford, Arkansas on August 17, 1936, Betty moved to St. Louis, MO after WWII. Betty did not obtain a formal education, but did obtain her GED/high-school equivalent of a diploma later in life. She started a cleaning service which she owns with her partner, Cindy, although Betty is now retired and Cindy is the primary owner. She describes the moments that were particularly transformative for her during her early years, like going to her first lesbian bar and getting a motorcycle, which provided her with a strong community. Betty also speaks to her past romantic involvements, as well as her history with her partner, Cindy. She also spoke to her involvement with various influential communities for her, like her softball team, which led to experiences like attending the Gay Games. She concludes with speaking about some of her more recent accomplishments, like having an award named after her.
Interviewee:Virginia “Gini” Black Morton
Interviewer:Camryn Parker
Interview Date:11/01/2017
Location:St. Louis, MO
Running time: 1:09:54
Summary: Gini Morton was born and raised in Detroit, MI in a family of 11. She grew up closestto her sisters, until meeting her older brothers,and lived with her mom and dad before moving to St. Louis with her husband. She obtained a degree in computer software and held a career in this field most of her adult life. Gini had a total of 7 children with her late husband and realized soon after that she was not as happy as she could because she was not living the life of her true sexuality. An array of topics are discussed including the dichotomy of growing up in an African American household in Detroit while trying to balance life as a lesbian teenager; raising a family in the 1960s in the confusing racially divided city that St. Louis was and is; and effects of sexual abuse has on one's life.
Interviewee: Geri Henke
Interviewer: Mia Sitterson
Interview Date:November 3,2017
Location:St.Louis,Missouri
Running time:1:49:46
Summary: Geri Henke was born in St.Louis in the 1940s. She attended Southeast Missouri State Universityand Notre Dame College as an undergraduate, and received her bachelor’s degree in education.She later received a master’s degrees from Webster University in counseling and women’s studies. She worked as a professional singer, then as a teacher, and finally as a social worker. This interview covers Geri’s life history from her early childhood to the death of her partner in 2013, with a focus on her experiences as a gay woman. Topics include: Geri’s experiences with Catholicism and Catholic education, the gender roles she witnessed and was subjected to growing up in the 1950s, her emerging sexuality and significant relationships with other women, her career as a professional singer, her exposure to St. Louis gay bars and coffeehouses, her work as a teacher and counselor, her involvement with Dignity in St. Louis, her long term partnership with Sharon Kramer, and the deaths of both her mother and lifelong partner in the 2000s.
Interviewee: Diana DeWeese-Schmidt
Interviewer: Jane Thier
Interview Date: November 1, 2017
Location: St. Louis, Missouri
Running Time: 31:27:00
Summary: Diana DeWeese-Schmidt, born in 1946, was raised in St. Louis, Missouri. She lived in St. Louis City until her teenage years, when she moved to South County. She attended Lindbergh High School, graduated in 1964, and shortly thereafter married an alcoholic man. They had two children together. She met Cat Schmidt, her partner of forty-four years, when Cat was her daughters’ babysitter. Diana worked as a hairdresser for several years before ultimately staying home with her children. She and Cat married in 2015. The couple has nine grandchildren together. In the interview, Diana discusses her very sheltered upbringing, the early stages of her relationship with Cat in which she discovered her homosexuality, her painful divorce from her husband, his attempted retaliations on her new relationship, her years frequenting clubs and bars with Cat — who was moonlighting as a famous Drag King — the experience of raising her children with a woman in a conservative time, and what the couple does for fun now that their kids are grown and have kids of their own.