UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

Interview #1052
FERINGTON, FELICITUS (Fey Fay?)

Narrator:	Ferington, Felicitus
Interviewer:	Lenzke, Linda
Date:		2009
Location:	Madison, Wisconsin
Oral History#:	1051
Series: 		Madison’s LGBT Community, 1960s to present

00:00:00	Start of First Interview Session
00:00:02
LL: 	Today is Sunday, August 23. this is Linda Lenzke. And today I have the honor of interviewing Fay Ferington. Fay, as a starting point, why don't you tell us a little bit about your date of birth. And where you were born. And a little bit about your family of origin. Just so we have sort of a foundation for your story. 
FF: 	OK. I was born in Buffalo, New York in 1937. I was the fifth child but the first daughter. And I think that probably had a lasting influence throughout, at least, my first 20 years. Because I had a very special welcome. But I also had a very emotionally charged welcome. So, anyway. In preparing for this, and thinking about it, it dawned on me that if you're being interviewed, in a sense, you're being asked, who are you? And that led me into sort of a characterization of my life overall. And it was sort of enlightening. It has applied all through, from when I was very, very young. And that is to say that I would characterize my life overall as a searching, as a restlessness, a testing. And then I happened to think, well, these have different values. Some of those are very admirable. And some of them could be not so admirable. But anyway, basically it boils down to a great sense of initiative, from when I first remember, which was when I was less than two years old. 
00:02:20
FF:	And I came up with a couple of examples to illustrate this. And I thought I'd tell them. First, is the dog story. And I don't think I've told you this? Good. OK. Well, after I was born in Buffalo we lived there a year or so. Then we moved out into the country. And we didn't have a farm, yet. That was way later. But we rented from somebody who had farm. And I saw them milking the cows and everything. And I was, by this time, I was probably two. And so I thought I would try that. So I got the dog, male dog. Got a kettle. Put it down below the dog. The dog didn't complain at all. Dog just stood there. I was milking the dog. And I think that shows a certain amount of inquiry and restlessness, and wanting to get involved in things. Mother differed with me, but anyway. Another example of that was-- they used to have a saying, maybe you are familiar with it? You have to eat a peck of dirt before you die. And this was, again, about that same period of time. And I thought-- I can't recall the exact words-- but I thought, I'd better get on with it. So I did. I started to eat some dirt. And it was ridiculous. So I quit that after a couple of mouthsful. 
00:04:12
FF:	But, anyway, I was always looking into things. And those are some examples. I mentioned that, well, my welcoming into the family was very special. It also had some baggage connected to it, too. I think back, I think Mother probably anticipated, oh, my goodness, at last, I have my little girl. Now I'll have her little patent leather shoes. And we'll have-- And that never was how it went. I think her view of a little girl was dolls and everything. And that was not who I was. However, she did start something with me then that you could almost say was a mantra, Fay's going to be a nurse when she grows up. Well, now mind you, I'm like two, three years old. So I would go around-- and I got a lot of attention doing this-- I'd go around to people and I'd say, I'm going to be a nurse when I grow up. And they'd say, Oh, isn't it-- So, that was great. I liked that. 
00:05:25
FF:	So right from the very beginning, there was this initiative on my part and this Mother wanting me to be a mellow, malleable little girl, and so there was the tension right from the start. I had four brothers alive at that point. And so there was a lot of competition with them also right from the start. I wanted to do everything they did, of course. And everybody does, I assume. And, of course, they didn't want me around which is the way brothers are with little girls, I assume. I played a lot alone. This is going on up through as I started school. I played a lot alone. I liked books. I liked drawing pictures. And, of course, with wanting to be with my brothers, I liked all sports. We weren't exactly poor. But we didn't have any of the stuff that typifies affluent lives nowadays. So my brothers would make things to play with. By this time now, we're on a farm, by the way. I forgot to mention that. And we were tapping trees, maple trees. And so my brothers took one of the syrup buckets and knocked the bottom out of it and pounded it up in the hay mow. And wound up a burlap bag real tight with string, and that's our basketball often. So we had that version of every sport that you could think of, including golf and pool. 
00:07:23
FF:	I remember starting school. It was no big deal. I noticed some of the odd behavior of the other kids, and things progressed. And by the time I got to be in the 3rd grade, there were things that, as I was reviewing my life, I decided to highlight. Because they sort of bring out certain indications of where my life would go. So, when I was in the 3rd grade we were playing some game, run around the room. And I can remember my disdain for this young boy, who was a friend of mine, because he let a girl catch him. And, I said, oh, oh, Charlie, you let that girl catch you. Well, I mean, I don't know what I thought I was, but it was kind of odd when you stop and think about it. I guess, I didn't think too much about whether I was a boy or girl. I just always liked boys clothes. Mother never let me wear 'em until I was 9, or 10, 12 I guess. And so I never had any jeans on or anything. But we're on the farm, now, so everybody worked out in the fields. And I competed with my brothers for Dad's attention. Somehow, Mother's attention had become less than valuable. Probably that says something about how women are, or are not valued. And how early in life little girls learn this. Anyway. So, I was competing for Dad's attention, and by way of-- I was always trying to show him how strong I was. And how much work I could do. And I hated housework. Mother mainly worked in the house, at least on Saturdays. And guess what that work was? It was cleaning up my brother's bedroom. My brothers, I would say, were probably as exuberant about where they threw their clothes as most little boys are. And so it was quite an undertaking. And I resented it very much. And, again, it just added to the not real good atmosphere. 
00:10:23
FF:	I did have another one of these events that, I think, points in the direction of where my life was going to go, unbeknownst to me. On farms, back then especially, they would share heavy machinery, so that everybody wouldn't have to buy it, and go broke and get subsidized by the government, and et cetera. So we had one thrashing machine for the village. And so you went thrashing when the grain was ripe. That is to say, that the person who owned the tractor and the thrashing machine, or ran it as a co-op, or whatever it was, would go to somebody's house. And then all of men from the village would go to that house and that farm, and they'd all harvest oats, or wheat, or whatever it was they were working on. And, of course, it was up to Mother, then or the mother in the household, I assume. But, with us, it was up to Mother to prepare this massive meal for 8 or 10 men. Now mind you, she also, by this time, had six kids. I had mentioned I was the fifth child born, the first one hadn't lived. So, then she had the three boys who were alive. And then me. And she wasn't supposed to have any more children. But she wanted very much to have a sister for me. I don't think that would have changed anything, but, I think, she thought it might. And she tried twice, but had two more boys. So it didn't work out to her advantage. So going back to the thrashing, what my event was, I could never go. The boys could always go. They'd go off to somebody's farm. And they'd do this work. And then they'd go in and they'd have this huge meal with everybody celebrating everything. I could never go. Well, finally one day, Dad let me go. And I felt stupendous. I had on a pair of jeans. I had a shirt from one of my older brothers. I was out there with the rake and the pitchfork. And I just was as happy as I'd ever been. And, again, that, I think, fits into where I've been. 
00:13:29
FF:	Mother resented this. Mother resented Dad having me. She said, you have her out in the field all the time. Well, that's where I wanted to be all the time. But, up through then, after the thrashing event and so forth-- by now I'm about 9, 10 years old. And in that interval, from the 4th grade to the 10th grade, we went to this wooden schoolhouse, which it did have about five or six rooms. But it was in the country. And it was decentralized. And the kids would take turn ringing the bell for noon hour. We had a big potbelly stove as you came in. And it was nice, as I look back now, but I thought it was kind of not very fancy. Because our first couple of years, we had lived near a town where they had a brick schoolhouse and everything. So, anyway. So from the 4th to the 10th grade I went to this school. And, I might mention, I suppose, during the 4th grade my teacher talked to me, and asked me to tell my mother that maybe I should skip the 5th grade. And, for some reason or another, I was walking home that day, which was not a usual occurrence. It was about two miles. So I thought about it all the way home. I thought, they're going to introduce fractions in the 5th grade. And that doesn't seem to me like a time, a thing that you'd want to skip. So when I got home I told Mother, Mrs. Nelson suggested that I skip 5th grade, but I've decided not to. Well, what are you going to do with a kid like that? So. The things that happened in that interval, those six years-- My 5th grade teacher gave me a book called Little Women. I read it. I loved it. I cried and cried, because Jo was dead. And why wasn't there anybody like Jo around anymore? And, I might throw in something here about-- I've gotten into genealogy recently. And also I've been taking classes, which I'll mention sometime later, at the senior center. And one of the classes we took at the senior center was Transcendentalism. And, of course, that was the whole atmosphere of intellectual inquiry and philosophy of day-to-day living came from that particular approach, or as it came to be known, anyway, as Transcendentalism. Involving Thoreau, and I can't think of his name. 
LL: 	Emerson? 
FF: 	Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne. And the father of the woman who wrote Little Women, Bronson-- And what was her--? God, even-- 
LL: 	Was it Emily? 
FF: 	No, no, no, not Emily. Oh, Lord, well, I can't think of it. Anyway-- So, in the class, having this early experience with Little Women, and the woman who had written it and so forth. And sort of having it in the back of my mind that she was probably Jo, and, indeed, she probably was. And I really looked into that in some depth And I also, in looking into genealogy nowadays, I actually went back and looked up her family in the census records. That was kind of fun, too. But one of the things that struck me was when women in that area, particularly, in New England were abolitionists-- and they were abolitionists long before it was cool to be an abolitionist. Louisa May Alcott wrote the book, OK. And Louisa May was an abolitionist also. But anyway, The Civil War broke out, and what struck me when I was doing all this research a couple years ago, going back to the Little Women experience-- I had read a number of other things that she had written. I had gotten them off the internet and stuff. And she had different letters, and whatnot, and so forth. So one of the things she had said that then, when the war started and all the boys left for the war, she thought she was supposed to too. And, that's just the way I thought, later, in a different situation. She became an army nurse. And she went to Washington, and the rest everybody knows, probably. But she got very ill and paid for that dearly the rest of her life. But, that struck me, especially the part where she said she thought well, she was supposed to go too. But she couldn't, but she did the best she could. So, anyway, OK, all of that was to tie in the experience of Jo, and who Jo might have been, and who Louisa May Alcott was. And that meant a lot to me, and still does. And it was really wonderful to have it all tie into Transcendentalism later on in life. 
00:20:24
FF:	When I was in the 7th grade I started to worship my teacher who was 21 years old. It was Miss Manella Oh, God love her, she'd die if she-- Anyway. And I was very open about my feelings about her, I mean. I told you it was a little school. There were only five of us in this class. And I said to Sue one day-- there was like Sue, and Glenda, and Louie, and Mike, and me. And if that's five? Whatever, anyway. So I said to Sue one day, oh, I just can't wait to see what she's wearing every morning. And Sue said, I've read, in my mother's True Story magazines about girls like that. Maybe you're one of those girls. So she told Miss Manella. Miss Manella said, that is ridiculous, this is just a natural phase that teenagers go through. And, of course, that was another telling episode, I suppose. I maintained a relationship with her for six or seven years. Made a point of doing so. There were other people in that era. Let's see, there was tsch, tsch, tsch, tsch, tsch that was early to mid-'50s, early '50s, and television was just coming into the fore. And our neighbors had a televisio. And I saw a program one night with this band doing country music. And there was a guy, Art Young-- for posterity Art. It was Donna Lee, she was the quote "girl singer," everybody had back then. They still have, but they don't dare call them that. And, of course, sometimes the girl singers have the whole bunch. But, anyway. I just, my gosh, she was a wonderful person! So, without being invited to, I just went over every Tuesday night to the neighbor's house. And they weren't on until 11 o'clock at night. I just went over every night and saw her. And it was just heaven. And then we got a TV. And it teaches things about life too, that's a preface statement. We got the TV on a Thursday, or whatever. And the next Tuesday, it was time for Donna and Art and the show on, and they had gone off the air. Well, that was-- I couldn't believe it. By now, I'm like 13 or 14. But anyway. Found out my uncle knew them. One of my uncles. And he got me pictures from Donna and autographs, and uh-- And then I requested songs, that they do a song for my uncle. And then they said, oh, of course, well, Ted Strang is our good friend, blah, blah, blah. And so I went up to the studio. Now it took some engineering to get from our farm to the studio in Buffalo. But I got there with a little help from various and sundry relatives, with whom I had never visited before. So, and then I would go in there, then every summer I would go down to the radio station. And then I would go out and follow them around to their different places-- I notice I'm including a lot of stuff here anyway-- where they were playing. And I remember this one particular time, especially, Donna came over to me-- and I was 15 at the time-- and she said, come on, let's get our picture taken together. And she took my hand and I almost collapsed. That was the first time I was ever aware of any kind of feeling, physical feeling toward a woman. But I didn't know what it was. 
00:25:34
FF:	So, I got a guitar. I sent to Sears and Roebucks. I got a guitar. I was going to be a country-western singer. And over the years that sort of faded from my agenda. And about six or eight years later, I ran into Art in a bar-- Art Young in a bar in Buffalo. And he and Donna had separated. And I let him know that I played the guitar. And he said, oh, well, come out. We're going to be playing at thus and such. He said, come on out and jam with us. So I did. And I had to just sort of chuckle, because I was only about 19, and already I had fulfilled a dream, playing with Art. So, I did a song of Donna's. And I did it just exactly the way she did it. Then he asked me if I wanted to join their group. No, because I was going to be a nurse, you know. And that's what I was doing, was studying nursing. So in the process of studying nursing, freshman psychology, we learned about homo-sex-tuals, as the British say. And one day my psychology instructor, Mr. Braidley asked me to come visit him in his office. So I did. And he said he noticed that when we were covering this certain subject matter that, he didn't know if he would call it defensiveness necessarily, but I really stuck up for these people, these homo-sex-tuals. And he said, you may want to be careful about that. Now, I'm 18. And that's 1955. And looking back, I think now, Mr. Braidley was probably gay. But it's sad that it was such a dire circumstance surrounding anything having to do with being gay, that he would feel that he should warn an 18 year old teenager about not letting your feelings show in public. 
00:28:14
FF:	Shortly after that I got a hold of The Well of Loneliness. I read it. I loved Stephen. Cried. Did you read it? 
LL: 	It's been a long time. 
FF: 	Well, of course this was a long time-- Cried, I showed other people, I still hadn't put it all together. And nobody else cried. And I thought, ugh, and they just-- I said, but look what happened to her. Soon after that I began to figure out-- I sort of started to put things together. I was hanging around with this one boy at the time, his name was Don-- sub-paragraph, or whatever here-- Don and I would have long philosophical discussions into the night, of course, at 18. And finally, one night, he said to me-- he was from New York City and his family had a little bit of money and stuff. And he said, my father has sent me to see a psychoanalyst. He said, I'm a homosexual. And I said, oh, I think I am too. And that was the first I had put it all together. That was nice and safe too. Because Don took the first step. I might have, but I just wasn't aware. So we went downtown Buffalo, because we'd heard there were bars where these people hung out. So we went down and there's all these cruddy neighborhoods. And we looked. Of course, here's a teenage boy and girl, and what are they looking for? They're looking for a gay bar. Now who's going to know that? So it was kind of funny. I stay in touch with Don. 
00:30:26
FF:	 I met Arlene in school, second year of nursing school. Really was my first-- how would you say-- minor love affair, I guess. [LAUGHING] All right. I'm laughing because I have no intent to be getting even with people here, but I must say it is amusing, to me, anyway. Arlene was a Christian Reform Church member, a Calvinist, her family. We were always together for about six weeks, during this one affiliation where we were both at this hospital. Excuse me. And we did some physical things. We didn't consummate our relationship, but we were cuddly and touchy. And then the six weeks was over, and Arlene had to go back to Rochester, New York. And that was like 50 miles away. And we would write letters and stuff, and we would get to see each other once in awhile. But she wouldn't have anything to do with me anymore, physically, no cuddling, nothing, no touching. No, it's wrong, it's against God's will, it's sinful. So, I thought, my God, what faith she must have. Because I'm not about to willingly give this up for God's will. So one day I was visiting her, and I was looking at her Bible, which was-- a Bible was something that we looked at fairly often-- and I'm thumbing through her Bible. And there's a little note in there, to my sweet Peggy. And I thought, that wasn't God, at all, that was Peggy. Peggy wouldn't like it if we did that. So, I was angry about that. I suppose that was a good way not to feel too hurt. 
00:33:09
FF:	But I forged ahead. I ran into another woman that year. I was living in the dorm. And she was listening to me tell somebody how I had a paper due the next day. And I couldn't type it, because there was no place to type except the bathroom, and that was too noisy. So she was a grad student, as it turns out. And she says, well, you can come to my room and type it if you'd like. So, off I went, typewriter in hand. Well, you never saw a better seduction in your life. And then, finally, toward the end of the evening, we went over to the drug store to get something. And she said, do you want something? And I said, no. And she said, not that you can get in here, anyway? Huh? And we went back to her room, and she kissed me. And, just for about five seconds, I thought, well, this is kind of funny. And then I felt intensely involved physically. So, we spent the night together. So, the next day-- but, of course, my paper wasn't done. I had an exam the next day. I'm floating down to the university. I didn't give a damn, because the next day I was going to go back down to see her, which I did. And I got to the door, and [KNOCKING] knock on the door. And she says, what are you doing here? And that was the end of that. I met another woman. She knew where the bars were. She knew what to do. So we started-- I'm going to go down to the bar, the first time in my life. So, if you're going downtown, you get dressed up, right? Maybe I've told you this? 
LL:	 Tell, me again. 
FF: 	OK. So, if you're going downtown you get dressed-- I get my little [UNINTELLIGIBLE]. This is '57. And I get my little ballerinas on, and my stockings, and my plaid skirt, and boatneck sweater, and everything. And I go downtown. Holy crying out loud. The only women, I found out, who went to bars back then were the dykes. [IN A DEEP VOICE] Well, hello there. [LAUGHTER] Eeeeek! [LAUGHTER] Oh, eeew. I warded off several folk that night. And ended up going home with this one woman, because I really liked talking to her. And we went to bed, and we talked until I fell asleep. And the next morning, we got up, and she took me over to work, so I'd be at work on time. And I never saw her again. And when I think of how kind she was, and she was a tough, tough, tough dyke-- So I went to the bars every night, and I discovered them. I went for about four years, I'd go out every night. And I met a lot of people, I hung around mostly with the guys. because the women were really, they were almost all-- phew, what could you say-- I didn't find them very interesting. And a lot of the guys were-- I mean, they had interesting jobs. And they'd been to school. And so we just had a blast. And we formed our own sort of little cul de sac there at one point. We each had rented apartments and stuff. And that went on for-- well, we hung out together every night for about four years. But one night-- occasionally, there was a nice-- well, a nice-- nice, from my point of view-- there was a woman I liked there at the bar. And this one's name was Chris. 
LL: 	We have plenty of time, go ahead. 
FF:	 So, her name was Chris. So I struck up a relationship with her, a little bit. She was just a willowy thing, you know? One night, somebody came rushing up to me and said, Chris is out in alley, she's in a fight. And I thought, oh, my God, this little wisp of a thing is going to be killed. So I raced out and I negotiated a separation of the dykes. Turned around to go back into the bar, and there was this woman that I had met there, and gone home with four years, three years before. And her name was Dusty. And Dusty was standing there in the door. And she pulled a knife out from her bra. And she said, just in case you needed me. [SIGHS] Oh, dear. OK. Thank you Dusty. And, again, that was fairly routine, sort of, that was nothing ultra-dramatic for those days. I mean, with the police raids, and threatened attacks and stuff. 
00:40:22
LL: 	Fay, I'd like to ask a question. Because I get kind of a clear picture of who Dusty is. And I have kind of a clear picture of you, in that you were kind of identifying yourself, and having allegiances and friendships with gay men. And that you weren't as attracted to some of what, in the vernacular of that time, would have been called bulldaggers. 
FF: 	Holy [INAUDIBLE]. 
LL: 	And that you were probably beginning to define yourself more as butch rather than as femme. Is that a fair assessment of how you were seeing yourself then? Because I know, for a lot of communities, you had to fall into one camp or the other, particularly in the bars. So, I just thought I'd ask that question, just for clarification. 
FF: 	Well, I never liked that distinction. However, I did enjoy putting on my wool slacks, and my bulk knit sweater. And going down to the bar and having a beer. And leaning back against the wall. And surveying the situation. Whew. I thought-- yeah, I guess I would have to say that's-- if I were to categorize myself-- I'd have to say that's butch, I suppose. I suppose I already always had been. 
00:41:59
LL:	 So far in your story what I've heard, too, is more with the identification with your brothers, and identification with the gay mean that you saw, in terms of being interesting. And part of your allegiance, or aligning yourself with them, had to do with, it sounds like, what you saw as the value and the importance that men held that women didn't. And that there was an opportunity for you, in this bar community, to kind of have some power, as a woman who considered herself more male identified in that way. 
FF: 	I guess so. I never thought of it that way, but-- I just thought-- they were just-- like there was my best friend, Jim. Jim came from a family of five boys, all of whom were gay. He came from New York City, and I had long been enthralled with New York City, and had visited a couple times. And so, he was very sophisticated, in my view. In fact, I've got to tell you one thing. Jim might have thought he was dealing with a diamond in the rough, I don't know. But anyway, he was about eight, nine years older than I was. He was a businessman. And he took me out one time, to help me buy a dress. So, we got this kind of fine dress, you know. And then he took me out to dinner. Now I had never been to dinner in my life. I mean, I had had fish fries, at home, in the bars when I was dating boys, between 16 and 18 years of age. Just finishing high school and stuff. But I had never been to dinner. So we, [UNINTELLIGIBLE] we're sitting there, and I thought, my gosh, you know? They brought a menu, gave us each a menu. I can't remember if Jim suggested something or not, he probably did, because I didn't know what the heck was-- And then they brought us a salad. And I thought, my word, when are we going to eat? So it must have been 20 minutes maybe, and they brought out my food. And it was a dinner plate. There was a baked potato and a glob about this size, maybe twice this size, twice the size of the head of the microphone, about an inch and a half thick. And it was black. And, of course, it was a filet mignon. Well, I didn't-- I thought, well, Jesus, I guess, gotta eat it, I guess. And, of course, I loved it. But it's nice that people do things like that for other people. Jim knew I'd never had any experience like that in my life. So we all started, as I said, we hung around. We had marvelous times. Then we thought we should, at least one night a week, not immediately go to bars. We would have dinner at different people's houses, and then we would play bridge. And everybody would watch the clock until it's about 11:00. And everybody was gone, of course. We decided, I don't know if I decided, or Jim, or whatever, but-- it was really quite a wild time-- I saw myself as being quite a wild creature. Drinking four beers a night. And out every night to the bars. And Jim would have the whole bar come back to his apartment, and then they'd stay until 5:00 in the morning. Then one morning I said to Jim, let's drive to New York City, let's drive to New York, of course, which meant the city. So we did. Off we drove to New York City, and we did the town for the weekend. And another time Camelot was opening in Toronto, in their new center-- God, what was the name of it, I can't remember now. Anyway, can't remember. So it was a big deal, because it was the opening of their huge, like the Overture Center, or something like that. 
LL:	 Like Lincoln Center-- 
FF: 	Lincoln Center, yeah. 
LL: 	Toronto's version of that 
FF: 	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we went to see Camelot. And there were all the main stars, they hadn't gone to New York yet. The first act wasn't over until 11:30 at night. So they did have some preparing to do for the-- But that was a nice, that was a nice experience. So, then we got out, and we rushed back to Buffalo, because in Buffalo the bars didn't close until 3:00 AM. And we could get there and have a drink before-- and so we did. And then we laughed mightily. How we doing timewise? 
LL: 	We've got plenty of time. 
FF: 	Like another anecdote, or? 
LL: 	Yeah, we've got at least a half an hour before this [UNINTELLIGIBLE] ends. 
FF: 	OK, OK. I told you, I mentioned that I made it my business to get to New York City, a couple of times. And I had run into this guy, who, again, was affiliating where I was. And he probably was not gay, but he was acceptable to me. He was from New York. And so I went down to visit Harvey. Now, again this is like '57, so this is a little earlier, I think. This was like before I became a nightly bar [UNINTELLIGIBLE], but anyway. I said to Harvey, see if you can tickets for My Fair Lady. Well, of course, you know, I mean, you could get a ticket for four years down the road, if you wanted. And he couldn't, of course. And he did get some theater tickets. And we went to the theater. And it was so disappointing, because right across the street was this big, MY FAIR LADY! Aww, man. And we had to go to this other thing, this other show that had opened up the night before called West Side Story-- 
LL:	 [LAUGHS] 
FF: 	--with Leonard Bernstein conducting. It's just one of those things you laugh about in life, you know.  [IN A WHINY, RELUCTANT VOICE] God, I've got to go to this, instead of-- So, anyway, I just wanted to throw that in there. 
00:50:12.05
FF:	I have to digress, just a bit, going back to when I was about 14. The Korean War started. [CLEARS THROAT] Excuse me. And my brother volunteered for the army, and went to Korea. And that's where I said I identified with Louisa May Alcott's statement of, well, I should go too. That was a very uncomfortable year, because I felt like I should be there, doing something. 
[00:50:54.87] 
FF:	Back to the present. Well, after three, four years of barring all the time, we're up to 1961. And I left Buffalo. And I went to Michigan. I knew a couple of people who had gone there, gone out there to Ann Arbor. So, I thought, well, it's time to-- now by this time I had graduated from nursing school about six months before that. I thought, well, it's time to start seeing the world. And Michigan is as good a place to start as any. So I was in Michigan for about five and a half years. They started a master's program, while I was there, in psych nursing. And I knew I wanted that, eventually. So, even though I was just out of school, I just-- and they had funding. So, I enrolled in that, and I met this woman at work. And she was pretty special. I'm not sure exactly how it all came about, but eventually, I was watching her two young sons when she worked shifts. And her sons were seven and nine, at the time. '61, yeah. Well, then eventually, I might as well move in with her. Because you know, we could split the rent and who had any money? Neither one of us. So that was the beginning of a five and a half year relationship with Marion and her two sons. As far as I was concerned-- I was enrolled. And I was getting my master's. And I was taking a lot of photographs. And I was with Marion and the boys. And I had settled down for life. I was 23. Figured that was it. And it didn't really work out quite that well. Marion had put her ex-husband through medical school. And then he was supposed to put her through school. And he didn't, of course. And by then they had the two kids. And she put herself through, with the two boys. Gradually she began to worry that he might want to try to get the boys away from her. Because being a lesbian was not real fashionable from '61 through '66. And she just worried more about that, and more, and more, and it just got to be a thing, and we just didn't make it. About 20 years later-- I saw her a couple of times-- and about 20 years later, I got a letter from her. And it said, don't ever contact me again for anything in anyway at all, blah, blah, blah, blah blah, blah, blah, if it hadn't been for you, I never would have been involved in such a situation. She, by the way, was 11 years older than I. [LAUGHS] I almost figured, well, she must've flipped out or something. 
00:55:12
FF:	However, I still have-- I'm in touch with the boys. And I often wonder what they make of it now, looking back. And they don't know that she's drawn this line. Because they'll say, why don't you come out? Mom's going to be 80 pretty soon. And come out and visit. And I emailed her and I got no answer, this past summer. I said, you know, one of these days one of us is going to die. So we might as well get together, a little bit. She never answered. So, I'm going to call her, and see what happens. During that time, I finished getting my master's in '63, I became-- I was afraid to try and get it, but turned out I could do it. And I became very energized about issues of health care. And I was so determined that nursing should find its role in the health care team, because of what we had to contribute. And because treatment is necessary but not sufficient. Which is to say, if you don't have care, you're not going anywhere. I got involved in the opening, in the building of this hospital for emotionally disturbed children. And that's what I did until I left Ann Arbor. We opened it up. They built it. And we determined absolutely everything about it. And we were all just like, I think the oldest was 31, the doc, and then the medical director was 31. We just worked day and night. It was supposed to have been the first of about six residential treatment centers for emotionally disturbed children in Michigan, at the forefront of the community mental health movement. Which went no place. Which meant that they opened the doors to all the state hospitals, including the one in Central Islip, out at the end of the Long Island, that had 12,000 patients. Where I worked-- in making the transition into the new treatment center for kids-- where I worked was in the state hospital. And that's where we developed the plans for the treatment center. And as I say, they've never built anymore treatment centers in Michigan. And community mental health really went down the tubes. And I went to Viet Nam. [LAUGHS] So, there. 
00:58:59
LL: 	We paused for a moment. Because I wanted to check in with Fay regarding the Vietnam portion of her story. And we've decided that we're going to save that for a second interview. But Fay does have some additional things she wants to share with us this afternoon, in this portion of the interview. Back to Fay. 
00:59:22
FF:	 During this-- before I left and went to Michigan, during this bar era, I guess, I had written things down, for quite awhile, actually. Different things that you could say might be called poems. I wrote one about World War II when I was eight, nine, but that's a little embarrassing. Well, the last two lines, though of that poem, I can [UNINTELLIGIBLE]. I spent all afternoon ruminating about what I was-- I was trying to write something. I wrote about the soldiers, and what a terrible thing it was, and that they had to fight the Japs, and all this. And then I ended it up, and I said, "In the field, where humans lay, they fought in the war that terrible day." Anyway. I wrote something in 1960 which goes along with the coming out, and going to the bars, and all that stuff. And addressing the world really, or other people, or whatever. "This lithesome youthful creature offends you. This gentle, searching being confounds you. Its sensitivity, cloaked so different from your own, conforms to standards devious in nature." And then, the next year, '61-- I mentioned before that I felt kind of like I was being a real wild creature, going to these bars, and escaping police raids, and all sorts of stuff. Escaping getting beat up, like these guys were going to beat me up one night. And I said, oh, for crying out loud, guys. I said, think of my poor mother. And they said, [IN A DEEP, SLURRED VOICE] Oh, come on, Joe and they left. All these things so, as I say, I thought I was quite worldly. But anyway, I wrote this, "I am all things to all people, yet nothing to the All One. I am you, God, and you, Satan, in child, and man, and woman's body. I am omnipotence and clarity. Rascal, freeman, mirror to the world. Concept of conception non- conceiving. Going, sighing, singing shamelessly, exploring guilt, flinging body and soul in muddy snow, and rising, laughing in the face of industry." And that's that.