The Next Girlfriend: Gwen
One
night in 1973 I was at Pete’s Pub and saw a woman playing pool with her friends. It didn’t appear that any of the women were
her partner, so I decided to introduce myself.
Her name was Gwen. I asked her to
join me where I was sitting with some friends.
I started introducing Gwen and discovered that she was already
acquainted with some of my friends. She had
recently broken up with a partner and was living by herself. It turned out that this woman would become my
first long-term relationship.
Gwen
had a college degree and was gainfully employed in the human resource
department of a local stationary company.
However, I was warned by my friends that she had once tried to kill
herself. Knowing my earlier history with a suicidal girlfriend, they cautioned
me about getting involved. I decided to
get to know her better, so I could make that judgement for myself.
We
started seeing each other. She told me
that her previous partner had left her for another woman. Gwen indicated that she wanted any future relationship
to be monogamous, and she didn’t want to get involved with anyone too quickly. She visited my house and met my roommates, Jo
and Shy. She invited me to her rented house
where we had a drink, dinner, conversation, some kissing, and I went home. She resisted jumping into a physical
relationship. However, it only took a few
weeks until our evenings together were followed by having sex in her bedroom.
During our times of getting to know each
other, I told Gwen about my plans to go back to school and found that she also
wanted to continue her education. She
had the goal of becoming a counseling psychologist. This was the first time that I considered the
future implications before becoming involved with someone.
Since her landlord didn’t allow dogs, Gwen had temporarily left a beautiful Afghan hound named Arnie (short for Nicky Arnstein in Funny Girl) at her ex-girlfriend’s house. I pointed out that my house had a big fenced backyard and an unfinished basement in which Arnie’s kennel pen could be set up. Shortly after, Gwen and Arnie moved in with me, Jo and Shy and, of course, my cats, Tornado, Tyger and Tabu. Afghan Hounds find cats to be like rabbits and squirrels, something to be hunted and killed; Arnie was never left alone with the cats.
Paying Attention to the Wider World
Our
house was now full, with Jo and Shy in one bedroom, Gwen and I in the
other. We all got along as the world was
changing around us. We watched Walter
Cronkite deliver the evening news which was more and more about the civil
rights protests in the U.S. and the body bags coming back from Vietnam. In May 1973, there were televised hearings of
the U.S. Senate Watergate Committee about the burglary and illegal wiretapping
of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee located in the
Watergate complex by members of President Richard Nixon's re-election campaign. This scandal culminated with Nixon’s resignation
in 1974. Gerald Ford became President
since he had replaced Spiro Agnew as Vice President in 1973. Ford’s pardon of Nixon stopped any further
investigation.
I
joined NOW, the National Organization for Women. Betty Friedan, the author of The Feminine
Mystique, was one of the founding members and initially was very
anti-lesbian, warning of the ‘Lavender Menace.’ She later changed her tune, new leadership
asserted itself, and I proudly read NOW’s resolution supporting lesbian rights
to our household. Naiad Books was
founded in Kansas City in 1971 and I was able to purchase good lesbian books. I received my first copy of “Ms. Magazine”
in July 1972. In 1973, a collective of
women founded Olivia Records with the goal of recording lesbian singers. It became the first and longest lasting
woman-owned recording company in U.S. history.
I was not afraid to be a feminist and was now in touch with the national
lesbian community.
Gwen
and I were getting to know each other better on many levels. I soon experienced a different type of sexual
pleasure that Gwen was able to arouse.
In the past, when I rarely attempted clitoral masturbation, it was never
pleasurable for me. The feeling when
digitally aroused via the vagina (the only type of love-making my previous
partners or myself practiced) was indeed positive, and my whole body responded
with a release of fluids. It was a delightful
experience, both from my physical enjoyment and the emotional connection
between the partners. Was it from G spot
stimulation? Was this an organism?
With
the added clitoral arousal Gwen could induce in me, it was like the difference
between seeing a movie in black and white with music in mono sound versus
seeing a movie in color with music in stereo.
It was not an event that happened regularly and, when it did occur, it
took a long time to achieve. Most of the
time, I could experience the buildup, like climbing up a hill that became so
steep it became painful, never reaching the top. I tried not to force it, didn’t let it bother
me if it didn’t happen and just enjoyed it when I reached the top of the hill. Was this an organism? That just wasn’t a word or concept I knew
about at the time. The Joy of Sex
was first published in 1972 and wasn’t commonly available.
Gwen
and I took a trip during the summer before classes started at Johnson County
Community College (JCCC) in the fall of 1973.
We flew to Salt Lake City, rented a car, and drove north through the
Tetons to Yellowstone National Park. We
stayed at the Old Faithful Lodge and enjoyed walking around the geyser
pathways. Next, we drove to Reno, Nevada
where we spent the night. I hated what seemed
to me the exploitation of women on display in the casinos. The next day we
drove to Davis, California to visit my ex, Kaye, the veterinarian. She was taking classes toward a Ph.D. in
Pathology and researching a disease in primates (a type of HIV?). We spent a night with her and Pat. Kaye’s dog, FoFo, was still alive and able to
waddle up and pee in my suitcase as it sat open on the floor. Bad Boy!
Ultimately, Kaye was disappointed in her research, never did finish her
pathology degree, and soon returned to St. Louis. Gwen and I flew back to Kansas City from the
San Francisco airport.
Making Plans
To
reach my goal of becoming a statistical consultant, I had completed the
requirements for my Master’s Degree.
Now, I needed to decide the school and department in which to get my Ph.D. I visited Kansas University (KU) in Lawrence
where statistics was part of the mathematics department and, therefore, quite
theoretical. I discovered during my
visit to the statistics department at Kansas State University (K State) in
Manhattan that faculty members consulted extensively with other departments. The Ph.D. program at K State did not require
an entry exam or taking a foreign language as it did at KU. Since I had earned my Master’s Degree at K
State, it was the easy choice.
I
took the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory to see whether I was making the
correct decision to get a doctorate in statistics. It suggested I also consider Operations
Research (OR) which studies techniques for making optimal decisions, most often
in business or engineering. Therefore, I
also met with the OR faculty in Manhattan.
Finally, I decided I was still most interested in learning how to deal
with the type of variability that arises from the study of living organisms,
not the type that occurs with machines and systems. A degree in statistics that prepared me to
consult with biological scientists was a better fit for me. The mathematics courses I took while getting
my Master’s Degree were also prerequisites to many of the advanced statistics
courses, which shortened the amount of time I would need to spend in
school. It confirmed that my earlier decision
to get my Master’s degree in mathematics had been the correct one.
Jo
and Shy agreed to rent the house in Merriam while I went to school, and I left
the motorcycle for them to use. I didn’t
sell the house, hoping that after graduating I could return to Kansas City, my
home for over ten years. I even entertained
the thought that I might be able to return to the Biometry Department at the KU
Medical Center, not thinking about the fact that Dr. Hassanein was still
there. I just knew that consulting with research
scientists was my ultimate goal.
Back in School
In
June 1974, Gwen and I moved to Chapman with my organ, three cats, Tornado,
Tyger, and Tabu, and Gwen’s dog, Arnie. I
connected with some people from Abilene who picked me up on their commute to
Manhattan every morning. On the way, we
listened to a radio commentator new to most of us, Ronald Reagan. On the nights that Gwen took a night class in
Manhattan, I stayed late and drove back to Chapman with her.
I
was very lucky to be assigned an office with Paulette, a woman who was one year
ahead of me. She was born in Minnesota
and grew up being averse to cold weather. She went far south to New Mexico State
University at Las Cruces to get her Master’s degree in Statistics. I was several years older since I didn’t go
directly from my B.A. and M.S. to a Ph.D. as she did. She was very supportive and shared all her
notes and homework from her classes. She
dressed in the hippie tradition and loved marijuana. After Paulette came back from her first job
interview in Miami, she told me that when she was offered a marijuana cigarette
on the way from the airport to the university, she knew she would like to have the
job there. She accepted their job offer
and lived the rest of her life in Miami.
I
had worried I would have a difficult time competing with my younger classmates
who had recently completed their mathematical and statistical course work. However, I found that my maturity, persistence
and hard work could make up for any difference in our ages. Also, it hadn’t been that long ago that I had
reviewed my Master’s degree coursework for my orals.
I
started classes in the summer semester of 1974.
I met Ivanka, an older woman from Yugoslavia, and we became friends. She often invited me to dinner at her
apartment on a night when Gwen was taking me back to Chapman. She was a very good cook and gave me the
recipes for several of her country’s dishes.
She told me many stories about what it was like to work in a communist
country. Ivanka had a strong personality
and was very proud of herself. Her
parents were physicians, and she must have led a privileged life in Yugoslavia.
A year later, Ivanka went home on a school
break and was diagnosed with breast cancer. She would not agree to the surgery that was
recommended and died without returning to the U.S.
My
work assignment the first semester was teaching a statistics class for business
students. However, my background in the
computer area became known to the rest of the faculty, and I was approached by Dr.
Feyerherm who had a grant from the Department of Agriculture involving the
prediction of winter wheat yields using weather data. Kansas grows a lot of winter wheat. The statistical regression models he
experimented with required extensive Fortran programming and knowledge of how
to process the crop yield and weather data that were stored on magnetic tape;
these were skills I possessed. He
requested that I be assigned to work with him the next two years. My teaching assistantship was converted to a
research assistantship. After he hired
two male students which I supervised, my position was upgraded to the level of a
part-time staff person; he increased my salary to reflect my skill level and
responsibilities. I thoroughly enjoyed
the work.
Personal Growth
I still had time for my courses and personal
life. Unlike teaching where there was
always homework to grade or lectures to prepare, my job was done when I left
campus. Since I was on a schedule with
my commuting group, I was almost always back home in Chapman by a set time. Of course, I had a lot of homework, but the files
Paulette gave me helped me understand and finish it quickly.
That
left time to follow the tremendous growth in the feminist and lesbian movements
that were afoot. Answering an ad in Ms.
Magazine, I subscribed to the Lesbian Connection. It was on plain paper, mainly consisting of
personal ads by individuals or couples letting others know how to contact them. In the mid-1970s, this was important, as
there were few ways for lesbians to discover other lesbians living near them. I had time for personal growth through reading
a variety of sources. I started
subscriptions to magazines such as Discover, Psychology Today as
well as The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Isaac
Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. I
found I could make time to read articles or short stories in magazines, whereas
books required larger blocks of time.
There
was also the growing self-help movement.
I enrolled Gwen and I in Transcendental Meditation training, and we
received our “personal” mantras. We sat
on the living room sofa and meditated each morning, a practice I thoroughly
enjoyed but didn’t continue long after graduating. I read the book Man's Search for Meaning
by Viktor Frankl, which built on the message of positive thinking first
instilled in me in the 1950s by the Bishop Sheen TV show and the book by Norman
Vincent Peal, The Power of Positive Thinking. I joined the Science Fiction Book Club and
began purchasing one or two books a month including Erich von
Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods?. Von Däniken described how earlier alien visits
greatly influenced subsequent cultures on this planet; his theories were met
with much skepticism. Even so, this book
reinforced my interest in planetary science that was first stimulated when my
father and I stood in our driveway in 1957 to watch Sputnik 1, the first
artificial satellite to circle our globe.
Gwen
and I were able to go into Kansas City on weekends as our schedules allowed. We visited with our old roommates and other
friends and went to the women’s concerts.
Lesbian records were starting to be released and I bought them through
the mail (no internet yet). In 1974,
Alex Dobkin recorded the album Lavandar Jane Loves Women, and Olivia
Records released their first full-length record, Meg Christian’s I Know You
Know. The latter album included
songs like “Sweet Darling Woman” and “Ode to a Gym Teacher.” Then, in 1975, came their most famous
recording, Chris Williamson’s The Changer and the Changed. It included songs like “Sweet Woman” and
“Sister.” On the K State campus, we were
able to attend a concert by Helen Reddy where she sang her feminist anthem “I
Am Woman.”
Learning to be a Professional
I
followed Paulette’s advice and asked Dr. Milliken, the same faculty member she was
working with on her dissertation, to be my adviser. He was not much older than me. I think he agreed to my request because he
knew I could do the computer programming required for his own research topic, “Segmented
Line Models.” The Fortran programs I
wrote used the same type of iterative process I used at the KU Medical Center for
Dr. Hassanein. In one of my recent classes,
I learned the mathematical theory behind these iterative techniques. I felt proud that I developed the basic
approach by myself before taking this class.
My
adviser was very good about introducing the graduate students to the
professional community of statisticians.
We were instructed to begin student membership in the American
Statistical Association (ASA). I
attended my first annual meeting with Gwen in August of 1975, held in the
Peachtree Center of Atlanta, GA. This is
where I first encountered and became a member of the Caucus for Women in
Statistics. I immediately was impressed
with the attitudes of both friendliness and competence that the members exhibited.
A
paper I submitted to the 1976 ASA meeting in Boston was published in the
proceedings of the section on computer science education. While Gwen and I were there for the meeting,
we attended an outdoor concert by Arlo Guthrie and heard him sing his famous
anti-war song “Alice’s Restaurant.” We
then went to Provincetown and stayed in a lesbian B&B while exploring the gay-friendly
city. The lobster meals were a star
attraction as well as a show on the island by Odetta. I had been listening to her records for many
years.
On
the national front, Jimmy Carter was elected President in November 1976. The first thing he did after being
inaugurated in January 1977 was to issue a pardon for all the Vietnam War draft
resisters.
Gwen
was progressing in her coursework in the Psychology Department, and we were
always kept busy grooming her dog. A
woman found out that Gwen had a certified Afghan hound and asked if she would
breed Arnie with her female Afghan. This
very friendly female stayed in our home during the process so she and Arnie
could get to know each other. When it
was time, we took both of them to the basement.
I discovered that dogs sometimes needed a little human guidance in order
to accomplish the task. Who would think?
I contracted to have a stairwell cut through the floor of the foyer to the basement so we didn’t have to go around through the driveway. The wind that whipped across the plains of western Kansas meant there was always a strong breeze. Gwen developed adult asthma as a result of the wind blowing up so much crop residue. If there was rain in Chapman, it always seemed like it was a storm with strong winds. The water ran down the backyard and filled up the window wells. From there, the water spilled into the basement, causing a muddy cleanup job the next day. For the first time in my life, I started to dread the sound of rain. We planted hundreds of zoysia grass plugs in the backyard, hoping that it would grow and slow down the water headed for the window wells. The cats occasionally enjoyed going out to prowl around in it. When Tornado died, I dug a grave below a tree in the backyard and imagined her laying there enjoying the shade.
My Next Job
In
the spring of 1977, I finished my courses, passed my orals and was completing
my dissertation. I needed to find a job. Although I had hoped to be back in Kansas
City, that was not to be. My one and
only job interview was at the University of Missouri in Columbia (UMC). When I was younger, I never considered being
on the faculty of a university, but this was an unusual position. The title was Assistant Agriculture Extension
Statistician, with joint appointments in the departments of Statistics (in the
College of Arts and Sciences) and Agronomy (in the Agriculture College). My work on the crop yield models provided the
pathway. It was a tenure-track faculty
position that required teaching statistics to juniors and seniors and
consulting with faculty, not independent research.
Helping
me secure the interview was the fact that the man I would be working for, Dr. Gary
Krause, also graduated from K State. I
met with the faculty in both departments, and Gwen and I ate dinner with Dr.
Krause and his wife. He then drove us to
our motel where we sat in the parking lot having a discussion about the position
and the salary. Dr. Krause’s initial
offer was low; I can safely say that his wife greatly influenced the better offer
that he finally made. They had two
daughters, and she clearly knew the difficulties women encountered in order to
be paid adequately for their work. I was
surprised that she spoke up and advocated on my behalf.
While
we were in Columbia, Gwen was investigating the course of study she could follow
to complete her Master’s degree and then a Ph.D. program that would allow her
to become a counseling psychologist. She
made some good contacts in the Department of Child and Family Development and
felt that UMC worked for her as well.
We
were shown houses by a real estate agent, and I spied a house that interested
me with a For Sale by Owner sign in the front yard. We later drove back, got the phone number,
arranged a tour with the graduating veterinary-student owner and made a verbal
offer on the house. It had 3 bedrooms, 1
½ bathrooms, and an unfinished walkout basement. Having only 1,030 square feet, it was smaller
than the Chapman house. I felt
comfortable buying the house from the owner, as I also bought my first house directly
from the owner. I planned on selling the
Chapman house myself.
After a long delay, the official letter with my job offer arrived in Chapman, so I could send the written confirmation of my offer for the house in Columbia. However, my dissertation advisor decided he wanted additional revisions. This meant that even though I finished those revisions by the end of the semester, because of the delay in meeting the deadline for submission of the dissertation, my degree would not actually be awarded until December 1977. In 1977, there were no Personal Computers with word processing software. It was an arduous procedure for the department secretaries to re-type all the pages from the revisions to the end of the paper, including all the mathematical formulas. It wasn’t a quick process.
Selling our Chapman Home
I
needed to sell our home in Chapman. I
targeted the soldiers at nearby Ft. Riley who could qualify for an affordable
GI loan. However, I found that this type
of loan required me to have a certification by the manufacturer of the mobile
home which I didn’t have since I wasn’t the original buyer. It took many phone calls to discover where I
could locate the serial number for the certificate, but I persisted until I found
it. A soldier who wanted a place off
base to live with his girlfriend answered my ad. Meanwhile, Gwen was completing an intern
requirement for a psychology class at a mental health clinic on Ft. Riley where
she met Vicky, a female army soldier.
Vicky invited Gwen and I to a women’s softball game the next
weekend. We went to the game, and figured
out that most, if not all the team members, were lesbians.
We invited Vicky to visit us in Chapman, and we started partying. Just when we were all three sheets to the wind, and were playing loud lesbian music, the soldier and his girlfriend knocked on the door and wanted a tour of our home. We just pretended everything was normal and showed them around, not even stopping the music. If he had a problem with the music and party, he didn’t say and agreed to buy the home. I was already in Columbia on the day he was scheduled to close on our home when he called and said that he didn’t have $500 for the closing cost. I wasn’t going to let that amount stop the sale from going through. I wired him the money, he closed on his mortgage and I received the purchase price. I didn’t ask him to pay me back $500. It’s just what it took to finish the deal, and I enjoyed making that deal.
A Rocky Beginning
In
August 1977, the first day on my new job turned out to be predictive of the
next three years. When I showed up and
told the receptionist who I was, she told my boss I was there, but he was too
busy to even get up and say hello. While
an instructor in the Data Processing Career program at Johnson County Community
College, I took a newsletter that advised how to be a good employee. One suggestion was that if you were in a
situation with nothing to do, you should look around and think about something
your boss would like you to accomplish. While
sitting there with nothing to do and knowing that I would be using the campus
computing center, I asked the secretary if there was information about it that
she could give me, and I started reading.
My initiative was not rewarded. When
my boss finally showed his face, he criticized me for failing to wait for him
to tell me what to do. Also, when he
found out my degree wasn’t being granted until the end of the fall semester, he
accused me of taking the job under false pretenses.
That
August, as part of a College of Agriculture grant to train people from
underdeveloped countries who worked in their government’s agriculture
departments, Dr. Krause taught some classes in basic statistics. The group of about six were from South Asia,
Africa, and South/Central America, and my job was to help the students with any
problems they encountered with the material or their stay in Columbia. When I told a South Asian woman that I wasn’t
married, she exclaimed: “You are free!
How lucky you are.” The behavior
of a young man from Central America who I invited to Sunday dinner at my house
was different. I offered him something
to drink, and he proceeded to consume enough rum to soon make a pass at me.
Meeting New Friends
We
met our first lesbians in Columbia through an ad in Lesbian Connection. We met the couple at Fish and Friends, a
downtown restaurant near Stephens College, and they invited us to a party at
their house. We met several lesbians at
this party who, over the years, we saw again around Columbia. Some were lawyers, some were nurses or held
positions at colleges in the area. One of
the women was quite charismatic, but I finally found I had no desire to “cheat”
on my partner. I later had the same
experience with Vicky, the woman in charge of the MU campus Women’s Center who
was similarly charismatic. I just
enjoyed looking from afar and found that, with repeated exposure, the charismatic
attractions diminished to zero. I felt
like I had either grown up, my shell had hardened, or I had found a partner
that I had no desire to cheat on.
I was very happy to be meeting professional lesbian women at these house parties. This was so different from my previous experience of only meeting lesbians at a bar or on a sports team. Even though Missouri was a conservative state, Columbia appeared to be a liberal oasis. We all were still not “out” in public, but it was definitely possible to form a network of acquaintances by word of mouth.
How I Taught Statistics
I
loved both the teaching and consulting portions of my job. This was before the time of onerous visa
restrictions, so my classes had a number of foreign students, including some
from Saudi Arabia and Iran. The introductory
statistics class was supposed to be at the upper-class level that presumed a certain
proficiency with math and algebra.
However, I wanted to make sure there would not be a problem with the
formulas and calculations covered in this class. After all, these were mainly agriculture or biology-oriented
students, not math students. I wrote a
mathematics pre-test for each student to take the first day of class. It was not too complicated and included some math
questions in English, rather than numbers to make sure language was not an
issue. I graded the tests and returned
them during the next class. I asked
students whose scores were below a certain level to meet with me in my office
that afternoon where I told them they would almost certainly flunk the class if
they didn’t take a lower-level math class first. This procedure effectively cleared out the students
doomed to fail.
I
had learned a lot about teaching while at Johnson County Community
College. I gave a 10-minute quiz at the
end of each Friday’s lecture to encourage the students to keep up. It was an open book quiz, but the students
were supposed to work independently. That
took constant surveillance, particularly with the males who wore baseball hats
with the bills in front hiding their eyes.
I also assigned written homework with problems for which I required
written conclusions as well as numerical results. All of this meant that I had a lot of grading
to do, and it usually had to be done at night or on weekends.
I
followed the assigned textbook, but in the first semester I didn’t succeed in
covering the last topic before the end of the semester. I told the students that the next statistics
course they took assumed they knew that topic and scheduled an extra meeting
after the regular class schedule to cover the material. Almost all of the students attended. I think they respected me. However, my boss roundly criticized me as he
saw this as evidence of my inadequacy for the job.
I
was assigned a Master’s student in Statistics, Chao-Min from Taiwan, to assist
with the consulting portion of my job.
After she graduated from UMC, she worked for a Missouri state agency
which helped her get a green card, and then a job in the pharmaceutical
industry, eventually becoming a naturalized United States citizen. She is still
a friend of mine, and I have visited her often.
In
the bottom row of the picture above, I am fourth from the right and Chao-Min is second from the
right.
There
were two young women who worked in the key punch department, Sherry and
Robbie. I could tell that both could do
much better and encouraged them to return to school. They took my statistics class, did well, and
then went on to other studies. One became
a lawyer and the other a teaching professor at the University. Within a few years, they both also
acknowledged they were lesbians.
As
well as consulting with different departments in the College of Agriculture
including Home Economics and Dietetics, as part of my job, I could also consult
with organizations outside the University for extra pay. During my first year my boss referred me to the
Fish Pesticide Research Laboratory within the Fish and Wildlife Service (now called
the U.S. Geological Survey within the Dept. of Interior). I mainly worked with Terry Boyle, who studied
the effect of pollutants on the fish living in the several fish ponds constructed
for that purpose. We had a very good
working and personal relationship.
Death in the Family
In
July 1978, after my first year in Columbia, my brother-in-law, Jon, died
suddenly from a heart attack while out running.
Later, it was found that, like him, three of his four children had a
genetic defect that made it difficult to process fat, leading to high
cholesterol levels. My parents drove
from Wichita to Columbia, picked me up and we proceeded to my sister Earlene’s
residence north of Princeton, New Jersey.
Her four children ranged in age from eight to eighteen. Jon and Earlene had a wide circle of
support. I met a tremendous number of friends
and colleagues who attended the service and came by her house.
Earlene
suddenly became the sole provider for her family. She was working full-time with special
education children at the local schools.
She felt that the problems these students faced were often psychological
and that they should be addressed in a more systematic method. She had already applied for and been accepted
at Rutgers to get a Master’s Degree in Social Work the next fall. After thoughtful consideration, she decided
to go ahead with those plans.
In August 1978, Gwen and I took a long road trip. We first went to the Northwest stopping in Pullman, Washington, where we visited a woman Gwen knew and I had previously met. These were always difficult situations because Gwen didn’t disclose with me the identity of the women she counseled, but I don’t think her clients completely believed that to be the case. This woman told me that Gwen had counseled her, speaking as if she assumed I already knew. I didn’t, and it was an uncomfortable moment. This was a point of tension in our relationship, as I could talk freely about my work, but Gwen had not found a way to talk about hers.
The picture below shows Gwen and I in a garden during our visit to Pullman, Washington.
We
continued our drive down the coast of Washington, Oregon, and California. stopping
in Los Angeles where we visited movie studios and visited Jane, my old friend
from KU. She asked us to her house for a
bar-b-q with liberal amounts of wine.
Her husband was very comfortable with Gwen and me, and we had such a
good time that she invited us back for a second night of food and lodging at
her house. We checked out of our hotel,
but when we arrived at her house the next evening, she met me at the door and gave
her apologies saying something had come up, never mentioned the offer of spending
the night and said they could not host us.
There we were without a place to stay and had to quickly find lodging. I felt betrayed by my friend. The next morning, we continued down the coast
to San Diego for the annual ASA meeting where I planned to meet my office mate,
Paulette, and attend the Caucus for Women in Statistics meeting. We then drove back to Columbia, stopping one
night in Phoenix, where, in August, the cold-water faucet provided only warm
water.
Back
in Columbia, I attended a faculty reception for Dr. Barbara Uehling who, when
named MU Chancellor in 1978, became the nation's first female leader of a land
grant institution. I introduced myself
as a fellow Wichitan, since we were both born in Wichita, Kansas. She just remarked that she had never heard it
described that way.
Stephens College Connection
I
was soon contacted by Stephens Women’s College.
The head of their Mathematics Department, Dr. Charles Stuth, hired me to
teach a statistics class in the evening, which allowed me to learn more about
that college. I was asked to attend
their math honor society meeting, Hypatia Hexagon, named after the first female
mathematician. I believe I served as a
positive role model for their students.
Stephens College won a FIPSE (Fund for the Improvement in Post-Secondary Education) grant to study math anxiety in their students. Math anxiety was a popular topic following the publication of the book by Sheila Tobias in 1978, Overcoming Math Anxiety. In my second year at UMC, Stephens College hired me to design an evaluation method for their program.
I
spoke with Dr. Wayne Anderson, a professor in the Psychology Department, about
starting a math anxiety program at UMC. We
actually held some sessions co-led by graduate students from psychology and
math education. I prepared a grant
proposal to grow and fund this project.
It was reviewed positively by the College of Agriculture administrative
staff. On a Friday afternoon, I was
asked by the Vice-chair of the College to come talk about it. My boss had already left for the weekend, a
usual occurrence with him, so he did not know about the meeting until the
following Monday. When he heard about
it, he blew up. He did not believe that
math anxiety existed and put a kibosh on the grant proceeding. I did continue with the Psychology Department,
and we had a few more classes led by grad students. The attendees really appreciated the sessions,
but the project soon withered with no long-term University support.
Although the project ended, I did make some good friends. For many years Sandi Athanasiou, who participated as a math educator, invited Gwen and I for New Year’s with her Lebanese cuisine. Sheila Tobias was asked to host a conference in Kansas City where she booked me in a room with a woman who taught math at a community college in St. Louis. The woman turned out to be an out lesbian who chided me about my careful phone call to Gwen that night. I was very afraid of my boss finding any firm grounds on which to dismiss me. Being gay/lesbian in those days could bring charges of moral turpitude.
My Job Lacked Something
It
made me sad that I could not identify anyone at UMC to act as my mentor. Between my boss and the faculty in the
statistics department, I had hoped that one of them would agree to work with me
as a colleague. I tried to engage my
boss or faculty members who did consulting in the statistics department by discussing
one of my projects and asking whether they thought I had considered the best
statistical approach. They always just
politely agreed with me. I couldn’t even
arouse a good discussion. I started to
think my ideas must have been correct and, perhaps, I just needed more
confidence. I did make some good friends
among those with whom I consulted, particularly Dr. Jack Jones from the area of
fisheries and wildlife.
During
the mid-to-late 1970s Willow Productions in Kansas City and Red Tomatoe
Productions in St. Louis started featuring concerts by Olivia Records
entertainers and other singers. Gwen and
I drove into Kansas City to visit our old friends and to attend these lesbian/feminist
concerts. We saw Chris Williamson with
her long brown hair at the Folly theater, singing her songs as she played a large
grand piano. It was always an amazing
experience to be in an audience of hundreds of lesbians all singing along to the
chorus of the song “Sister,” Lean on me, I am your sister, Believe on me, I am
your friend. In 1978 Holly Near released her album Imagine
My Surprise. Since it was a stop
along the road between these two cities, the artists sometimes stopped in
Columbia for a performance. Gwen and I
continued to enjoy lesbian music together.
In
March 1979, the country was startled to hear about a partial meltdown of a
Nuclear Reactor at Three Mile Island near Middletown, PA. There were five tense days before it was
contained. Although a small amount of
radioactive gas was released, there were no deaths or adverse health
effects. The accident caused greater
regulatory oversight of the nuclear industry.
In the spring, my sister made her first visit to Columbia. I was invited to an afternoon party at Dr. Jones house near my home. As my sister and I walked to the party, I talked about the problems I was having with my boss. She advised me to approach him in a female way, giving him my rapt attention and being in need of his ability to advise me. It was an acting role I knew I would never be able to perform.
Don’t Mess with Me
Even
though my contract was for three years at which time I would, or would not, be
offered tenure, my boss tried to terminate me after two years. This was despite two years of positive
student evaluations, and favorable comments by the faculty members with whom I
had been consulting. He had another
thing coming, though. In fact, I had
already consulted with Betty Wilson, a lawyer in Columbia who had advised me to
keep a journal of his treatment of me. I
was seeing what a snake pit university life was like and really didn’t want any
part of it. However, I did want to exit
on my terms, not his. He went to the
College of Agriculture administration and made his case to terminate me after
two years. I went and made my case. I told them that Dr. Krause did not support
me in any way, and further, from what he seemed to expect of the position, it
only merited a Master’s degree. Of
course, when he was called back and informed that they would allow me the third
year, he was even angrier. I didn’t
care. I knew I had gotten what I wanted,
a year in which to figure out my next career step and Gwen could complete her course
work.
Knowing I had another year’s employment, I could relax a while before figuring out my next move. In the summer of 1979, Gwen was still focused on her classes. In August Gwen and I flew to Washington, D.C. for the ASA annual conference. While there we enjoyed visiting the sights and having dinner with the women in the Caucus for Women in Statistics.
Last Year at the University
During
my last year at UMC I continued to teach the same class and consult with
faculty, as well as with the Fisheries Lab and Stephens College. I attended meetings at the UMC Women’s Center
and their programs featuring discussions by faculty and students. Gwen facilitated a group on assertiveness
training. One of the younger attendees,
Ellen, said she wanted to get to know a lesbian couple better (she was curious).
Gwen asked her to visit us at our
house. She soon became a frequent
visitor and has remained my good friend to this day.
I
had left Kansas City, finished my doctorate, and gained some good experience
consulting at UMC. I had worked in the
corporate world with IBM and United Computing, worked in academia at K State,
Johnson County Community College, and the University of Missouri-Columbia. I found they all had common aspects. They were top-down bureaucracies not always
having the best administrators, which resulted in wasteful practices. The “Peter Principal” ruled. It describes a tendency in most organizational
hierarchies for employees to rise through promotion until they reach a level of
incompetence. Little did I know that my
next position was going to be with a department of the federal government. How would I feel about working for the
biggest bureaucracy of them all?
In
the spring of 1980, during my third year at UMC, I was able to find another job
in Columbia, so we wouldn’t have to move and Gwen could complete her degree. Just as I was needing to find a new job, I
heard about a federal program coming to Columbia, AgRISTARS
(Agriculture and Resources Inventory Surveys Through Aerospace Remote
Sensing). (Doesn’t the government come
up with great acronyms?) In the spring
before my position at the University ended, I was interviewed and offered a
position as a mathematical statistician with the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA). The other two AgRISTARS Departments
were NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) for the weather
data specialists and NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) for
the satellite data specialists.
The
United States was still in the cold war with Russia and, theoretically, our
research could lead to the prediction of wheat yields in Russia (including
Ukraine). The availability of wheat can
have a great influence on the commodity markets and the stability of countries
who rely on a steady supply. Also, in
the event of a military conflict, a good supply of wheat would be important.
To my right, with the beard, is my boss, Wendell Wilson.
Starting a New Job and Business
In
June 1980, I drove my mother from Wichita, Kansas to Spearman, Texas for her
50th high school reunion. We drove
through western Kansas and the Oklahoma panhandle with the windshield
obstructed by a dust storm that must have been like many during the 1930s Dust
Bowl. I started my new job when I got back
to Columbia. I hadn’t known what a
mathematical statistician was expected to do.
It sounded theoretical. However,
once I started work, I discovered I would be doing applied statistics that
involved a lot of SAS language programming which I loved. I was able to attend the August meeting of
the American Statistical Association in Houston (August 11-14). The city was all boarded up as Hurricane
Allen had hit southern Texas on August 10.
The two papers I helped present concerned past work, one with my
dissertation advisor and the other with a UMC faculty member with whom I had
consulted.
In
October our army friend Vicky made the long drive from Ft. Hood, Texas to visit
us so she could make her final decision about whether to move to Columbia when
she was discharged. She stayed at our
house, and I overheard enough of a conversation to figure out there was a
surprise party being planned for my 40th birthday on October 7. Gwen was being her typical thoughtful self,
planning a party for me. She rented a
racquetball club for the evening and invited many of our friends, including
some from Kansas City. Even though the
event didn’t surprise me (I acted like it did), I had a lot of fun playing
volleyball and racquetball, then relaxing in a hot tub. There was plenty of food and liquor.
Knowing
that I had the security of a good job, I decided to spend the money to add a
living space of about 780 square feet to our unfinished basement. We built a small kitchen under the stairs
with a dining table that could also function as a place to meet with my future clients.
We furnished the living room with a sofa
and recliner. Across from the sofa, there
were built-in bookcases and space for a TV.
We added a wood stove for heat in the winter. An office/bedroom and a finished bathroom
with a shower completed the addition. We
immediately spent most of our evenings down there. There was a sliding door to
the fenced back yard for Arnie and the occasional cat outing, as well as a
crate with a top for Arnie’s grooming, a weekly chore. I was taking more responsibility for Arnie,
as Gwen’s asthma made it difficult for her to walk the dog during bad or cold
weather. And we did have cold winters. One winter, Tyger died. The ground was so frozen that the only place
I could dig her grave was under the exhaust from the clothes dryer in the front
0f the house. Tabu was the only cat
left. She and I were very close.
I
enjoyed my consulting at the university so much that I did not want to leave it
behind. I was told during my USDA
interview that I could continue consulting with students and faculty as long as
it did not constitute a conflict of interest. I decided to take the plunge and start my own
business. Two factors made that a
comfortable thing to do. One factor was
that having a full-time job meant that I would be able to try it on a part-time
basis; if I didn’t like it or if I failed, I was not in financial
jeopardy. The second factor was the
confidence I felt from having a family background of entrepreneurs and the
knowledge it gave me of how a small business operates. Once informed about the lack of conflict with
my full-time employer and how much I wanted to continue consulting, my mother
and father also provided their emotional support.
I
had fun naming my new business. I wanted
it to be descriptive of the services it offered but also reflect my feminism in
some way. Gwen and I sat at the kitchen
table and brainstormed the possibilities.
I finally decided on SIS for Sebaugh’s Information Services. The SIS was for the “sis” in sisters and the
word Information came from knowing that treating raw data properly transforms
it into information.
Even
though I wasn’t consulting with scientists, I enjoyed my new USDA job; my
salary was higher and the work week was only 40 hours long, no more evening or
weekend work to take home. The first
thing I did was complete the signed document giving me permission to consult
with students and faculty at the University.
My USDA hours started at 7 a.m., I ate lunch at my desk, and after 3
p.m., I left to conduct SIS business.
AgRISTARS was located in the old federal building on Cherry St. in downtown Columbia (now owned by Columbia College). I was in a large 2nd floor corner room with windows on two sides. I shared it with a Master’s degree level statistician, a Ph.D. Ag. Economist and a Russian agricultural expert. I had an IBM PC at my desk by which I could connect to the UMC academic computer for developing my regression models using SAS. My boss monitored agreements with the UMC statistics department. My duties included the development of statistical models to predict crop yields for geographic locations using the existing historic yield data from USDA and closest weather station data available from NOAA. My experience working on the winter wheat yield model with Dr. Feyerherm at K State was very helpful. After I finalized the best model for a crop, I next developed methods for assessing the accuracy of the crop yield predictions it produced.
Wendell,
my boss, was very generous with ideas and editing. What a pleasant change! I wrote my reports in pencil on yellow
tablets for the secretaries to word process on their own PCs. USDA published the reports, and my boss
arranged sessions about them at the annual ASA conferences. Gwen and I attended them in Detroit in 1981,
Cincinnati in 1982, Toronto in 1983, and Philadelphia in 1984. We enjoyed touring each city and meeting with
the women in the Women’s Caucus at each conference. Eventually I served as treasurer of the
Caucus.
One
year I was required to help with the annual survey of Missouri farmers’
practices at the local Agriculture office.
The purpose was to learn about the type of data that were gathered which
might be useful in our models. As part
of this training, I visited fields of several crops to learn the names of the
important parts of the plants at various stages of development. I was sent to New Orleans to attend a team building
exercise with other new Agriculture Department employees. No surprise, I was the only woman and only Ph.D.
in the group. After the first afternoon,
I knew I would never be able to be a good team member with these men. After class, we all went out on the balcony
overlooking Bourbon Street. My
classmates were throwing quarters to the women parading down the street with
bared breasts. The men looked at the
women’s breasts and then glanced at me.
What were they expecting? I was
very embarrassed and soon left. I
definitely was not part of their team.
Gwen
was still taking classes and figuring out how she could enroll in the
internship courses required by the state for licensure as a psychological
counselor. Our relationship was always
up and down. Gwen wanted a greater
emotional involvement than I seemed able to provide. She complained that I was not giving her
enough of my true self, I tried to offer more, and inevitably did not succeed
to her satisfaction. I was surprised
that once I got so angry with her demands that I slapped her out of
frustration. I couldn’t believe it and
neither could Gwen. She quickly informed
me that it better not happen again, and it didn’t.
In
1982, I decided to return the birthday favor and have a party for Gwen’s
40th. We had a wonderful party in our
new downstairs living space. Vicky was
here to join in, even trying to give me a kiss on the stairs, which I
dodged. It reminded me of one of the
parties Gwen and I attended when we first moved to Columbia. I was sitting next to a woman who was
obviously high and she suddenly leaned over and gave me a big smooch on the
lips. What gets into people?
We stopped socializing with some of these women after one party during which I could tell something was going on that we weren’t supposed to know about. Some of the women disappeared upstairs and came back high. They didn’t smell like they had been smoking so I could only conclude they were snorting cocaine. I didn’t want to have anything to do with hard drugs. Why? I had learned about all the people who get hurt along the path from cultivation/production to end users. If drug use couldn’t be legalized, then I wanted nothing to do with it.
I Finally Leave the Republicans
There was an event in 1982 that motivated me to become more interested in politics. I started work for USDA before the November 1980 presidential election. I conferred with my new boss about how the USDA fared under Jimmy Carter. He was very negative about Carter, and I naively voted for Ronald Reagan. However, in 1982, Reagan ordered a full-fledged U.S. embassy in the Vatican. It made me angry because I felt that policy gave the Vatican equal status as a foreign country. Since grade school, I strongly believed in the separation of church and state. I did not vote for Reagan again and rarely any other Republican as I had in the past.
Investing in My Future
Our
house payments were small, and my salary was high. I began paying more attention to my
investments. I had started investing
more than ten years earlier when a Waddell and Reed salesperson enrolled me in
a systematic investment plan to buy their mutual funds. However, as I learned more about mutual
funds, I realized these were load funds with healthy commissions; therefore, I
sold them and made other investments. Now, since I was becoming even more
knowledgeable, I started a subscription to the Wall Street Journal and became a
lifetime member of the American Association of Individual Investors
(AAII). My portfolio grew in size and
worth.
I made regular visits to Wichita. Both parents were avid investors in the stock market. Individually, they reviewed their holdings with me, recommending various companies. My mother was getting involved in dividend reinvestment programs with her stock holdings. My father recommended brokers, money market funds, and stocks, as well as general principals. For example, he recommended against IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) or investments based only on tax policies as Congress can change those policies quickly. My father also gave me a framed copy of a saying that fit right in with my being a statistician and skeptic: “Read and Listen, not to contradict, nor to believe, but to weigh and consider. Author Unknown.” Statisticians do not use words like always or never, believing that probabilities of one (certainty) or zero (impossible) don’t really occur. One should consider the options in-between even if they are very close to certain or impossible.
Columbia’s Women Step Forward
I
and many other women I knew who lived in Columbia during the 1970s and 80s
consider those years to have been magical ones.
Women started and/or administered many new organizations: The Women’s
Center and Women Studies at UMC, KOPN community radio, the Abuse Assault Rape
Crisis Center (AARCC), McCambridge Center, and the Women’s Network.
The
Women’s Center first opened in 1975.
There were weekly discussions by faculty and graduate students. Internships and work-study positions were
available. Students could attend groups
such as assertiveness training or financial planning. There were lots of lesbians hanging out
there. They used the library room to
play women’s music and browse feminist/lesbian books. The first class in Women Studies was taught
in 1971 at UMC, and formal program status occurred in 1980.
KOPN
was licensed as a non-profit, educational radio station in 1973. In 1977, women volunteers from KOPN took over
the airwaves for 24 hours in conjunction with the United Nations’ recognition
of International Women’s Day. In future
years, KOPN expanded women’s programming to an entire weekend during March. The Crystal Set Feminists spun off a number of
programs, like Moon of Artemis, the Women’s Health Collective, and
Womenergy. The women’s weekends hosted
open houses at the station and concerts featuring many local women musicians. During this time, many national
feminist/lesbian singers also appeared in Columbia: Chris Williamson, Holly
Near, Meg Christian, later Chris with Tret Fure.
McCambridge
Center was named for Mercedes McCambridge, the famous actress who was a
recovering alcoholic. It was started in
the early 1970s, moved to a Walnut Street location and then to a Rogers and 8th
Street location in 1978. After that, it
helped with the hotline and housed women who contacted the Abuse Assault Rape
Crisis Center (AARCC) although the primary mission was always helping women
with substance abuse problems. In 1988,
McCambridge moved to North College Ave, and then moved to its current location
on Garth Street in 1991.
In
the early-to-mid 1970s, the AARCC started as a grass root organization by
female students at MU and supported by faculty and women in the community. They conducted training for women who
volunteered to answer calls that came in on a hotline. As the demand grew, more structure was
needed. In the early 1980s, the AARCC
briefly shared space with McCambridge Center.
Then a city bid for services was granted to an organization started by
another UMC student. It was named The
Shelter and administered through Comprehensive Human Services. In July 2010, it was given its current name,
True North, and its own administrative staff with more diverse funding sources.
The Women’s Network of the Columbia Chamber of Commerce was started in 1981. It provided an opportunity for Columbia business and professional women to meet other women like themselves and to take on leadership roles that the male-dominated Chamber of Commerce didn’t make possible.
Time to Participate in the Community and
Relax
I
visited the Women’s Center at the University and attended KOPN open houses and
women’s weekend concerts. After one of
them, many of us went to a bar in Northeast Columbia where we played pool and
danced. That was the only time Gwen and I
ever ventured into a gay bar in Columbia because of my concerns while employed
by the University. I attended some
training classes and then volunteered at the Rogers and 8th Street location of
the McCambridge Center, where I also had some exposure to the AARCC.
I was a member of the Columbia Chamber of
Commerce and Women’s Network starting in 1985.
I contributed to the local Planned Parenthood affiliate and attended its
events. Gwen served on their Board of
Directors, but refused to ask the Executive Director, Diane Booth, to dinner at
our house, saying that would be mixing professional with personal. I wondered at the time if that was the only
reason why she didn’t want us to meet.
Gwen
and I took a weekend vacation to Branson, Missouri. We stayed in a rustic motel on the street
that led down to the boat docks where you could hire a fishing guide. We did just that the next day. He took us out on Lake Taneycomo where fishing
for rainbow trout is good because trout like the cold water released from the
bottom of the dam. We floated down the
lake, putting salmon eggs on our hooks and pulling in the fish. When we returned to the dock, the guide
cleaned two trout; we took them up the street to a restaurant, and they agreed
to fry them for our dinner. It’s not
possible these days to do that at one of the franchise restaurants. It was a wonderful vacation, even though a
short one.
In
June, I visited my parents and attended my 25th high school reunion; Gwen
stayed at home with Fanny. I was wearing
a goddess symbol necklace and one of my classmates’ gaydar was working. She asked if I wanted to leave, follow her to
her house and meet her partner, which I did.
Her partner, Peggy Bowman, worked as a lobbyist in Topeka for a Wichita
abortion provider, George Tiller. My
high school classmate broke up with Peggy shortly after, but Peggy and I
remained friends. I often saw her when I
was home visiting my parents.
Gwen
and I made more friends in Columbia.
Ellen took the financial planning seminars at the Women’s Center and
found out that I had experience handling my own finances. She asked if I would provide more education
on the topic, particularly about mutual funds.
As part of my AAII membership, I received materials on the topic and
evaluations of most funds. A small group
of Ellen’s friends came to our house for these lessons.
We
met a woman and her female partner who worked in the financial area of the
University and then the Missouri Coordinating Board of Higher Education. Ellen introduced me to some women who started
an informal women’s singing group. We
met a woman Ellen lived with, and she and I had some verbal disagreements. I was uncomfortable with how she made no
attempt to hide being a lesbian in public.
She didn’t understand why I insisted on remaining in the closet.
In September 1983, Gwen and I drove to New Jersey to visit Earlene. She was still living in the home she had shared with her husband, Jon. On previous visits, she had taken me to nearby New Hope, Pennsylvania, just over the Delaware River from New Jersey, noted for its summer stock theater. Gwen and I returned to New Hope, dining at Chez Odette, a fine restaurant overlooking the adjacent river canal. The following month, we heard the tragic news that the highly regarded NBC evening news anchor, Jessica Savitch, drowned in that canal when her companion took a bad turn leaving that very restaurant’s parking lot, their car landing in the canal.
Now This Job is Over
In 1984 my 4th year with AgRISTARS, the employees were told that to keep their USDA jobs, they had to transfer to the Washington, DC office at the same grade level and salary. The program was being closed down as the cold war was beginning to wind down even though many didn’t consider it ended until the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 (if then). I was not interested in this move, for several reasons. The cost of living is much higher in DC, and I didn’t think I would like living in such a large metropolitan city. I liked living in Columbia and had many friends here. I had to consider other options.