UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

Interview #1038
WARD, RORY 

WARD, RORY (ca. 1942-)
Fire Fighter
At UW: n/a 	(At Madison: 1976-Present )

Interviewed: 	2009 (1 session)
Interviewer: 	Pat Calchina
Index by: 	Troy Reeves, Carmen Baumann
Length: 	2 hours, 02 minutes

Abstract: In her 2009 interview with Pat Calchina, Rory Ward details her life in Madison. Ward talks about her partner, DJ Douglas, of forty years; Douglas did not participate in the interview, due to her dementia. This interview was conducted for inclusion into the project, Madison’s LGBT Community, 1960s-Present, part of the UW-Madison Oral History Program’s general collection.

Key Words: Lysistrata, Madison (WI), Madison Fire Department, harrassment within the Madison Fire Department, DJ Douglas, A Room of One’s Own, gay/lesbian rights, Vietnam War, US Navy, Eugene Parks, Great Depression, WASP (Womens Airforce Service Pilots), Apple Island, Lesbian Variety Shows, Lysistrata Fire, First Galvanized March for Gay Pride, Bagpiping, Gay Marriage, Apple Computers, Early Unregulated Ambulance Systems, Mafia, Mendota Mental Health, Captiol Square Associates (Psychology), Transgender Movement,

Interview Session (2009): Digital File

Time	Keywords
00:00:00	Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction

00:00:58	Brief overview of couple’s (Rory Ward and DJ Douglas) years before Madison; they have a relationship of 39 years. There is a 17-year difference in their ages. Douglas was in the Navy and Ward was a student at Marquette University and they met in 1963 in a Judo class. Douglas was an Emergency Care Nurse in the Navy during the Vietnam War. 

00:03:37	1970—Douglas finished her PhD at UC Davis and Ward finished her Masters at University of Chicago they moved together to Connecticut for a few years. After that they moved to Iowa City and didn’t move to Madison until 1976. Douglas was offered a position at the University of Wisconsin—Madison in Sociology and in the School of Nursing with Marie Zimmer.

00:06:45	Feb. 1980--Ward was in the first class of women to be brought into the fire department. 

00:10:18	1978—Testing standards are changed by the Fire Department to allow women better access to firefighter positions. Among the first of these women let in after the new testing standards were Mary Sweeny and Marcia Holtz. They were tricked into missing the testing and thrown out of the department. These women sued the city of Madison for discrimination. These women were reinstated with Ward’s class in 1980, two years later. Much of the bad feeling about women firefighters came from the male fire fighter’s wives who were worried about women in a previously all male environment. Issues of sleeping arrangements and “fraternizing” were among the main arguments. 

00:12:14	Discussion of problems face in department: name calling (C-word), vicious verbal attacks, and lies about the women’s abilities. Training had to be filmed to protect the women from the lies. Rory called a “shim” (she/him); there was a charge by fellow fire fighters that she had changed her sexuality to female to get on the fire department.

00:14:40	Women in the fire stations were most often separated and there were never more than one woman at a station at at time. They often called one another after shifts to compare notes and warn one another. Ward directly confronted the attacks, in one case actually fought with one man (wrestling match) at a rookie party at Lysistrata. The fight was broken up by Eugene Parks. 

00:19:00	Ward mentions that the entire culture of fire house life had to change when women entered the workplace. This caused tension, but persistent resistance to the harassment by women like Ward helped to end this kind of treatment (for the most part) after about two years of her working for the MFD. 

00:21:55	Ultimately, there was a lawsuit filed for harassment against a new class of women a couple years after Ward was hired. She implied that the suit was raised because of increased tolerance and respect for female officers and the superior officers who reported the harassment did so rightfully. This suit, Ward, believes went as far as federal court.

00:22:55	Question: What was it like psychologically those first couple of years [on the job]? Answer: It was very traumatic for a lot of people. Ward worked at House #1, a very busy and large house in the downtown area. She mentions problems and issues; moments of intensity, racism and sexism and deliberate taunts. Ward mentions men were very angry that women were allowed to become fire fighters.

00:26:09 	She was the oldest woman recruit at the age of 35. She mentions that other recruits at 18 or 19 years old didn’t have the benefit of a previous struggle or sense of self and were more affected by the harassment.

00:27:00	Ward discusses her partner’s, DJ Douglas’, background. At 6 years old (1931) Douglas lived on the streets of St. Louis alone with her 4 year old brother during the Great Depression. She was on the streets with her little brother until she was 11 years old. They were cared for by a man at a railroad station who helped homeless kids. To help her be safe, he dressed her as a boy. Basically, she was raised as a boy, continuing to pass as one into young adulthood. 

00:31:05	Douglas taught herself math being first introduced to logarithmic tables from a scrap of paper she found on the street.  When asked about passing as a boy, during that time period, she said, “That’s what was safe.”

00:33:28	Douglas learned to fly a plane at 15, as a boy. She was taught by a former (?) U.S. Army Air Corps officer, who was instrumental in the Tuskegee Airmen Program and the WASP (Women’s Airforce Service Pilots) program. He took Douglas “under his wing” and taught her to fly. She was a quick study; very smart.

00:33:40	As a result of her flight training, Douglas joined the U.S. Army and made rank as a man called Sam Douglas. After the war she was a flight instructor as a man and worked in an air show. (At the time Douglas was twenty but made to look younger.) Eventually, Douglas was found out while working as a charter pilot and that was the end of her career. They would not fly with a woman pilot.

00:37:40	Ward continues to talk about Douglas’ past. After Douglas no longer passed as a man, she went to nursing school, became a medical sociologist, worked for civil air patrol, and volunteered for search and rescue. 

00:42:44	Douglas (and Ward) were black belts in Judo, flew planes, and became involved in search and rescue. Ward received her pilot’s license in 1980. 

00:45:16	Douglas holds several degrees and at least 2 PhDs despite having no formal primary or secondary education. Ward noted Douglas worked on many university committees through her connections with the School of Nursing; head of pilot program at the UW, women’s issues committees; she sat on boards with the Department of Aviation with the state of WI, safety counselor and was awarded by the FAA. Douglas taught judo, self defense, EMS, and flying. 

00:49:08	Lesbian/women’s rights issues meetings were held at Ward and Douglas’ house, including the meeting that founded Lysistrata. Ward recalled that 7 or 8 women attended. Ward talked about her motivation in helping to create Lysistrata. Ward and Douglas noted that women’s restaurants were popular in Iowa City where they had come from, and wanted to help start something like that in Madison. Lysistrata was a more open and welcoming place than those in Iowa. It was a place where women and men were welcome to come together to eat and drink and was home to a diverse community centered on feminism and equality. 

00:52:00	Ward was on the emergency call for the fire that destroyed Lysistrata. Ward comments that the cause of the fire, as she understood it was electrical, and not arson (although she does mention she was not on the arson committee). It was a meeting place that was popular with women in the police and fire departments.

00:54:30	Douglas was a bike racer in the 1940s in the St. Louis area.

00:56:25	The founder of Lysistrata, Catherine Rouse, was involved in a murder suicide in 1989 apparently caused by relationship problems, “a love triangle” Ward calls it. Ward was on that emergancy call as an EMS. She recalls it was a very cold day and the atmosphere was understandably somber. Catherine Rouse was sister to Mary Rouse, former Dean of Students at UW—Madison. 

00:59:44	Ward and Douglas participated in the first Galvanized March for Gay Pride with the Fire and Police Department members. 

01:00:08	Ward discusses Douglas’ family. Douglas’ family live in Napa, CA. She has a sister who is a nun in a convent in Rockford, IL. 

01:02:23	Ward and Douglas were involved in A Room of One’s Own, a place they were excited to see opened. Later Ward used the bookstore as a resource for literature in her profession as a psychologist.  The United (now called Outreach)—Ward was listed as a psychologist in the Outreach Directory, but otherwise she and Douglas were not that involved in the lesbian and gay community, “We weren’t too big in lesbian and gay communities.” 

01:03:04	Ward and Douglas were married in Canada in 2005. Through Ward’s bagpiping connections she found out about other couples going to Canada to get married. She and Douglas did the same. Their friends and family joined them to the ceremony and celebration. Ward noted a lack of change socially, economically and legally, when she married Douglas, because U.S. laws do not recognize it. Despite their being married in Canada, in the U.S. Ward and Douglas had to pay for numerous legal protections and financial trusts that would have otherwise been granted them if their marriage was recognized by the United States. Ward pointed to how marriage can bolster commitment and enhance relationships and for those who can legally marry it protects each partner legally and financially. Ward and Douglas married in Canada to affirm their 39 year relationship in a place where everyone recognized their rights and their relationship for the long term commitment that it is. 

01:10:39	Ward discusses her experience having to care for Douglas’s family. For 7 years Douglas’s mother and brother lived with them. They struggled with getting benefits for family members because of their “alternative family” status. Douglas favored fighting within the system and hiring lawyers. Ward talked about “tough times,” such as no legal support for non-traditional families. 

01:17:39	Ward discusses how the age difference between she and Douglas really helped their relationship. Douglas pushed Ward to learn constantly, especially computers (Douglas programmed computers for a time for Apple and began in the 1950s when computers were just being developed) and flying. Although Ward sometimes rejected Douglas’ lessons, Ward is grateful to have learned all she did from such an intelligent and knowledgeable woman.

01:18:26	Ward does care for Douglas now; Douglas has dementia. Although Douglas was in the room during the interview, she did not participate in the interview. Rory has been writing a book about Douglas’ life.

01:19:07	When the interviewer asked about Douglas’s present condition, Ward remarks that Douglas is lucky to be alive at all. Douglas faced many life threatening situations in her long life: being shot down twice in Vietnam while working as an emergency nurse, once being pinned under the helicopter, several car accidents and most dangerous, her dissertation topic: Douglas traveled alone across country researching the early ambulance system that was little more than a front for the mafia. Douglas’s participation in these “ride alongs” and her dissertation was instrumental in cleaning up and regulating the ambulance system in large cities in the 1960s. 

01:20:30	Ward and the interviewer discuss the challenge of caring for Douglas now that she suffers from dementia. Ward: “She still wants to be involved.” And “she is fast and she is strong,” so there are challenges. But they still have lots of good times and laugh often together.

01:23:37	Ward advises to live your life day-by-day because no one can predict the future. She talked about the benefits to her and Douglas’s life that their non-traditional relationship coupled with their more traditional occupations have had. 

01:26:22	Ward moved from the fire department to psychology. Ward’s disseration: the psychological problems facing patients entering the emergency room and how emergency room staff could help with this transition. 1990 Ward graduated from UW Madison. She did an internship at the counseling service (she does not say where) and a post doctorate at Mendota Mental Health in Madison in Forensic Psychology. She went into private psychological practice at Capitol Square Associates. She turned 55 and retired from the Fire Department and her practice in 1999.

01:31:32	Question: What was it like to be doing this new work as compared to your old very physical job as an EMT and fire fighter? Answer: It was challenging and exciting in a similar way. I never knew what the patient was going to say just as I never knew what to expect on a call. She equated it to problem solving. Ward saw mostly long term patients. She talks about her advocacy work as a psychologist for patients. She credits her experience working for the fire department and the challenges she met there as giving her the constitution to deal with the hoops and runaround government programs often put patients through.

01:38:08	Interviewer asks if Ward and Douglas went to The Hotel Washington (on West Washington Ave). Ward: Yes, they may have gone to the Cafe Palms for lunch a few times. Ward visited on ambulance and fire calls a few times. She was not on the call for the fire that destroyed the building. She was skiing on the lake at the time of the fire and she remembers seeing burned paper flying over the ice, probably from the fire at the West Washington Ave. building.

01:39:03	Apple Island: Ward and Douglas participated in a show “The Problem That Never Was” put on by lesbian members of the Fire and Police Departments. 

01:14:19	The interviewer asked Ward’s opinion about assimilation v. community building: Ward has seen how the gay community has become mainstream within the greater American culture only on its surface. The lack of equal rights keeps the gay community separate. She says the same is true for women’s rights as well. Ward believes assimilation should happen on the terms of the community being assimilated into the greater culture, but the same rights and privileges will need to be extended. 

01:47:46	Lesbian Variety Show: Ward and Douglas participated by line dancing. Again the Fire Firefighters and Police participated. She and Douglas had lots of fun participating and watching the shows. She remembers Dykes on Pipes. 

01:51:15	Question: What has your relationship been like with gay men? 
		Answer: “We [Ward and Douglas] have had some great friends.” They often flew to New Orleans to visit a couple and stay with them over the holidays. Ward biked with close gay male friends. Many of their friends were gay men, being friends with men was more appealing to Ward because of her “rough and tumble” fire fighter background. 

01:55:14	Ward discusses her and DJs experience with  passing for men. She has mixed feelings about the Transgender movement today because she doesn’t believe people should have to choose to fit society’s vision of male and female.  

 02:02:26	End of Interview Session

End of Oral History #1038