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  • Insider Issue 48 all four pages
  • Home
    • About
    • Get Involved
    • What and How
    • About Interviews
    • About Support Documents
    • Archives
    • FAQs
  • Excerpts
    • Quotes >
      • Awakenings
      • Only Ones/Finding Others
      • Language
      • Closet and Coming Out
      • Military
      • Religion
      • This and That
      • Info and resources
      • Marriage and Kids
      • Seeking Help
      • On Loss
    • Voices
    • Profiles >
      • Annalee Stewart
      • Beverly Hickock
      • Jean Mountaingrove
      • Ocie Perry
      • Ruth Silver
      • Ethyl Bronson
      • Marie Mariano
      • Vera Martin
      • Betty Shoemaker
  • Products
    • Newsletter
    • Our Books
    • DVD Our Stories
    • Order
  • Contact
  • A Three Way Ask
  • What OLOHP Women Are Up To
    • Laura Bock
    • Gaye Adegbalola
    • Kathy Prezbindowski
    • Ann Bannon
    • Tret Fure
    • Ruth Debra
    • Lillian Faderman
    • JS&C&M&M
  • Insider Issue 48 all four pages

Quotes on finding information and resources

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Mattie, born 1922

I went to the library and I found the books I wanted to read. And I took these books up and I said I wanted to check these out. "Well, you can't check these out without an interview with the librarian." And she looked up and said, "Oh, but you're a registered nurse!" and checked them out.



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Bev, born 1919

You have to remember, this was years ago. Probably in the thirties. No indication, nothing written, no organizations, no books. Had no idea that there was such a thing as a lesbian.



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Dee, born 1936
I saw this book, The Well of Loneliness, and I said, “Oh, that sounds interesting.” I was ten or twelve, and I remember lying there in that hammock, reading this book, I knew exactly what I was reading. I knew enough not to tell my mother what I was reading. I knew enough not to ask my grandmother where she got the book. I know she didn’t read it, or it would not have been there! From the time I was born, I was called an ‘old soul.’ So, I understood the book. Later, I wondered whether or not I
understood about ‘being different’ because I was always the only black person in classes. Then I decided, “No, I don’t think so.”



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Jo, born 1926

I read a book Cynthia had called Diane. Somebody recommended it, some guy actually.… So that was kind of a Bible in a way. There wasn't much of anything in print. Except The Well of Loneliness. Not helpful.



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Deedy, born 1922

The only book I read was The Well of Loneliness. And so I thought, "Well, even in fiction they can't make it any better." So I thought, "Who would want this?"



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Kittu, born 1919
I realized that in going to my daughter's, I was probably going to meet the lesbians who were helping care for her, and I had not consciously ever met a lesbian before that I can remember. I had been there two or three days, and as I was sitting in the living room talking to some of the women, I looked around and I thought to myself, “Oh my goodness. I’ll bet every woman in this room with me is a lesbian. What do I do?” I was scared. I was afraid of saying the wrong thing, I was afraid of doing the wrong thing. I had no idea what to say. I was just scared. I tell this story because I want people to know that that was my beginning with the lesbians. I felt sorry for lesbians, because I really thought that their lives must be very miserable because they did not fit into society. I really didn’t know whether I could do anything about how they felt. That was my introduction to it.


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Note sent to the OLOHP: What you have done is so important that I think even you don’t understand it. This will have a life of its own and be around way after we are gone. To have thought this up, seen the need, and assumed the effort to get it done is phenomenal. I really do salute you.
TF says: The women that the OLOHP has brought to us have lived remarkable lives, often solitary and private, and we are far richer for knowing these women, their struggles and their passion.
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