Fabulous: A Youth Symposium
2009
Oral History with Jeanne Healy, Lois Stuart, and Jackie, 1985
This interview begins as a conversation between Lois, a retired schoolteacher and activist in Southern Ontario, and Jeanne, a retired secretarial worker and activist. Partway through the interview, Jackie enters and dominates much of the discussion. Jackie was born in 1934 in Sudbury, Ontario to a large French and Native family. As a teenager, she ran away to Toronto multiple times. Following a marriage at 16, she moved to Toronto for a number of years, where she became part of the lesbian bar scene at The Continental Hotel. Jackie would have been considered a downtowner and a rounder, having spent time in and out of the Don Jail throughout her life. The majority of the interview concerns her coming out process as a butch; her work as a pickpocket and later a heroin dealer; her experiences of violence in the Lesbian bar scene; as well as her relationships with women, one of which was with an aspiring Hollywood starlet. The interview is framed by a larger conversation about police harassment, books published in the fifties featuring gay and lesbian characters, and Jeanne and Lois’ involvement in the Women’s Movement.
Lesbians Making History Collective
1985
Lesbians Making History Collective
LGBTQ Digital Oral History Collaboratory
The CLGA does not hold copyright
oral history
1950s to 1970s, 1985
Oral History with Betty Burrows & Shirley Shea, 1987
Betty was born on a farm just outside in Sydney, Australia and Shirley was born in Sudbury in 1924. The two meet in Toronto in the 1960s, where they were apart of the lesbian bar scene that gravitated around The Continental. At the time of the interview in 1985, both Shirley and Betty are retired. The interview covers their early lives in Australia and Sudbury, Ontario; their coming-out experiences and various men and women they have dated; Betty’s travels around the world and Shirley’s work for CBC; their first encounter; and life in the lesbian bar scene in Toronto.
Lesbians Making History Collective
1987
Lesbians Making History Collective
LGBTQ Digital Oral History Collaboratory
CLGA does not hold copyright.
oral history
1950s to 1970s, 1987