MCHA Oral History Transcription Dana Howell and Joe Zemla interviewing Joan and Lucy January 13 2020

DH: Dana and Joe on January 13th 2020. We’re here with Lucy and Joan. Okay, so we’re gonna start with Joan. Joan, what year were you born?

J: 1939. DH: Where did you grow up? J: | grew up in Fords, New Jersey. Born in South Amboy, New Jersey.

DH: And describe your family a little bit, what was your background like? Mom and Dad? Brothers and sisters? Religion?

J: |have one brother, younger than | am, who we don’t see unfortunately. My mother and father, my mom was not educated. She worked in a shirt factory to help put us through school and that also included Lucy. Whatever she can do for her, she did growing up. My brother attended school and they supported him until he got his doctorate. In my particular case, my father didn’t feel that | was college material. | was too wild and ran around too much, did too much. And so he was never, ever supportive of any of my endeavors, unfortunately. When | think back, | suppose in a way money was hard then and he probably said “wow, I’m going to work these 3 jobs and this kid’s not even going to make it”. Pretty wild. Pretty disobedient. Went my own way. Very few friends. Just a loner. At one time he put in the car and he said to me “we’re gonna take a ride” and in New Brunswick there was a cigar factory and he stopped the car in front of the cigar factory and said, “that’s where you’re going to work”. | said to myself “son a bitch, I’m going to do it in spite of him”. He never wanted responsibility. My mother said ‘if you don’t buy a house, we’re going”, so he bought a house, but | was the oldest on the block because these were all young couples buying homes and at that time when he bought the house | was turning 13 and going on 14. So there were all little kids, again | was a loner. Got myself in trouble, the whole 9 yards. One day one of the neighbors down the street came up to my mother and said her daughter was moving into Fords and she was so happy because she was my age and at least there’d be someone for me to hang around with. Long story short, we were friends. We used to ride our bikes togethers, play basketball. All tomboy stuff. And one day we're sitting on the curb sneaking a cigarette, we’re 14, looking around okay. And Francis said to me, you know what. | have to ask you a question. | said what. She said are you interested in boys? | said, well as friends. | said but, | have to tell you something, | said there’s something wrong with me because I|”m attracted to women. Now that is probably the best thing that ever happened, being 14 | didn’t ruin anyone's life. i didn’t get a divorce. | didn’t have to lie to anybody. That was the part, well she was 30 steps ahead of the game. We got in a lot of trouble together, we used to go to New York. All kinds of stuff. However, through that at least | knew something was not right, but | was too young and too immature to really do the right thing about it. | went out, | dated, | was engaged once. | like this fellow very, very much. He was hard working. His parents were from Italy, they expected you’re gonna get married. You’re gonna move downstairs, you’re gonna have kids. So | went home and told my mother and she said “you’re 18 years old. What's wrong with you? You don't even know your own mind. Don’t lead him on this way, okay.

We had the long talk, | said Nicky | love you, but | love you like a brother and the whole thing went on and | said we have to break up. He was devastated. (laughs). So he went like the Italian people do, he went to the garage and had a conference with my father. And my father heard him out and my father’s answer to him was “Nicholas, this is the luckiest goddamn thing that ever happened to you”. He is married, he has 3 children. He became an attorney and when Stella and | were going out, funny enough we ran into him and we were at a skating rink and | said to her “oh my god, there’s Nicholas” so he sees us and he comes running over. How ya doin and this and this and this. And | said to him, | want to introduce you to somebody. Which | did. And he looked at her and he looked at me and he said, thank you for doing that because | thought | failed somewhere. | said no, you were actually the one that helped me to push my decision forward. And that’s how that happened.

DH: Do you think your dad knew? Is that why he said what he said?

J: Well there was an incident at work. Things were very, very bad there. My friend, Francis, the one that we were friends with. She left because she was treated very badly at home and Lucy and | were Christmas shopping and | said to her, “you know, this reminds me of Francis”. | haven’t seen here in years and years, | wonder what ever happened to her. It was late at night and this delicatessen was open and we went in for hot chocolate. And who is the waitress there, but Francis’ partner at that time. She sat down at the table, we talked, we went through everything. We got close again. She was the one who said to me “after you’re going out a few times, you don’t really know what’s going on, do you?” | said, “no, what are you talking about”? She said “this woman is crazy about you”. | said “Are you out of your mind?”. SO what happens is, we become close again and that comes to your point. | got her partner a job, Stella said to me it’s not a good thing. You know, you’re going into supervision, you’re doing really good at work. You’re going to school nights and all, | don't think it’s a good idea. | said you gotta help them out, they’re starving. They’re making ends meet. After | got her the job, something had happened. | bought a piece of jewelry or something and Francis was selling jewelry. The ring was too big. Stella said | want you to give the ring back, it's ridiculous.

L: That was ridiculous.

J: So | gave the ring back and for some reason Francis’ partner got very upset about it and that's what started the whole thing. She walked in the mailroom and she was a secretary and | was starting my climb up into the supervision area. | was going to college at nights and stuff, she was pushing me to do it. And she called her Mrs. DeStefano. She slugged her. You can’t be afraid of what happens. My father’s secretary’s son worked in the mailroom. | stopped over at my mothers and she said to me “Catherine, your father wants to talk to you in the garage. She said, “what the H is going on with you two?”. | said what are you talking about? So she told me. | said okay. So he comes home in the garage, okay here we go. Go in the garage, shut the door. Tells me the whole thing. | listened to him and the only thing | said to him was “whatever and whoever | am, | am your daughter”. Never came up again, treated her like his own daughter. Treated her better than me. My mother was very, very close. They were like mother and daughter. Never came up. He was a very intelligent man, I’m gonna have to say that he did and they just put it out of their mind. Okay my mother never really brought it up again. So | don't know how that ever wound up, but we were very close. The 4 of us went on vacation together. We were always together. They were absolutely wonderful to her. So | have to say in his own mind, maybe. The thing he couldn’t face was my brother. Because he asked Stella and I, is your brother gay? Because if he is, I’m going to

send him to a mental institution because he had the last name that my father had. The old Italian stuff. | don’t know, but he could not have been a better father. He could not have been a better friend.

DH: So you never specifically said it?

J: Never.

DH: Okay, it was implied. And how old were you when that happened? J: [think | was 20. We were very young when we met.

L: We were friends for over a year first. Just friends.

DH: And you were with the other couples too? There were a couple of other couples that you were going out with?

J: The wrong type of people. Things were very tough there during the 70’s and the 80’s as you know we were almost arrested.

DH: Tell us about that.

J: Okay, that was a very interesting thing. We had to be very careful where we went in those times. Francis calls up and she says “listen there’s a club that's up in Kenilworth. You have to get a card. It's private.

L: Parsippany?

J: Parsippany. Okay. So we said “oh that would be wonderful, that would be a good experience for us”. Well this is a bar, there was a father who owned the whole building. Upstairs was a straight bar, downstairs, because his daughter was gay, was our own. It was mostly female couples, there were some male, but you had a card. You had to go in and that was that.

DH: You had a card? J: Yeah, an actual card because you know DH: Like a membership?

J: Didn’t work. We were there one day. Now if anyone came in, the ABC (Alcohol Beverage Control), the lights blinked

L: and we’d change partners, we would dance with the men.

J: Well this one night they come in. 6 of them and they are walking around with these pads. I’m looking at her, she’s looking at me.

L: They were taking down names

J: And addresses. So | said to her “listen to me. | said go in the ladies room, open the window and climb out. Here are the car keys, i’ll meet you in the car

L: we left our coats

J: 3 degrees below zero. If they saw us walking towards the coat room it was all over. She climbed out the window, she waited and then | just walked around the side and these guys were over here they were starting to come so | look at Franny and | said see ya and i went in the bathroom and | locked the door, opened the window and climbed out the window and got in the volkswagen and this car hardly ever started up, we said “please god let the car start up” started the car up, left and never looked back. That was just one of the many experiences.

L: It was in the paper the next day with all the names. J: You know, they were allowed to do that then. DH: You had to give them the information, yeah.

L: Somebody had called on the owner upstairs and said that he had a gay club down in his basement and thats why and he was serving liquor, so they raided it for the liquor as well. But then they made a big splash about all the gay people that were there.

J: It was an excuse. JZ: What year was this approximately? L: This was in the early 60s. A long time ago. You probably weren’t even born then,

J: Another experience was why we wanted to join this club. There was a place in Newark that was called the Tequila Club.

L: Oh God.

J: |! mean, where could you go that you could dance and shoot pool and all this stuff? This whole crew of us went down there and the straight people used to come just so they can antagonize us. “Look at those two!” you couldn't do anything about it. This one gal, her name was Mickey, she and her partner, it was like they owned the palace. Everyone knew them. So this one night a couple of guys come in and they’re minding their own business and everybody’s talking and she got up and this one guy turned around he’s looking at her up and down. She was quite tailored, let me put it that way. And he said “you know, you dress like a man, you want to fight like a man?” Instead of her just walking out, they almost killed her out in the middle of the street in Newark. Almost killed her. Hit her, punched her. | can’t even tell you what they did to her. So somebody called the police. We got in the car and Stella said, “Catherine, No more. We’re done”. And we stayed home from then on. That’s when your gay friends become your family.

(15:57)

J: You go to each other’s homes. You go to each other's picnics. You do everything together and they become such a part of your life especially when things had to be so secretive. It's your support network. We still have friends over some 40 something years and we’re still very, very close of course with Peg and Louise they're like family to us. It’s a wonderful thing. I’m a little different, | don't worry. Stella, | took her a very long time to come to terms with it.

L: | lost my job.

J: It was not nice. We didn’t have pleasant experiences during those years. She lost her job. They said one of you have to go, so she said I’m a secretary | can get a job anywhere”. Catherine struggled with

going to school, let her stay. So she left, which was the best thing that ever happened because she became an executive secretary. She had a good career until she got ill. Would | want to do it again? With her? Yes, but differently. We would’ve handled things much differently. We didn’t have much of a choice, quite frankly.

DH: You had said that you had some gay male friends and you would sort of help each other out in that you were each other’s dates.

J: Oh yeah, that was cool. DH: Tell us about that

J: most of them at that time they all did extremely well, God bless them, and most of them were executives and things of that nature. Didn’t look well in the 80’s to go to a dinner. So | get the call, put the lipstick on and the makeup and have a hell of a good time. We’re dancing. We’ve been friends with them over 42 years and because one of our friends we met, Louise and Peg, he felt that we would get along well and really click and we did. It was a good thing. It was tough for them, but you must understand that gay men live a different lifestyle.

DH: How so? L: Its harder for them

J: It's hard for them number 1, and number 2 they really have to meet somebody and click to keep it together. These guys did a pretty good job.

JZ: Before we talk a little bit more about your relationship, Lucy, maybe you could give us a little background on you, where you were born, your upbringing.

L: I’ve got a story for you (laughs). | was born in Keyport, NJ and my mother died when | was born and | was adopted by my aunt and uncle. And | lived in Brooklyn. They were very strange people. They felt that | owed them because they took me in and my life was a hell, but that was fine. | just went along and did the best | could and then (it’s hard for me, sorry). | lived in Brooklyn and then | went to school in Brooklyn and when | was about 10 years old my adoptive parents decided to move to New Jersey. We lived in Tinton Falls and | lived there quite a while until | was about, | guess, 15 and then we moved to Red Bank, New Jersey and | went to school and | was privileged to make it to high school because they didn’t believe in me, my adoptive parents. | have other siblings, adopted siblings. | had 3 brothers and a sister. | had one brother that was real good to me and then the rest were not, but that was ok. When we moved to New Jersey, | liked our life. We lived on a farm and it was a lot of fun. We used to have to walk 2 miles to go get the groceries, but | would go with my mother and we would do that. We moved to Red Bank, as | said, and went to school and when | was 16 | got my working papers and | worked. | would come home from school and | would go on the bus and | would go to work. THen | would come home and | would take care of everything in the house. Do all the ironing and everything and then | went to work which was the best thing in my life when | got a job. | got a job and | met Catherine and we were very good friends and we used to go out all the time with all our straight friends. It was a lot of fun, but | met a fellow and we were going to Asbury Park. | met this fellow and | became engaged and we were going to get married and then unfortunately we broke up, | won’t even go into it, and in a way | was relieved that we broke up. | don’t know why, but | was. And | felt | was so close to her and | didn’t know

DH: You were lucky.

L: Her whole family is really good to me. (inaudible) But anyway, I’m happy I’m at this juncture in my life and | wouldn’t change a thing and that’s about it.

DH: So you never told your aunt and uncle?

L: THey knew. She always said “we have women like you in Italy”, but | didn’t know what to tell them because at that time | was living with them. | left home. But when | left home it was the best thing | ever did. Her family was so good to me. They gave us pots and everything and they helped us.

DH: So when did you move in together?

L: 58 years ago.

J: 58 years, yeah.

DH: And how old were you when you moved into your first apartment? J: | think | was 20. In my early 20’s.

L: | was a cradle snatcher, | took her and rocked her cradle.

JZ: So that when you say that you weren’t aware that people of the same sex could have relationships, do you mean that they couldnt do it comfortable in public or you weren’t aware all.

JZ: Right.

JZ: Was that what helped the anger subside?

L: Yes. It did. | felt that by helping other people | could do something productive with my life even though | couldn’t work, | felt so useless | had to go to a psychiatrist and they explained to me that that happens and you go through a phase and thank God | got through it and | wouldn’t change a thing. I’ve had a very happy life with her. We take care of each other.

J: The check is in the mail (laughter)

L: And we are very different. We really are. She is very outgoing, I’m very quiet. | have a big mouth once and a while, but I’m quiet.

J: yeah, it’s true.

DH: you had mentioned that Lucy you had a hard time just being religious like you are with not being honest.

L: It bothered me, sure it does. I’m honest with God though, God knows and | had a long talk with him and | told him that you know, if you don’t like what I’m doing, you’ll let me know. And | say this and this is the truth, he came to me in a dream and he said to me “Whatever you’re doing is fine, but one partner”. That’s what he said in the dream. | don’t know if it's all up here or what, but it's true.

JZ: So, have you sort of made peace with it now?

L: Oh yeah, I’m very happy. | feel like I’m not doing anything wrong and | love all my friends, they are my family. They really are. The family that | do have, unfortunately, doesn't know. | see my blood sisters once and a while, but they’re not close. I’m so close with Joan’s family. It’s like they are my family and they’ve been so good to me. They really have, they’ve embraced me. Whether they knew or they didn’t know, they were so good to us all our lives.

J: Well they all know now.

L: They know now, but they didn’t know years ago. When we were together 50 years, one of our cousins says to us, “you know | bought you a little vase, | know you guys have been together for 50 years”, and we were happy.

DH: And you had a big event a few days ago. J: Absolutely. DH: How did that feel?

J: Very good. | said to Stella, this is enough for me. | told the family, | said | told them the whole thing and they said well we knew it, okay thank you after all this.

L: Yeah they knew, but you don’t speak of it. If a person knows, that’s great. If they don’t know and they ask me, I’Il tell them yes.

J: An interesting part of that with family is that we have two very, very close friends. They are like family. They come to our family for occasions, Christmas and so on. Their children live all over the world and | worked for Frank and then they were having layoffs and he took me and he saved my job. He had a nervous breakdown, they didn’t want to take him back. By that time | was a director, so | hired him. Friends. Baptist people, the father was a minister. He used to go into the malls and preach. He wrote an

article in the Asbury Park Press, Louise called me up and said “what? About it's a sin, this that and the other thing”. The bottom line of the whole story is, he loves my friends. He loves them to death. He’s there with them all the time. He said he knew it and he realized when we were having problems that meant more to him for us to actually be together than for us not to have anybody. And they couldn’t be better.

L: They embraced us. In fact, we just got married and they were at our wedding. J: We are newlyweds.

L: Yeah, 3 days. We better do it now before we die (all laugh).

JZ: And how many years have you been together total?

J: 58

L: It’ll be 59 in February.

JZ: That’s great

DH: So you’d say the main reason why you didn’t tell most people if because you were afraid of how they’d react.

L: We’ve seen how they react J: Not me.

L: Let me tell you a story if | may. We had two friends where we live and they lived down the street and they had problems with their neighbors down the street, two gay fellows and then they took care of their mother, which is very nice. One of the boys' mothers. THey moved down by us, closer. They decided the house was too big and they wanted the smaller house. THey told everybody they were gay. People took advantage of them. Some of them didn't like it and they still took advantage of them, so they decided they had to move. | felt so bad for them. When they moved | said, do me a favor, do you not go around flaunting. If you want to invite people to your home, be very careful about who you invite in your home. Maybe | gave them the wrong advice, | don't know. People don’t like affection to be shown and unfortunately they would show affection.

J: Very affectionate

L: People don’t like that. Not everybody, please don't misunderstand me, But a lot of people don’t like that. They dont like to see two people that are the same sex kissing or grabbing each other, stuff like that. And that was the problem. So | tried to tell them, please don’t do that for your own sake so you don’t have to move again. Because you can’t keep moving. Maybe, I’m wrong. | don’t know.

J: It’s tough.

L: Yeah. You’d be surprised. Even in this day and age sometimes you know you wonder about people. You really do because they make you think they’re for you, but they really aren’t. That’s in my experience.

DH: So if you had words of wisdom for somebody, a young person maybe that was listening now, out of all your experience, what would you want to tell them?

J: You have to go with your heart. You have to go with your mind. It is better for you to be happy and find somebody than to live a life of lies and deceit.

L: That’s true.

J: It doesn’t matter what other people think.

L: | wish that | could be like you, just one time.

J: That's just the way | feel about it. | really don’t care.

L: | know. | guess | have no words of wisdom then.

JZ: Is that ever an issue between you?

J: Yes, in a way it was.

L: Not now, hey I’m 82, God knows how long I’Il be alive. Who cares, right? Yeah.

J: In defense of her, | think a lot of it had to do with the fact that we had it very rough. Had we been 20 or 25 today and met, | believe it would have been much, much easier. That’s the way | am. | am who lam, that’s it!

JZ: Is there anything else that you would like to add?

L: Didn’t | bore you enough? (laughter)

J: | know what I’d like to tell you! I’m very proud of it. | got thrown out of Catholic school (laughter) JZ: Really?

J: And that ends that. (laughter)

L: You know why she got thrown out?

DH: Tell me.

L: Because the nun was walking down and she had a roll of toilet paper, she threw it at her.

DH: Why did you do that?

J: Well, | was trying to prove a point. | was very bad and they’d call my mother and they'd say, “we can’t handle this. You’ve got to send her to public school”, which is what | wanted. | told my father, give me two years I’m out of there. “No, you’ve got to go to Catholic school”. It was all the malarkey that they taught. Jonah’s being swallowed by a whale. Somebody’s hanging from the ceiling. So | used to raise my hand and ask questions. They didn’t like that, okay.

L: Who was hanging from the ceiling?

J: | don’t know. | can’t remember. (laughter) And so what happened was | would do things just to aggravate them. Well, | got caught and the reason | was thrown out of school was | came up with this idea because you had to wear nylons with bobby socks and you had to have the white blouses. So we got away with it for 4 days until it rained, we used to meet and put eyebrow pencil on each other’s legs and

so we got away with it and then dammit it rained, so four of us are coming in and the other three girls | hung around with were also.

DH: Why did you put eyebrow pencil on?

J: Because then the stockings that you got had seams

DH: Oh so you drew a line down the back.

J: So then we had this one teacher, well she was after me. She was a frustrated lesbian, this one. L: You don’t know that.

J: So anyhow, she lines the 4 of us on the wall and she’s feeling legs. | was last, but not least. She touched my leg and | said, “you know | always knew you were a lesbian. Get your hands off my legs!”. | had to go down to the principal. They had to call my mother out of work. She had to come and they told her “this is it, we can’t handle her”. My mother for the first time in her life turned around and she said “I’ve never defended my daughter” she said to the nun, but you have been after her since the first day you saw her. Why? You shouldn’t be a nun”. Went to woodbridge high school

L: She did wonderful there.

J: Wonderful. Played sports. A lot of good friends, a lot of gay friends. So what | used to do when everybody in my staff would tell me it’s time for their kids to go to school, i said if you send your kids to parochial school you’ll never get a raise from me and you'll regret it (laughter) but they were different then, they were not educated.

L: They have teacher’s now.

J: Ateacher’s license. And they didn’t have answers as far as | was concerned. But anyway, | had a lot of fun! And Stella straightened me out, that's all | could tell ya.

L: It took me a while. (laughter) JZ: | don’t think we can top that one (laughter), but thank you so much for doing this. L: That you so much for listening to me, I’m sorry | didn’t mean to cry there.

JZ: No not at all, thank you!