Lesbian Archives of Sonoma County members honored for preserving ‘secret’ history

Tina Dungan and a number of friends and colleagues showed up to a reception celebrating a local women’s history project at Sonoma State University and were dumbfounded by a glaring omission.

No lesbians.

There was literally not the word “lesbian” in any of the pieces in the so-called history, Dungan recalled.

Lesbians participated in the project, they were sure, because some of Dungan’s group were among those interviewed.

“There were pictures of people who are lesbians but it didn’t say lesbian,” Dungan said.

It felt like erasure.

Ruth Mahaney, a leading educator in the field of women’s studies who has taught at Santa Rosa Junior College, Sonoma State and City College of San Francisco, was interviewed at length, but when she showed up to the reception, she too was disappointed.

“They had given us Post-it Notes to add what we thought was missing,” she said. “There were women who had a stream of like 20 Post-it Notes.”

At that moment, the idea behind the Lesbian Archives of Sonoma County was born.

“I just remember sitting in this little coffee shop in Guerneville and there were four, maybe five of us, and we were talking about the display we had seen that we were so displeased with,” Dungan said. “So in our typical women’s movement fashion, we wanted to get as many people involved, and as much as possible, we wanted to get people to come and tell their own stories.”

That was nearly two decades ago.

Today, the members of LASC have been honored by the Sonoma County Historical Records Commission for their work creating and preserving video interviews of lesbians who were activists in a broad array of fields between 1965-1995.

“Right away I said ‘Oh LASC, they deserve recognition,” said Eve Goldberg, a Sonoma County Library Commissioner who nominated LASC for the annual award. “I just thought it was important to come to the attention of the wider community.”

“I come from a baseline belief that knowing about history and knowing about all the diversity and small bits of history and people and groups, that really made history and have changed our society, is important to know,” she said.

Among other honorees in the annual ceremony are George Baur for his book “Third Street Petaluma,” Lee Torliatt, longtime archivist for the Sonoma County Historical Society, Tim Danesi and Irene Hilsendager for work with the Rohnert Park Archives Working Group and Paula Freund and Amy Hogan for work on the Petaluma Pioneers website.

The work of LASC focuses on activism, community building and work by lesbians in Sonoma County over a three decade period. The breadth of topics and subjects interviewed in the various oral histories is immense.

There are discussions covering Women’s Voices newspaper, the Lesbian bar scene, Lesbian Voters Action Caucus and AIDS caregivers.

There are talks with thespian groups, softball league leaders and environmental action committees.

Ann Neel, who taught the first women’s studies class at Santa Rosa Junior College and was instrumental in the development of the women’s studies program at Sonoma State, said Sonoma County gained a reputation as a leader in progressive action and activism.

“My thing was in terms of future of research into the activism of the 70s, Sonoma County played a special role in that,” she said. “Sonoma County was known. There was all kinds of action going on.”

And beyond the list of interview subjects, noteworthy, too, is the interview format LASC adopted from the start.

Unlike many forms of oral and recorded histories in which recorders interview people individually in an effort to keep subjects from influencing each other, LASC interviews are done en masse.

Those being interviewed sit on a couch or in a circle of chairs, more often as not facing each other as much as the interviewer.

It’s intentional.

LASC embraces the influence and celebrates the interplay among people being interviewed.

“Considering that two of our founding members are sociologists, it was a real step away from tradition,” Dungan said.

But the benefits outweighed the rooted-in-tradition drawbacks, she said.

“It added to the reunion kind of thing,” she said. “It brought up stuff that wouldn’t have come up if we just worked with individuals.”

And it allowed those being interviewed to navigate the emotions that came up as people recalled lives lived.

“We wanted people to trigger each other’s memories,” Mahaney said. “It was really, really rich. People would say ‘Oh I really don’t remember that,’ or ‘Oh wow your impression of the event was that, mine was …’”

Dungan recalled one interview of four women who had been caregivers for men with AIDS at a time when fear ran rampant and dying people were being abandoned.

“Families wouldn’t take care of them. Not everyone, but there was a feeling that they were untouchable,” Dungan said. “Lesbians stepped forward … In the interviews, women were crying. It was a very moving kind of film.”

But in still another interview, there was lots of laughter as softball players recalled wearing hair tucked under caps to appear as boys playing Little League, or recognizing closeted lesbians as the “ringer” on teams full of “housewives.”

Those exchanges make a video interview not only a historic reference but a human one.

When LASC was formed nearly two decades ago, about 60 groups and individuals were on the list of targeted interviews.

To date, LASC has recorded approximately 35 video interviews at a pace of about four a year.

The pace, Dungan admitted, has slowed over time.

“We are old,” she said.

But the work continues because it’s vital, Neel said.

“When you make a record you don’t know how it’s going to be used. But you can give people every chance to figure out it’s there,” she said.

Capturing real voices of real people is invaluable, she said.

“People get old and die and you can’t pick that record back up,” she said.

The recorded interviews are housed at the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco and are available for viewing free online in the archives.

“I would love to have younger people using them,” Dungan said. “Might be naive of me that they could be better prepared for things that are happening these days.”

For Mahaney, the genesis of why LASC came to be is crystal clear — to tell and preserve the stories of pioneering lesbians in a period of monumental change not only in Sonoma County, but beyond.

But when asked how these hours upon hours of interviews might be used, and by whom, in the future, Mahaney, was less certain.

“I think, as a historian, which I now consider myself to be, we can’t ever know,” she said. “We can’t imagine the kinds of uses that it might have.”

The key, Neel said, was to make sure the information was available and accessible for all.

“As a social historian you can’t know the long term value or who might decide to take a look at the whole thing,” she said. “You are just trying to make sure that there are certain treasures that aren’t lost.”

You can reach Staff Columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Instagram @kerry.benefield.