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Jean, I really appreciate you taking the time to see me in the midst of all your moving and everything. You just showed me a picture of your parents. JEAN KO STEWART: I did. SB: Yeah. And so, you know, just tell me a little bit about them. JKS: My parents weren’t married. They were together for two months. They fell in love at age 40 and 41. My mother was 41 and my father was 4-- well, thereabouts. Anyway, so, he was here because his ship had [00:01:00] been hit by enemy fire in the Second World War. And she owned a school called Copley Secretarial Institute. She was -- she is, was a Japanese American. She was born here in this country. She was Nisei and brought up in Cambridge. Went to Radcliffe, graduated in ’25, and a couple of years later got a degree in education from Harvard. And a few years later, after she had gotten experience at Hickox Secretarial School, she started her own secretarial school, in 1939, called Copley Secretarial Institute at 585 Boylston [00:02:00] Street in Copley Square. And my father came here in ’44 and wanted to learn conversational Japanese. So, he went there and was with her for two months and somehow or other they created me. (laughter) And he took off and she didn’t tell him about me. And, well, he was never heard of again because he was already married and had -- he was married to a divorced woman with four children. When he was 26 years old, he married her in New Zealand. And so, he never had any children of his own that he knew about. And here I am. SB: You never got back in touch with him? [00:03:00] JKS: No. I never knew who he was until after my mother died. And my mother died in ’78. 2 �He died in ’75, so it was -- would have been hard for me to get in touch with him (laughs) except through ethereal ways. SB: (laughs) But there was no way that -- your mother had lost total contact with him and -- JKS: Well, she deliberately -- I mean -- SB: She did it deliberately, right. JKS: They -- both of them said that they wouldn’t communicate with each other. SB: Yeah, okay. Okay, so your mother raised you by herself, is that correct? Or -- JKS: Well, the person who brought me up, really, is Lillian G. [Averett?], who -- SB: Oh! JKS: -- was the person who took care of my grandmother before I was born, my mother’s mother. My mother’s mother had cancer and she was dying. [00:04:00] But it took her 18 months to die (laughs) after I was born. So, I knew her for 18 months or so but I don’t remember about her. Anyway, after she died, Ma took over with -- Lillian Averett, who I call Ma from now on -- took over. And she was more or less the mother at home while my mother -SB: Ran the -- JKS: -- ran the school. So, my mother worked from nine in the morning until 11 at night, so she would come home and wake me up in the middle of the night just to say hello. (laughter) Then, I’d have to go back to sleep again but that was all right, yeah. SB: Yeah. Despite the fact that your mother was working all the time, would you say you had a close relationship with her? JKS: I guess as close as anybody could have to my mother. [00:05:00] (laughs) SB: Okay. JKS: I mean, she was an only child. She was brought up by two Japanese people who met here 3 �in this country and married, in New York City. And I don’t know, she just -- I don’t think she had close relationships with, really, anyone. She was an only child, like I am, and -- yeah, I mean, you couldn’t get past the surface with her. I mean, she wouldn’t talk about my father, ever. I mean, she said that it was too hard to talk about him, so that was her way of getting me to stop talking about her -- him. SB: Him. JKS: [I mean?], yeah. SB: Yeah, yeah. It sounds like Ma was really -- JKS: My mother. SB: -- your mother. JKS: Right. She was around 55 or so when [00:06:00] I was born and I lived at her house. She -- her daughters -- she adopted two women. One of them was her sister’s kid. Her sister had diphtheria or something. Anyway, she died, leaving this six-month-old baby. And so, she adopted the baby and she also adopted a person who was from South Boston, I guess, whose mother didn’t want her anymore because she was half black or so. Anyway, she adopted her, too. So, she had two people that she adopted. SB: Now, to me -- I mean, I could be totally wrong -- but Ma looks African American to me. JKS: She is. SB: Okay. JKS: Right. So, this is her [00:07:00] niece and this is the other person -- SB: Oh, yeah. JKS: -- that she adopted. And this is her sister and this is the person that [Red?] is named after because I loved her. She was the first woman, I guess, I ever loved, so -- 4 �SB: Ah! JKS: -- yeah. SB: Okay, so would you -- I mean, like, did you identify -- not identify. When did you know or when did you think that you were a lesbian? Were you young? Were you -JKS: Well, Anita was -- worked in Hingham as a welder during the war. SB: Oh, at the shipyard? JKS: At the shipyard, exactly. And she was bi. [00:08:00] And she thought I was gay, so the first time anybody really said anything to me about being gay was Anita. She said she wanted to introduce me to the gay bars. She would take me to the outside of the bars and people would walk out of the bars and she’d say, “Those are gay people.” (laughter) SB: Wow! JKS: So, you know, I didn’t really identify as being gay then. I didn’t identify as being -- I didn’t come out until I was 20, in 1965, December 26. SB: You have that exact date -- JKS: Yes, I do. SB: -- in your head. JKS: In my head, yes. SB: Could you tell me what that day was like? And if I’m getting too personal, that’s fine, don’t -- you don’t have to answer it or -JKS: I was [00:09:00] a counselor at a Campfire camp and one of the junior counselors there fell in love with me. I had a crush on another camper at that particular time but she was a camper. I mean, she was only 13 years old and I was 20. SB: Yeah. 5 �JKS: So, nothing could happen between the two of us. And so, this junior counselor professed love to me, okay? So, after we left the camp -- she was, like, 17 or -- 17. And I was 20. We messed around in the bed on December 26, 1965. So, that’s when [00:10:00] my life as a lesbian began, I guess. SB: Yeah. Yeah. Did that turn into a love affair, would you say? Or -- JKS: She was too young. SB: She was -- well, she was 17, though -- JKS: That’s right. SB: -- at that point. JKS: She was and -- but she was too young in her head. SB: Yeah. JKS: So, a year and a half or later, or maybe longer than that -- she would come to my house all the time and we would do things together. And she was actually made part of the family and -- but she decided that this life wasn’t for her, so one day I showed up at her parents’ house because she had said that she didn’t want to see me earlier. I didn’t believe her so I went to see her and I knocked on the door and she said, “If you don’t leave, I’m going to call the cops.” [00:11:00] So, she called the cops and the cops escorted me off the steps and I was in a state of shock, actually. SB: Yeah. JKS: So, it took me a long time to get over that. SB: I can imagine. JKS: Yeah. Anyway, I saw her once -- we both went to Northeastern. I graduated from Northeastern and she was at Northeastern. She was a bio major, as I was, and I saw her one day 6 �with a fellow. And I beeped my horn at her and she took this guy’s arm and turned around and walked away with him. So, you know, it (laughs) added insult to injury. SB: Right, right. JKS: But -- so, anyway, that’s when I started going to therapy because I was brokenhearted -- SB: Sure. JKS: -- and I didn’t understand why [00:12:00] she had left me, yeah. SB: Yeah. I went to Northeastern, too, for my master’s degree. JKS: I did, too. SB: Oh, did you? JKS: For my master’s degree, as well, yeah. SB: Yeah. So, when you were going through all this, you were still -- you were living with Ma, right? Or no? JKS: I was at 6 Durham Street, right, at -- SB: Where is 6 Durham? JKS: Six Durham is off St. Botolph Street in the Back Bay. SB: In the Back Bay. JKS: Right. SB: And (break in audio) make any friends in, you know, like the bars or were you able -- JKS: Well, I was -- SB: -- to find other -- JKS: No. SB: -- lesbians? JKS: I didn’t do that. I didn’t want to come out in Boston ’cause I didn’t want to hurt my 7 �mother’s school. And I thought by coming out in Boston it would hurt her school. I don’t know how but -- (laughs) anyway, I was working at the Children’s Cancer Research Foundation, which is the Farber now, the Dana Farber -SB: Oh, yeah, yeah. JKS: And [00:13:00] the people there wouldn’t let me wear pants to work and I wanted to wear pants to work. And I heard that in California, you could wear pants to work. So, I decided to go to California, to come out, really, to come out. And I did come out in California. SB: Yeah, yeah. JKS: In 1970, I went to California. SB: Oh, my God, yeah. JKS: Yeah. Well, before that, Ma -- (laughs) Ma had some Ben-Gay and some -- the stuff you take to make your stomach feel better side by side by her bed. And she screamed at me one night. She said, “Jeannie, come here!” And I came upstairs and she said, “I think I swallowed this instead of this!” SB: Oh, God. JKS: And, in fact, she had done that. So, [00:14:00] I took her to the Brigham and they pumped her stomach out. But from then on, really, she didn’t get better. I mean, they had to perform a colostomy on her. SB: Oh, my God! JKS: And -- because they didn’t know how to do what they know how to do now. SB: Right. JKS: And so her -- she signed over all of her money and stuff to her sister. And I remember thinking that she was going to come and live with us in Newton, ’cause I was going to move us 8 �to Newton, you know, after she sold her house. And so, she told me to go home and pack the dishes from the closet. And so, I said I would and I went home and started to pack the dishes. And her sister was there and saw me doing that. The next [00:15:00] day, I get a call from a lawyer who says, “Lillian,” which is Ma’s name, “says that she doesn’t want you to touch anything else in her house.” And I said, “Ma didn’t say that. Ma sent me home to pack her dishes for her!” I said, “You tell whoever said that they can go straight to hell,” is what I said. And I never went back to 6 Durham Street after that. SB: Wow. It was her s-- JKS: Speaking of breaking my heart, that really broke my heart. SB: I can imagine. That was her sister who said that, right. JKS: That’s right, it was. SB: But you never -- did you ever see Ma again? JKS: Yes, I did. SB: Okay. JKS: I went to Baltimore. She came from Baltimore. She left Baltimore because she was -- they were discriminated against there. Her mother was white and her father was [00:16:00] half black and half Native American. And they had a block in Baltimore for people who were of mixed race. SB: Oh, they had them in their own block. JKS: Because neither group were willing to accept them. SB: Oh, God. JKS: So, she didn’t like that. She didn’t like anything about that. So, she became a maid on -- railroad. And she came up to Boston then. 9 �SB: Huh! JKS: [Yeah, this?] -- SB: With that migration of African Americans to the North. JKS: Right. SB: Yeah, yeah. JKS: Right. But, I mean, the rest of the family -- she was one of 13. SB: Oh, my God, yeah. JKS: And the rest of the family stayed in Baltimore. SB: Yeah, yeah. JKS: So, when Flossie came there, she -- here to take care of her, she took her back to Baltimore. And, of course, Ma didn’t want to go back to Baltimore but there was -- I had no legal -- and I was 23 years old, so [00:17:00] I just -SB: Yeah, what could you do? JKS: I couldn’t do it. But I had a friend or she had a friend who was a dyke who had cancer. And before she died, she said to me, “Jeannie, you should try to keep Ma here.” And I said, “I don’t think I can do it.” And I couldn’t and she died. And so -SB: Yeah. JKS: Ma didn’t die but the other one died. Yeah, Ma died in ’76. I went to see her and Liz took me to see her. Liz is the redhead. SB: Right. JKS: And -- but we only stayed for, like, a half an hour or less and I shouldn’t have -- you know, I should have protested and stayed longer. But I think she didn’t want to see her in the state that she was in. You know, I didn’t even know what state she was in. 10 �SB: Yeah. (laughs) JKS: You know? But anyway, [00:18:00] she -- a week after I came back to Boston, she died. So, I think she was waiting for me to come -SB: Oh! JKS: -- to see her before she died. So, I think she was around 93 years old when she died. I’m not sure. She might have been younger than that. But in any case, it’s very sad, you know? SB: Yes. JKS: Just about that time, “Some Day We’ll Be Together” came out. SB: Oh, that’s right, yeah. JKS: Diana Ross and I used to sing that to Ma. SB: Oh, boy. JKS: Yeah, it was a sad, sad [thing?]. SB: But when you came back for a -- and she died a week later, you weren’t able to see her right before she died, I take it? JKS: Oh, no. Well, I mean, I saw her a week before she died, yeah. SB: Oh, you did, okay. JKS: A week before she d-- I didn’t know. They didn’t know she was going to die. She was waiting for me. SB: Okay. [00:19:00] JKS: And then, she looked at my hair and my hair was short and she shook her head. And I think, you know, sometimes I think that killed her. (laughs) See? Well, look -SB: You think that she knew. JKS: -- she grew my hair till I was 14 years old. I never had my hair cut till I was 14. So, she - 11 �SB: So, yeah, she -- JKS: -- she liked my hair long. She used to braid it all the time. Both of them would braid it. But I couldn’t take care of my hair. SB: No. JKS: So, I wanted to cut it. And I didn’t cut it real short until I went to California. Then, I had a gay person to -- a barber or something. He decided, “Hey, I want to give you a pixie,” so -SB: Oh, right, I remember. I had one of those. (laughs) JKS: He gave me a pixie and from then on, I’ve had short hair, yeah. SB: Yeah. So, you lived in California from -- JKS: For 14 years. SB: Fourteen years, from -- JKS: Yeah, from ’70 [00:20:00] to ’83. SB: Okay, okay. Obviously, it was easier back then. I was out there during that time, too. JKS: Were you? SB: Yeah, that’s where I came out. (laughs) JKS: That’s interesting. SB: It is! I’ll tell you about it later. But anyway, I was a little later than you. Where did you live? L.A. or San Francisco or -JKS: I tried to get a job in San Francisco. I went there with a straight -- well, a person who had a crush on me. I didn’t have a crush on her. Anyway, a neighbor, a black neighbor across the street on -- at 6 Durham Street lived -- had moved to there and had a husband and a couple o’ kids. So, we stayed with her. And I put my [00:21:00] head in this woman’s lap that I had come 12 �out with, you know, just lying on the couch. And the woman who we were visiting came into the room and saw me that way and made the conclusion that I was having an affair with this woman, which I was not. And she threw me out. She threw both of us out. (laughter) Didn’t want her kids to be exposed -SB: Oh, exposed. JKS: -- to people like me. But anyway, we -- there was a bar called The Cabin -- SB: The Cabin. JKS: -- in San Francisco, right. And it was owned by these black women who -- great black women. And they let us stay at their place. And -SB: Cool. JKS: -- oh, they were, they -- that was the best bar -- SB: Oh, wow! JKS: -- I’ve ever been to in my entire life, The Cabin. SB: Oh, my God. JKS: Yeah, it was in -- almost south San Francisco. [00:22:00] But it was just -- wonderful bar. SB: Oh, great. JKS: Yeah. SB: Great. And this woman that came out with you, I mean, you never -- JKS: No. SB: So, did -- but did you live together? JKS: Oh, no. She came out -- she drove out with me and then she flew back to Boston. SB: Oh, gotcha! 13 �JKS: No, she had a job. SB: Oh, I thought -- oh, okay. JKS: She was a secretary at -- SB: Okay, I thought she was moving out, too. JKS: -- the Farber. Oh, no. SB: Okay. JKS: No, no, no, she just wanted to go to California. SB: Yeah. (laughs) JKS: So, she -- SB: See what it was like. JKS: She helped me to drive. SB: Yeah -- JKS: So -- SB: -- okay. JKS: And she wanted to be with me, so -- (laughs) SB: Yeah, yeah. JKS: What can I say? SB: Yep, back in the day. JKS: Right. SB: So, you must have gotten a -- did you get a good job out there in -- JKS: I -- okay, at San Francisco, they had a job working as a technician, a research technician, working with rabbits. And I’m [00:23:00] allergic to rabbits, so I couldn’t do that job because I - if -- put me in a room with a rabbit for -- 14 �SB: Oh, God. JKS: -- 24 hours and I’ll be dead. SB: Oh, my God. JKS: Yes. SB: Like people who are allergic to cats. JKS: Right. I’m just -- it’s just a terrible thing. So, anyway, I couldn’t stay there and they didn’t have any more jobs in San Francisco. So, I went to U.C. Irvine. I went down to -SB: Oh, okay. JKS: -- Southern California and got a job at U.C. Irvine in the pharmacology department. And I worked there until I left. SB: Yeah. Were you living in Irvine? JKS: I was living -- I lived in Costa Mesa, I lived in Irvine, and I lived in Newport. And I had two partners there. SB: Ah, okay. JKS: A young one and -- well, yeah, both of them were young. SB: (laughs) Younger than you. [00:24:00] JKS: Both of them were 10 years younger than I was. SB: Oh, okay. Was it hard to find a lesbian community in Southern California at that time? JKS: Not really, it -- Garden Grove was the place to go. SB: Garden Grove, okay. JKS: Right. SB: Okay, I know where that is. JKS: Yeah. 15 �SB: Yeah. JKS: And I forget the name of the bar there but everybody went to that particular bar. But anyway, the place I was living at was called the Sea Lark Motel in Costa Mesa. And there was a young woman working at the desk and we sort of had a thing. Troy Perry, I don’t know if you know who Troy -- Troy Perry was a Southern minister who started Metropolitan Community Church. SB: Oh, I didn’t know that. JKS: And so, he had come to Costa Mesa [00:25:00] and gave a speech about people being able to come out and so on and so forth. And this woman [Chris?] and I went to this thing and both of our mothers went to the thing. And her mother was with an alcoholic. So, she went to ACOA meetings or AA -- ACOA meetings. And so, that was fortunate for me because this kid was -- how old was she -- 17 and I was 27. So, when she found out about -- she was a Born Again, too. SB: Oh, yeah. JKS: So, when she found out about the two of us -- I mean, we really didn’t have much going - - but anyway, my mother was [00:26:00] in town and my mother -- that’s when I came out to my mother and she decided or we decided it wasn’t good for me to stay at this Sea Lark Motel. So, I went to Irvine. Had a place to live in Irvine. Yeah, but at the Sea Lark Motel, there were these two lesbians who were closer to my age living there. And I sort of went over and talked to them and somehow or other, we came out to each other, but -- and then, they took me to the bar in Garden Grove, so -SB: Oh, yeah? JKS: Yeah. I had a crush on one of ’em and -- but she was very faithful to the one she was 16 �with. I mean, she loved that woman, yeah. And she, the -- Robin worked at U.C. Irvine. You know, [00:27:00] the same place I worked. But she did a different job and -- yeah. SB: Yeah. How did your mother take it when you came out to her? JKS: She said, “I don’t understand it but if that’s how it is, then that’s how it is.” Yeah, so she was accepting of -SB: She was accepting, yeah. JKS: -- of who I was, but she -- although she didn’t understand it, quote-unquote. That’s exactly how she said it, yeah. SB: So, you said you had a couple of partners. Were they long-term or -- JKS: Well, [Tawny?] was -- let’s see, we started going out when I was -- when she was -- well, it was in ’72. And I stayed with her for three years. She was young and she was born in ’55. I was born in ’45. So, there [00:28:00] was a 10 years’ difference. When she turned 18, we moved in together, in Costa Mesa, on Hamilton Street. And we had all kinds of animals. She loved animals, so we had cats and dogs and rats and -SB: (laughs) Oh, wow! JKS: Well, I brought my rats from work because I -- SB: Ah! JKS: -- had been working with rats and guinea pigs and -- you name it, we had it. SB: Oh, my God, wow. JKS: And so, we were good for, I don’t know, three years or so. And at the end of the third year, she just decided she needed to do -- try other things. So, she wanted to go out with boys and she wanted to go out with other women and smoke pot and the rest of it. And that was all something that -- I didn’t want to have any part of it. And so, I -- again, I was heartbroken. And 17 �Gina, Gina’s [00:29:00] ex-girlfriend took me into her -- to their place. Yeah, Gina was the person that I met at the Sea Lark Motel, she and [Robby?]. So, I stayed with them for a while but it wasn’t fun being there with them. So, I found a trailer, a 10 by 50 trailer in Newport Beach and I moved -SB: Great! JKS: -- to that 10 by 50 trailer, so -- and I continued -- that’s -- I continued to go to MCC. At MCC Costa Mesa, that’s where I met Tawny. And I brought Gina and Robbie there and that’s where I met my next lover, who was -- I was with for seven years and nine months. That’s [Lee?]. SB: Was -- the MCC, was that about the only organization around at that time [00:30:00] that, you know, was more than just, you know, going to a bar. I mean, it was, like, supporting gay people. JKS: That was the only thing, I guess. Well, I think -- there were a couple of rap groups but they weren’t DOB. DOB was in San Francisco but I don’t think there was any DOB down in Southern California at that particular time. So, no, it was just going to the bars and listen to -what’s that woman’s name who -- the -- singing the -- what do they call that music? (laughs) The guitar music. Anyway -SB: Oh, folk music or -- JKS: No, no. SB: -- no, no, no, no. JKS: No, it was before the folk music. SB: Oh, you mean, like, Holly Near? JKS: No, no, no. 18 �SB: No, no. JKS: No. Holly Near came after that. But, oh, yeah, she was there. [00:31:00] I remember when she was a shy young woman and -SB: Yeah, she grew up in California. JKS: She did. SB: Yeah. JKS: In Ojai, I think, up north, yeah. And she and Meg Christian had a sort of -- everybody thought they had a thing. SB: They thought they had an affair, right, right. JKS: But -- and Cris Williamson, when all of them were together. Yeah, but that’s -- when I met Lee, Lee knew about all these things. And so, she would take to all these concerts and stuff, yeah. And I went to my first Pride parade in Los Angeles and then we would go up to San Francisco and to the Pride parade, yeah. It was exciting. SB: That is exciting. I mean, like, the first one here was in 1970. I didn’t go until ’77 but -- yeah. JKS: Yeah, I probably didn’t go until ’77, either. SB: Yeah. JKS: Yeah, ’cause I met Lee [00:32:00] in ’76 and then we probably went up in ’77, the summer of ’77, yeah. SB: Did you feel that -- I mean, did you experience, yourself, discrimination? I mean, did you get a lot of harassment from men or, you know -JKS: No. SB: No. 19 �JKS: Well -- SB: You were in an academic environment. JKS: I was. But, I mean, I went out -- I was bi at the time. I went out with -- I have a friend who I just went to see in Georgia whose husband I went out with for -- before they went out with each other. And then we changed partners and she went out with him and I went out with her boyfriend because she didn’t like him, this guy. Then, he took off on a motorcycle. I mean, it was (laughter) weird. And then, there [00:33:00] was this woman who lived across from me who wanted to be with me but I was too afraid to be with her. And fortunately, because her cousin had -- what do you call the disease the men get sometimes? Crabs, yeah. SB: Oh, crabs. JKS: And -- SB: Ugh, yeah. JKS: -- so, I -- she got ’em and I’m glad I never had the relation (laughter) with her. SB: Right, right! JKS: Right. SB: Yeah, yeah. JKS: So, yeah, that was the swinging singles club. I forget the name of the place but that’s where we all met. And I’m still friends -- the guy that Maria married, they had two children together, they lived in Marietta, Georgia. And he died in his late 50s. But anyway, yeah. SB: So, you were -- [00:34:00] were you -- would you say you were starting to get politically active? JKS: Politically active. Oh, I don’t know if I was politically active, no. SB: You were -- like, you were at the Pride parades and you went up to San Francisco and -- 20 �JKS: Yeah, but -- SB: -- but not really -- JKS: I wasn’t involved. I didn’t get involved until I came home [again?]. I came home in ’84 with this young person and she decided -SB: You mean Lee? JKS: No, no, no. SB: No. JKS: I broke up with Lee. Was funny, Gina and I had this one night affair thing and she decided she was going to plant hickeys all over my neck. And when I got back home, I mean, I couldn’t hide the fact that I had these hickeys all over my -SB: No Cover Girl there? (laughs) JKS: No, there wasn’t any way that I could’ve hidden that. And we -- End of Jean Ko Stewart Interview, Part 1 of 3 Beginning of Jean Ko Stewart Interview, Part 2 of 3 SB: Okay, so you came back on your own. Did you -- JKS: I came back with a woman who was a friend of Tawny’s. Well, a friend of my first partner there. And she claimed to be Jewish. I don’t think she was Jewish but her mother never told her that she and her father weren’t married. So, she found out later on that she -- her mother and her father were not married. Her mother was a shrink. Mother’s still a shrink. And she wanted to come to Boston. That’s all there was to it. So, she found a way and I was the way. And once she got here, she said that we had different things in mind about what we wanted out 21 �of relation-- but she was, like, 18 years younger than [00:01:00] I was, so she went off and I was sad but it was good that she went off. And then, I started working for DOB. SB: Right. Now, when you came back, did you -- okay, was your mother still alive? JKS: No, my -- SB: No. JKS: -- mother was quite dead. SB: Okay, so where did you move to? JKS: Right here. SB: Right here. Oh, my God, huh? JKS: Thirty-two years. SB: Wow, all right. And you say you started working for DOB but what kind of a job, also, did you have when you came back? I mean, what did you do? JKS: I worked at the Farber. SB: Oh, at the Farber. JKS: I went back to the Farber and worked for a place called ImmunoGen. I worked there for several years and then I went over to a place called [Cell Corps?] Therapies. That was down on Memorial Drive -SB: Oh, yeah. JKS: -- 1256 Memorial Drive. SB: You want some water? JKS: Well, I should [00:02:00] probably go get some. SB: Yeah. (laughs) 22 �End of Jean Ko Stewart Interview, Part 2 of 3 Beginning of Jean Ko Stewart Interview, Part 3 of 3 JKS: -- wanted the -- well, not -- there’s an awful lot. SB: Yeah, all right. JKS: All right, so -- SB: So, how did you get involved in DOB? JKS: Well, the woman who was with me left, so I had -- I heard about Boston DOB, so I thought I might as well go there and see what I can do there, yeah, so -SB: Now, at that time, where was it meeting? JKS: In Old Cambridge Baptist Church. SB: Yes, okay. JKS: Yeah. SB: Right. And who was kind of running the organization at that time? JKS: Lois. SB: Lois. JKS: Right. SB: Lois Johnson. JKS: That’s correct. SB: Okay, and so you -- did you come in as wanting to do some projects right away or -- JKS: No. SB: -- no. JKS: I just came in and -- 23 �SB: What was going on there? Can [00:01:00] you describe what the meetings were like? JKS: Well, there were -- different days, different people would have rap times. So, there’d be maybe three or four people to run raps on different evenings. And so, I suggested that we do a singles rap because I was single. And there was a big commotion about it because they didn’t want people to think we were running a -SB: A dating service? JKS: Yeah. (laughter) That’s exactly it. And there was, you know -- but, no, we wouldn’t do that. That didn’t have anything -- there were lots of us who were just lonely people and wanted to just be with each other. And that -- [00:02:00] it had nothing -- it was not a meat rack, okay? It was never a meat rack. But, you know, I had been interested in counseling, you know, most of my adult life and had been in counseling myself. So, later on, I went to Northeastern, got a master’s in counseling psych, so that’s how my master’s came about. So, that gave me a little more credential around doing stuff like that. But it really didn’t matter. I just liked doing rap groups [and so?], yeah. SB: And how did you know how to do them? (laughs) JKS: Well -- SB: You know? JKS: -- we were taught, actually. We were taught how to [00:03:00] deal with difficult people and set ground rules, which are in there somewhere. SB: Yeah. JKS: Yeah. And so, only one person talks at a time and each -- say you had eight to 10 people in there. You give one person five minutes to talk and then you’d go on because otherwise, people would talk forever. 24 �SB: Yeah, (laughter) sure. JKS: So, there were -- and confidentiality, of course. You don’t take anything out of the group that you say in the group. SB: Was it topic driven? I mean, like, did you have a topic for the night or did you just kind of -- like, somebody would start talking and then everybody would pick up on it and -JKS: Well, I think it was -- I’m not sure if it was my idea but it was [00:04:00] an idea to have a topic so that when we walked in, we could have a topic to talk about. And if we exhausted the topic, then we would go on to something else. SB: Yeah, yeah. JKS: But, yeah. SB: Yeah. Did you feel like they were successful, these rap groups? JKS: Yes. SB: Yeah, people really got a lot out of them. Women got a lot of them. JKS: Well, just the camaraderie, I mean, the fact that we could -- we had a place to go to and it was a sheltered place. Lots of these people were not out and they were professionals, lots of them, so -SB: Right, right. Did you know -- well, you knew [Mary Ann?] there, [Mary Ann Casella?], you -JKS: Yes. SB: Yep, and I’m sure some other people that I know, yeah. JKS: Yeah. SB: How long were you active with them? JKS: Well, from ’84 to ’93, probably, [00:05:00] or ’90. Probably 10 years -- 25 �SB: Oh, almost 10 years. JKS: -- or so, right. SB: Ten years. JKS: Yeah. I got elected vice president and then president for two years. When Lois wanted to step down, she endorsed me. So, yeah. SB: How big, I mean, at its highest point, how many women would attend these -- you know, belong to DOB, do you know? You have to look at the records. (laughs) JKS: You know, it’s in the books. I didn’t really -- yeah, no, I didn’t pay attention to the numbers that much. I just paid attention to, hey, we need money. We have to pay $518 or whatever it is a month to be here. So, you know, we had a membership fee that everybody paid and then we got a dollar from everybody at the raps [00:06:00] and that’s how we did it. But we had to do other things like dances, which, you know, I would hire the person, the deejay. And usually, I would pay it out of my pocket and get it back later on from the take because we would charge a certain amount for people to come to the dances. We had things like proms. We had a prom. SB: Oh, my God, really? JKS: People got dressed up and -- SB: Wow. JKS: Yeah, no, I have 1,000 pictures over there I can show you. SB: Oh, my God, yeah. JKS: And we had a classical music concert that Judy played in, Judy of Joy and Judy. SB: I don’t know Judy. I know Joy. JKS: Yeah, well, Joy’s partner Judy -- 26 �SB: Okay. JKS: -- plays the harp. SB: All right. JKS: Yeah, I mean, she’s fabulous. SB: Beautiful. JKS: Right. SB: Yeah. JKS: And we had lots [00:07:00] of other folks who were in the classical music concert that was -- and we’d have a variety show for gay pride and -- where we’d have 18 people or so to act, to play songs and whatever they could do. Like, oh, I forget the woman who did the poetry. Oh, do you remember her? Anyway, there was a woman who did poetry. Yeah, I have it -SB: And all kinds of things. JKS: -- I have it all on tape, probably. SB: Yeah. JKS: Yeah, but we’ll have to look at them to make sure that -- yeah. SB: Wow. JKS: Yeah, so -- and I’d have a blood drive every year. They’d get lots of blood for the Red Cross. That was funny, we’d [00:08:00] have a blood drop person (laughter) who was dressed as a blood drop and she would be outside getting people to come in, yeah. We got as many as 48 pints of blood one time, so -SB: Wow, yeah. JKS: -- that was good. SB: Yeah. 27 �JKS: And, of course, every year, we had the Thanksgiving dinner where [Sherry?] and a bunch of other people would cook and other people would come to the Thanksgiving dinner. SB: Right there at OCBC? JKS: Right in OCBC. SB: Nice, nice. JKS: That’s where [Kathy?] and I -- well, my 25 year relationship and I met, at the Thanksgiving dinner. SB: Oh! JKS: In ’89. SB: Yeah, yeah. Do you want to talk about that at all or no? JKS: She was [00:09:00] newly out and in love with love, I guess, in love with being a lesbian. So, you know, she fell head over heels with me and I with her and -SB: How wonderful. JKS: Well, I suppose. She was Roman Catholic and had six children. And two of them came to live with us here for five years. Two of the boys. And the girls would come in and out occasionally to visit. I mean, to stay for a while. And then, she went back in the closet and -after five years of sending the kids to school. And she went and got her master’s in counseling and decided [00:10:00] to leave. So, that’s what she did. So, I had to deal with it and, in the meantime, I had gotten rheumatoid arthritis. And before that, I had started a running club at DOB. And we went to New York a couple of times and ran in the New York one. And when they celebrated 20 years of Stonewall, something like that, we brought the DOB flag there and we marched down the street. SB: Wow. 28 �JKS: Down Fifth Avenue. It’s quite a thing to march down -- SB: My God. JKS: -- Fifth Avenue. SB: It must have been incredible. JKS: It was incredible, yeah. But it was fun to run in the races. You know, I’ve -- I ran in Gay Games II marathon and that was the only marathon I’ve ever run. But I did run that marathon. [00:11:00] SB: Was that here? JKS: That was in San Francisco. SB: Okay. JKS: Yeah. SB: Yeah, good -- JKS: The hills -- SB: -- for you. JKS: -- of San Francisco. SB: The hills! JKS: Yeah. SB: My God, can you imagine? Oh! JKS: Well, five hours, 15 minutes, and 45 seconds. SB: Oh! (laughs) Wow. JKS: But it’s okay. SB: Oh, grueling! JKS: Yeah. 29 �SB: We don’t have anything in Heartbreak Hill compared to San Francisco. God! Anyway -- JKS: Yeah, so I have plenty of pictures of the running group and -- SB: You’ve had quite a life. JKS: Mm-hmm. SB: You’ve had a long, long-term relationship. A real marriage. JKS: Sort of. But, you know, I mean, she went back in the closet, so -- SB: Yeah. JKS: -- and she has 11 grandchildren now. And she doesn’t want the in-laws to know [00:12:00] that she’s gay. So, I was cut off from that. But, I mean, we probably chose each other because of our backgrounds. She -- her father was an alcoholic and her husband was an alcoholic. And my mother used to hide me behind doors because I was an illegitimate child. So, we just glommed onto each other and then repeated, you know -- she repeated her thing about keeping me a secret and then I was kept a secret because I was used to being kept a secret, so -but I just couldn’t handle it anymore. It got to the point where the neighborhood that she moved [00:13:00] into was Catholic and she didn’t want the people in the neighborhood to know. And so, I just decided I can’t -SB: That -- yeah. JKS: -- this is it. This is -- I can’t do it anymore. I am too out. (laughs) I have been out all my life. I didn’t become a teacher. I didn’t join the service. I tried to join the service but when they asked me in the health form had I had a lesbian relationship I said I did and the recruiting officer said, “They won’t take you if you say you did.” And I said, “Sorry.” (laughs) SB: Yeah, so you didn’t have that burden, I mean, of, you know, hiding. JKS: No. I wouldn’t hide. And it’s because I was hidden as a child. 30 �SB: Yes. JKS: And I -- SB: You wouldn’t do it any-- JKS: -- wouldn’t do it. SB: No. JKS: I wouldn’t do it. SB: Right. [00:14:00] JKS: So -- SB: Do you have any regrets about your life in terms of, you know, being -- JKS: Well, if I had to do it over again, I mean, I had a thing for my boss in California, who was a man. And he wanted us to have children. This was after Lee and I broke up. He wanted us to have children but I wouldn’t have children without marrying him, you see? SB: Yeah. JKS: And I don’t think he had a divorce at the time with his wife and I don’t think he wanted to get married. So, that went by the wayside. But he wanted to have a child with me, you know? [00:15:00] And that was appealing to me because I wanted to have a child. But I was always afraid to have children, too, so, yeah. Anyway -SB: But you -- and you certainly had some children, in a way, when they were -- JKS: Yes, I did. SB: -- living here. JKS: Oh, yeah, the kids? SB: Yeah. JKS: Yeah, well, they went to high school here. We sent them to Catholic school. 31 �SB: Yeah. JKS: Yeah. SB: Jean, I want to thank you so much for being incredibly frank and honest about your life. I really appreciate it very much. And I also appreciate all the work you’ve done for DOB. You know, when they were talking yesterday at that lunch about the people that have, you know, endured and -- it isn’t just that they’ve endured. The people who have worked, who have come before these kids who were just, like, unbelievable. Do you believe it sometimes? [00:16:00] You know, they -JKS: No. SB: -- don’t have any of this -- JKS: That we -- SB: -- that we had -- JKS: -- had to deal with, right. SB: -- that we had to deal with. JKS: Right, so -- SB: But that’s our pride, that they don’t. JKS: Well, after I left DOB and after Kathy went away, I -- you know, I was still with her but she was not living with me at that time and I was very lonely without she and the kids. So, I went to Arlington Street. SB: Oh, yeah, right. JKS: And I learned Kundalini yoga. And from there on, I’ve been teaching Kundalini yoga. Kundalini yoga comes from the Sikh tradition, okay? And the Sikhs aren’t crazy about gays, okay, and lesbians. So, I like the technology that it provided us. 32 �SB: The technology? JKS: Well, that’s what they call it, [00:17:00] the -- yoga provides. SB: Okay. JKS: And I wanted the gay community to be able to experience that and not feel badly about being gay. So, I brought Kundalini yoga to Arlington Street Church and I’ve been doing it for 20 years, once a week. And the money is donated to the church. SB: Yeah, yeah. JKS: Yeah. And I do Connections groups there. SB: Which are? JKS: Well, it’s part of the U.U. tradition. It’s part of our spiritual practice where we come together and we have a topic that we discuss. Well, we don’t discuss, actually. It’s like going to an A.A. meeting. You don’t -- there’s no crosstalk. But you check in, [00:18:00] you say what you’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks, and then there’s a topic, like spirituality, for example, that you would talk about: your own spirituality and your history of spirituality, and go around from person to person. But I do that with people who are available from 10:30 to 12:00 on Mondays, the first and third Mondays of the month. SB: And is it -- and -- JKS: [From the?] church. It’s part of the church group. SB: Yeah. JKS: Yeah. SB: Is it -- it isn’t -- JKS: [Sue is part of it?]. SB: -- one to one, it’s a group. 33 �JKS: It’s a group. SB: Okay. JKS: I like -- SB: What a great way to start the week! I love groups. JKS: Well, yeah, I mean -- SB: Yeah. JKS: -- Sue goes to it and -- SB: Oh, Sue [Reemer?]? JKS: -- Bob [Sessions?] goes, too. So, you know -- SB: That’s wonderful. JKS: They love it, so -- SB: Yeah, yeah. JKS: So, I think this would be good for us, as well. I think we should [00:19:00] have some sort of discussion groups in [Rainbow?] or wherever. SB: Yeah, I agree. JKS: But I don’t want to take it on. (laughs) SB: You don’t want to -- no, you don’t need to take it on. JKS: I’m tired, you know? SB: Yeah. JKS: I’ve done my job. SB: Yeah. JKS: But I do enjoy doing groups, so it would be good to -- that’s why I wanted to look up what we did in the singles group, so -- to see if we could carry on the tradition, [yeah?]. 34 �SB: Okay, okay. JKS: Yeah, for older folks. SB: Yes. JKS: Yeah. SB: Yes, definitely. JKS: Yeah. SB: Okay, well, thank you very, very much, like I said. JKS: You’re welcome. SB: Yeah. End of Jean Ko Stewart Interview, Part 3 of 3 35 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Daughters of Bilitis (Boston) Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Through oral histories, 21 women share their stories of growing up, coming out, and joining the Boston chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), the earliest known lesbian organization in the United States. DOB members came from diverse backgrounds, class, and education, but the rejection by one’s family, the stress of living a double life, and the search for a place to feel safe run through each narrative. Several storytellers knew they were lesbians in childhood, while others did not until their 30s and 40s. Some married men to conform to society’s expectations, while others fought to make an independent life for themselves. All found DOB, where they were accepted, loved, and nourished to grow into proud women, loving women. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Coll.0213 Relation A related resource <a href="https://historyproject.omeka.net/items/show/183" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Coll. 011: Boston Daughters of Bilitis Collection and Focus/Maiden Voyage Publication Finding Aid</a> <a href="https://historyproject.omeka.net/collections/show/48" title="Digitized Materials">Digitized Materials: Focus/Maiden Voyage, a publication of the Boston chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis, 1969-1975</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Boyer, Sarah Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Stewart, Jean Ko Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Jean Ko Stewart, 2015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-06-19 Description An account of the resource Interview with Jean Ko Stewart for the Daughters of Bilitis Oral History Project. Interview conducted by Lois Johnson and Sarah Boyer. Subject The topic of the resource Stewart, Jean Ko; Daughters of Bilitis (Boston); Lesbians; Lesbian movement Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The History Project: Documenting LGBTQ+ Boston Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright restrictions may apply. For more information and to view our takedown policy, visit https://historyproject.omeka.net/rights-and-reproductions. Daughters of Bilitis Oral history