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Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Margaret Maggie Anderson 
April 29, 1985 
Cassette 1, Side 2 
 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  00:07 
This is Kristen Boughton-Morin interviewing Margaret Anderson. It is April 29, 1985, interview 
number one, tape number one, side B. You were saying that you found out later why Rhea left, 
that your mother had asked her to leave.  
 
Margaret Anderson  01:54 
Well, told her that she couldn't see us. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  01:57 
Did-- When did you find that out? 
 
Margaret Anderson  02:01 
Well, when I was visiting Rhea, in Niagara Falls, and it was after, after my mother died. And I 
told her, you know, how hard that had been. It was interesting that first time, when I wrote to her 
and came out to her, one of the things I had told my counselor was that Rhea was very important 
to me, but I knew that my brother had been her favorite, but, you know, and I had always sort of 
known that. When I got this letter from Rhea, it was really interesting because she said in it, and 
I hadn't said anything to her, but right out of the blue, in her response to my being lesbian, she 
said, "You were always my favorite, but your brother needed attention more," you know, "Your 
brother really needed a lot of attention." 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  02:49 
Did you sense that when you were young? 
 
Margaret Anderson  02:51 
No, no, I didn't. Well, I knew my brother was a wimp. Well, [?he was?], you poor little devil. 
Like, I would tan, and he would sunburn, and mosquitoes never bothered me, and they just ate 
him up. And so he'd be this little sunburned creature with these bleeding mosquito bites, you 
know? And I was very, probably aggressive, dominating over him. My grandmother, when we'd 
be in Selkirk, I could always talk my brother out of everything, and I would talk him out of his 
dessert. So, it got so bad, my grandmother would let him eat his dessert first. While I was eating 
my main meal, he got his dessert first. So, I would talk him out of his dessert.  
 
Page 2 of 19 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  03:38 
During-- let's go back to those 13 year old [?times?]. During that time, when you couldn't talk to 
anybody, or didn't talk to anybody about your feelings, did you miss Rhea? Did you think you 
could talk to her about those things?  
 
Margaret Anderson  03:55 
I don't know. I spent a lot of time just sort of alone and reading poetry. I read a lot of poetry, sort 
of in kind of, you know, romantic ideas and thoughts. I don't think I did. The one person that I 
talked to, but probably not about those kind of feelings, but I talked to more than anybody, was 
my stepfather's mother, who was a wonderful little Welsh woman. And she had been Eliza, 
Elizabeth, and she had been a teacher in Wales, and then had married and moved over here. 
She'd actually married, probably, somebody who was not her intellectual match in some ways. I 
used to spend a lot of time with Grandma Williams, talking with her about things, but not about 
my thoughts and feelings. No, there wasn't anybody.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  04:59 
Did you read anything? Did you have any place to go when you were curious?  
 
Margaret Anderson  05:03 
About being a lesbian? No, no, I, I didn't really have any access to any of those books or reading 
them till I was 18, 19, 20.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  05:16 
And then what did you read first?  
 
Margaret Anderson  05:18 
Oh, the classics, you know, Anne Aldrich, and the ones that-- Radclyffe Hall, I remember, one of 
my favorites was The Price of Salt, [?I don't know if you've read it?], by Claire Morgan. I 
recently read she, that was a pseudonym, and she writes-- the person that wrote The Price of Salt 
under the name Claire Morgan, writes mysteries under the name of Patricia Hightower. Did you 
know that? 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  05:50 
That sounds familiar. 
 
Margaret Anderson  05:52 
Yeah. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  05:53 
Did you ever read Ann Bannon? 
 
Margaret Anderson  05:55 
Yes, yeah.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  05:56 
Those [?flashy?] books? 
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Margaret Anderson  05:57 
[?We Two are Drifting?]. Yeah. A lot of them were sad, and I didn't like that. Lot of them, like, 
you had to get punished in the end, or you were sad. They were sad. That's why I like The Price 
of Salt so much, because it all worked out pretty good in the end and it seemed reasonable 
[inaudible], you know. By time I read that, well, I was in college, but the time I was reading any 
of those. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  06:19 
Did you get together with any other women in college, where you could discuss being a lesbian 
and-- 
 
Margaret Anderson  06:26 
Oh my God, no.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  06:27 
No?  
 
Margaret Anderson  06:27 
No, now, I know that Winnipeg is different now, but back in those days. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  06:32 
When was that, what year was that, when you were in college?  
 
Margaret Anderson  06:35 
Oh, when I was, when I was 18, oh, that would be 1949. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  06:40 
So, it was the early '50s that you were in college. Long way through the '50s--  
 
Margaret Anderson  06:40 
Yeah, well,  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  06:41 
--because you went to grad school, right? 
 
Margaret Anderson  06:48 
Well, I worked for three years before I went to grad school. So, and I went to grad school in '55, 
so, I was still in college in '52. So, it was actually the late '40s and early '50s. And I didn't know 
any other lesbians, except my friend Benj, and we didn't, she certainly never called herself a 
lesbian; and she had a hard time with that whole relationship. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  07:12 
So, did you discuss it, or did it just happen? I mean, did you talk about what it meant for each 
other, or, or your futures? 
 
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Margaret Anderson  07:23 
We, at one time we, we talked about leaving Winnipeg and going off to Vancouver when we 
graduated. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  07:30 
British Columbia?  
 
Margaret Anderson  07:30 
Yeah. But we didn't do that, she went on to graduate school in social work, and I didn't get in that 
year because I was under 21. And I think at the time I applied for graduate school in social work, 
and I was pretty immature, and they suggested that maybe I spend a year out and come back, 
okay. But Benj, of course, was a, you know, this returned veteran, so she, she got in okay. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  08:05 
So, all during those years, you had no one to talk to. Did you just read? 
 
Margaret Anderson  08:10 
Yeah, read, read a lot. I didn't talk to anybody about loving women. I mean, I knew I did. And 
Benj and I kept our relationship-- we had a group of friends, and we kept our relationship 
unknown, you know, quiet, you know, sort of closeted. And then when she graduated, and we 
both were through, there-- you could get a Bachelor in Social Work at University of Manitoba 
most days, and that's what we both got because there wasn't any master's program [?in 
Manitoba?]. We had a Bachelor of Social Work degree after the Bachelor of Arts degree 
[inaudible] training. Then we worked, and we worked for the Department of Welfare. And we 
had friends, and we had, obviously, had a real close relationship. We were not, at that, by that 
time, we were not sexual, that was over. By the time Benj went to graduate school, she decided it 
was sick, [inaudible]. And she always would refer to me as having a character neurosis-- oh, I 
used to get so pissed with her. She never, ever actually could come to terms with her sexuality, 
she never really did.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  09:36 
Where-- this was in Winnipeg? 
 
Margaret Anderson  09:37 
Yeah. She didn't know. She's got a she's got a PhD from Bryn Mawr and, in social work, and 
teaches in a school, social work, someplace in eastern Manitoba, eastern Canada. And I think 
she's probably still drinking and still denying her sexuality. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  09:52 
Is she married? 
 
Margaret Anderson  09:53 
Oh no, she never married. Sad.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  09:58 
How long was that relationship?  
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Margaret Anderson  10:00 
The friendship was a long time. The actual physical relationship was maybe about eight months. 
And then she wouldn't and she said, can't be sexual. That was real painful, to continue being 
friends, and she started dating, and-- and then I, I, I went to the same graduate school. When she 
went off to graduate school then, and she talked me into going there, and that's where I became 
more aware and opened, you know, about being a lesbian. I came down to Smith, in 
Massachusetts, for, to graduate school in social work.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  10:39 
What brought you to that point, where you were more aware? 
 
Margaret Anderson  10:42 
Well, there's a lot more walking around. There's [inaudible] women, suddenly. I got to 
Greenwich Village, I got to my first gay bars, you know, in Greenwich Village, and started 
mixing with some women and getting involved. And some of the faculty were obviously lesbian.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  11:05 
What do you mean, obviously? 
 
Margaret Anderson  11:06 
Well, I mean, it wasn't open and talked about, but-- 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  11:11 
Was there something physical about them that told you, or did you know? 
 
Margaret Anderson  11:13 
No, we just sort of knew. I mean, people talked about it, you know. Yeah, so that's, "Well, her 
partner's such and such." And when I applied to Smith for graduate school on social work, you 
had to write a little autobiography. And I talked about, in it, about the fact that I am, I suspect 
that I might be homosexual. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  11:35 
You put that in your--  
 
Margaret Anderson  11:36 
Yeah, I did. That way, you want me here? I told them the whole thing, I told about my abortion 
at 19. And that's a political thing. I, and there was no, there was no [inaudible], they took me. I 
guess it was okay to be homosexual. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  11:57 
At Smith. 
 
Margaret Anderson  11:58 
 At Smith, anyway, yeah.  
 
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Kristin Boughton-Morin  12:02 
Did you meet any of these women and become friends with them, like faculty or? 
 
Margaret Anderson  12:10 
Well, not, not friends, I just [?never got to that?]. Sort of admire them from afar. You know, at 
Smith, you sort of socialize. It's a 10 week on-- It's a wonderful program, you spend 10 weeks on 
the campus in the summertime, it's a social work program, and none of the undergrads are there. 
And then, and then you're on placement during the winter months. Well, year or two after I 
graduated, they opened it up and they have men in the program now. [Inaudible]. That's okay, 
but I certainly wouldn't, I'm certainly glad I was there while it was still all, just all women on the 
campus. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  12:50 
You said that you went to the village and went to the bars there. Did you spend much time there?  
 
Margaret Anderson  12:54 
No, no, I am, I was dating for a while. For about a year, I dated a woman that worked in New 
York. I was on placement in Reading, Pennsylvania, and so I would get into New York on 
weekends.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  13:07 
I've heard that, well, and I've read that that was pretty much the place to be, if you were a lesbian 
at that part of the country.  
 
Margaret Anderson  13:18 
Well, that's, that's all there was, you know, and it was a very different kind of experience. I can 
remember the first time, in the first bar I went into, remember going upstairs, you had to go 
upstairs to the washroom.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  13:39 
Do you remember the name of that bar?  
 
Margaret Anderson  13:40 
It was called the [?Billy Doo?], and it had a male bouncer at the door keeping out the straight 
men, I guess, or all men. And it was the first time I had ever been, you know, where the bar was 
totally women and women, you know, holding each other and dancing and necking and stuff. So 
I was kind of blown away by it.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  14:05 
Did you like it? 
 
Margaret Anderson  14:06 
And by this time, by this time, I was 25. Oh sure, I was all scared, but yeah, I thought, this is, this 
makes sense. And I went upstairs to the washroom. And so you had to go, almost like run this 
gauntlet of these really heavy duty dykes, really heavy duty ones, sitting around smoking, 
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looking everybody over, kind of really dressed, you know, like men and very, very butch types. 
Because I think in those days, they were still into the butch and femme kind of thing.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  14:41 
Did you see a lot of that around there now? 
 
Margaret Anderson  14:44 
Yeah. And when I was, I was in Reading, not when I was a student, but then after, I stayed on 
there to work, Reading Pennsylvania, there was a, there was a bar in Reading that women went 
to. It was not, it was a separate room, like off a regular bar, which is kind of interesting. The 
guys obviously knew that there was money to be made that way. There was just like a curtain 
separating this room from the other bar, but, and the only woman's washroom was in the lesbian 
bar area. So, sometimes these straight women would come in, you know, come through to go to 
the washer, but they always came in twos. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  15:30 
How did you feel about the role play thing? 
 
Margaret Anderson  15:34 
I didn't quite, I didn't really understand it, because it didn't fit for me. And I wasn't into it, and so 
I, and then so, I wasn't with people that were into it. I mean, there were some of us that didn't go 
into that.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  15:49 
Who were you friends with? [Cat meows]. 
 
Margaret Anderson  15:52 
[To the cat] Hi. What's the matter? [Cat meows]. Oh, you're listening to all this, you're 
wondering what's going on? That's Choya. Choya, this is Kristin. He just came from the vets and 
he lost, he got skinny because he lost pound and a half last week. He had a gastric virus. Who 
were my friends? Well. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  16:24 
Were they mostly lesbians? 
 
Margaret Anderson  16:28 
A lot of them were, yeah, I met, I met lesbians at school, [cat nudging recorder]. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  16:34 
Okay, Choya. 
 
Margaret Anderson  16:34 
[?That cat?]. And I wasn't working with any. But I got to know some, you know, from school, 
then I got to know some at the bar. I, when I left Winnipeg, I didn't have, I didn't then have too 
many straight friends afterwards. I remember one social worker that I worked with in Reading. I 
was sort of out to like the psychiatrist and the Director of Social Work, and--  
Page 8 of 19 
 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  17:16 
Where was this? 
 
Margaret Anderson  17:17 
In this child guidance clinic that I worked at in Reading, and then, and then, probably to the, I 
shared an apartment with another social worker there, and I was out to her.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  17:30 
Was she a lesbian?  
 
Margaret Anderson  17:31 
No.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  17:31 
Did you come out to your family at all? 
 
Margaret Anderson  17:37 
No, I never came out to my mother because she died. I was still drinking and she died. I didn't 
come out to my family until after I sobered up. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  17:49 
And how old were you then? 
 
Margaret Anderson  17:52 
 48. I think I came out to, I came out to my nieces and nephew before that. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  17:58 
How old were they when? 
 
Margaret Anderson  17:59 
Well, that was because they came to, when they were younger, they would come and stay, when 
I was in Duluth, they were in Winnipeg and they would come and stay with me, my niece, 
Margaret Anne, my nephew, Johnny. And then when they got older, I can remember one year 
Margaret Anne wanted to come at Christmas and spend Christmas, she was having some troubles 
with the family. She was probably in, just gotten in, first year college, and she was going to be 
with us for three weeks, and so I picked her up at the airport, and on the way home, I said, 
"Margaret Anne, there's something I think you should know, you know, I'm a lesbian, and I just, 
you know, don't plan to change the way, you know, Jane and I interact with each other," we 
were-- Anyway, I said, you know, I'm a lesbian, she said, "Oh, [?see I think?] I always knew 
that," was her response. And Johnny was real cool with it too. But I [inaudible]-- Johnny came to 
visit the state for a while, and by then I was living with Rosemary. I told him. "Oh, okay, that's 
fine." I said "Johnny, we're having a party time and there's gonna be all women there." "Oh, 
okay," you know. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  19:14 
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Has that been the response of [?your whole family?]? 
 
Margaret Anderson  19:18 
Yeah, when I, when I was in treatment for alcoholism, I'd say I was 48, [inaudible]. And while I 
was in treatment, I wrote a letter to my father and stepmother telling them that I was in treatment 
for alcoholism and that I was a lesbian, and I got a letter right back saying, "We're so glad you're 
in treatment, and as for you being lesbian, well, we've often wondered. And we hear such 
wonderful things about Rosemary from family in Winnipeg," with my brother, and, "Please bring 
her to visit."  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  19:52 
You've been very lucky.  
 
Margaret Anderson  19:54 
Yeah. Yeah, actually, my family's been very supportive, basically. They're a good family. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  20:02 
You earlier said that you thought your Aunt Margaret might have been a lesbian in a different 
time.  
 
Margaret Anderson  20:08 
Yeah, I think she was pretty much asexual, but I think she certainly had the potential, if she 
[?dated?]. Could have had the potential.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  20:18 
Do you think she was a role model for you? 
 
Margaret Anderson  20:21 
Well, she certainly was in terms of her kind of person, that I think I'm becoming now. You 
know, I got, my growth got kind of stunted, you know, through all my years of drinking. So, I 
feel more like my Aunt Margaret now than I ever have.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  20:44 
That's good. 
 
Margaret Anderson  20:44 
Now that I'm sober, yeah.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  20:49 
Your nieces and nephews, how old are they now?  
 
Margaret Anderson  20:54 
Margaret Anne is about 31 and Johnny's 28 and Sandra is 24, [?or 25?]. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  21:08 
You mentioned your Uncle Cam, who you thought was gay?  
Page 10 of 19 
 
 
Margaret Anderson  21:11 
Oh, yeah, I don't even think, I just know it, intuitively, now I know that he's gay, yeah. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  21:16 
And was-- Did anybody in the family know that? 
 
Margaret Anderson  21:19 
I think my mother knew, yeah. And she didn't, I don't think she, you know, talked with me about 
it, but I think she knew.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  21:30 
Was it a secret, or was it something that the family just did not talk about?  
 
Margaret Anderson  21:34 
Yeah, [?I think so?]. I don't know, but other people, people didn't even talk about Uncle Cam, 
you know. My mother and I probably [?didn't even?] talk about him.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  21:44 
Did you like him?  
 
Margaret Anderson  21:45 
Yeah, I did. She liked him too.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  21:49 
He was her brother? 
 
Margaret Anderson  21:50 
Yeah, her older brother. He was very dapper, he was, you know, sometimes around the eyes, he 
gave-- some of the young gay men, [inaudible] remind me of the way Uncle Cam looked, tall 
and slim with dark hair and a little mustache, very gentle.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  22:06 
Did he have a lover that you knew about?  
 
Margaret Anderson  22:08 
Well, the only one I knew any about was a young man about 17 or 18, you know, that he was 
sort of involved with. Yeah, I don't think, [?I don't know?]. Winnipeg wasn't the place to be a 
gay man either. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  22:27 
So there's just generally a real open attitude about homosexuality, about being an independent 
woman [?period?] in your family.  
 
Margaret Anderson  22:34 
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Yeah, and an interesting thing is my, my niece, Margaret Anne, married this boy that she had 
dated, started dating in junior high, and then they finally got married about five-- No, they got 
married in '78, but I couldn't go but wedding because I was at a training seminar in Colorado, 
[inaudible] seminar. Got married in '78 and then two, two years ago, at Christmas time, Margaret 
Anne called me and said "Auntie [?peg?], I think David's gay," and it turned out that, yeah, 
indeed. And he hadn't really known it, but they had been separated because he got transferred in 
his job, and she was back in Montreal, and he got transferred to Toronto, and met some man in 
the bar, and one thing led to another, and he got into a relationship. And David left Margaret 
Anne, and he and his lover moved to New York, you know, so it's-- alcoholism and 
homosexuality seems to have [?unremedied?] my family. When you ask how they [?took?] it. 
When I finally wrote to my brother, I was up there, and I think it might have been the time of my 
mother's death, and my brother and niece and nephew, we'd all been out to eat. My brother had 
been talking about something [?I think that was?], to do with business, and he mentioned 
something about some man being a queer that he was doing business with. And so after we left 
the restaurant and the kids went off one car, my brother and I got in this truck, and I said, "Doug, 
I think there's something I have to tell you. Your, your children already know this, but I think I 
need to tell you that I'm a lesbian." "Oh," he says, "oh, okay, I'll try to watch my language after 
this. I really don't mean anything bad when I call people queers." I mean, that was his reaction, 
you know.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  24:38 
When you get together with your family, then, do you bring your lover with you?  
 
Margaret Anderson  24:50 
Well, I have in the past, yeah. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  24:52 
[?Are they part of the family?]? 
 
Margaret Anderson  24:54 
Mm-hmm [inaudible] and when my Rosemary and I split up, I, I called my family, you know, to 
say that we were splitting, and my stepmother was very, lot of empathy. My father, you know, 
was silent, and then he said in a stern voice, he said, "Maybe you should see a lawyer." I said, 
"No, I think we can work it out okay." 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  25:23 
What does he think a lawyer would do?  
 
Margaret Anderson  25:24 
Well, see, what he finally figured out in my last relation, relationship before that, well, actually 
two before that, the nine year relationship that I had, that was a really, really destructive one, I 
just walked, I'd walked out and I signed the house over to her, the car over to her, and I just left 
everything and walked out. And she was very upset. I think she may have called my family and 
ranted and raved to them about me, I don't know. But my father always thought that somehow I 
shouldn't have done all that, I shouldn't have signed over the house and the car and everything, 
so. 
Page 12 of 19 
 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  25:24 
That was your first long term relationship? 
 
Margaret Anderson  25:43 
Mm-hmm. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  25:47 
And what was her name? 
 
Margaret Anderson  26:07 
Her name was Nancy, and we'd met in Reading when I was working in Reading, and then when I 
decided to move back to the Midwest, I think I really kind of hoped that she wouldn't come. I 
was never really in love with her and, and I was, had real low self esteem, and thought that I 
didn't deserve much, and I didn't deserve anything better, and I wasn't very much of a person.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  26:38 
And how long were you with her?  
 
Margaret Anderson  26:40 
Nine years, it was very destructive, really destructive relationship. Fortunately, at the mental 
health center that I worked at, in Duluth, we got in-- we started getting into encounter groups and 
that kind of communication training, that was the days. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  26:57 
That was in the '60s. 
 
Margaret Anderson  26:58 
Yeah, in the days of all that. And I started to get in touch with myself, and with my feelings. And 
I got, I went to some workshops, met some really neat people. I think the one on-- one that was 
very impressive, had a real [inaudible] for me was this one with Sidney Jourard, he was the man 
that wrote a book called The Transparent Self. And that weekend, probably that workshop, that I 
decided to leave her, so. But it was a real hostile, dependent relationship, and it was real hard to 
get out of it, get out of it clean. There was no way, we didn't get out of it clean, it was real dirty, 
[?lots of anger?] and even physical. And this is the, you know, I'd never think of myself as being 
a kind of person that could get into a physical, physical [inaudible] with a lover. And the process 
of separating in this relationship did come to that.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  28:06 
Was that frightening to see that? 
 
Margaret Anderson  28:07 
Yeah, it was frightening to feel that way. She was, she was beating on me with a bottle, probably 
wine bottles, hitting me with it, not around my head, but on my body, and not really hard to 
break it, but just to bruise me. And in anger, I just pushed her away, and I pushed her through a 
glass door. [Inaudible], but she could have been really hurt, could have been a terrible, messy 
Page 13 of 19 
 
thing. And, you know, it really helped me see that, how people can get into that, because we 
weren't drinking at that, you know, that particular time, maybe had a couple drinks. [?I'd gotten a 
little picky about some stuff?], I was trying to come to some kind of settlement, [inaudible]. 
There was just so much anger and hostility involved. Anyway, I could [?see, you know?], that I 
was as capable as anyone of getting into that kind of situation. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  29:09 
Earlier, you said that you didn't think that a lesbian relationship could be called a marriage.  
 
Margaret Anderson  29:16 
Did I say that?  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  29:19 
Yeah, do you think that? Or do you not think that?  
 
Margaret Anderson  29:22 
Hmm, I don't remember now the context in which I said that.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  29:25 
We were filling out the biographical information, and I asked you if you'd ever been married, and 
you said, "I wouldn't call a lesbian relationship a marriage."  
 
Margaret Anderson  29:34 
[?Oh, did I say that?]. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  29:36 
Do you, do you not agree with that anymore? 
 
Margaret Anderson  29:39 
Yeah, I don't remember if I said I wouldn't call that, or would you call a lesbian or that I don't 
think that-- I thought of myself as married with Rosemary. We didn't have a ceremony, but I 
really thought that that was going to be a lifelong commitment, it was for me. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  29:58 
Rosemary was your lover after Nancy?  
 
Margaret Anderson  30:00 
Well, there was Jane. I was with Nancy for nine years, with Jane for four, then it was Rosemary. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  30:08 
And you thought that that would be the relationship of your life, so to speak? 
 
Margaret Anderson  30:12 
She was the love of my life. And it really was a commitment for me, it was a lifelong-- We 
bought a house together and-- the house that, with Nancy, I mean, I bought that house, and we 
sort of did it as [?ours?], but with Rosemary it really felt, you know, like it was our house. And 
Page 14 of 19 
 
[?it was a?] commitment. I did [?make?], you know, a commitment to her, and I think she did to 
me other than that, she really said later, after we split up, that she knew now that she really didn't 
know what a commitment was at that time. She was 19 years younger, 18 years younger than me. 
[?Probably gives people a lot to think about?]. She was old for her years, and a real fascinating 
woman.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  31:22 
Does she live here in Seattle?  
 
Margaret Anderson  31:23 
No, she lives in, she still lives in our house in Duluth.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  31:27 
When did you move here to Seattle? 
 
Margaret Anderson  31:29 
Three and, three and a half years ago. I moved out here because I couldn't stay there. I mean, 
Duluth was too small of a community to be with-- I, I couldn't, I couldn't make it there. I just 
couldn't make it to see her with her new lover. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  31:51 
Duluth is in Minnesota?  
 
Margaret Anderson  31:53 
Mm-hmm, northern Minnesota. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  31:54 
How far is that away from Winnipeg? 
 
Margaret Anderson  31:57 
About a seven hour drive, [inaudible]. And that was part of my reason for settling in Duluth 
when I moved back to the Midwest, I want to be close to Winnipeg but not [inaudible]. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  32:10 
I'd like to go back to the times around graduate school where you said that you decided to stop 
seeing men when you were 29 years old. 
 
Margaret Anderson  32:23 
[?Yeah, about there, about 29?]. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  32:25 
Can you talk a little bit about that process that led you to that decision?  
 
Margaret Anderson  32:31 
I, I was never comfortable when I'd be on dates and I never felt like I could relax, I could never 
feel like I could really be me. And I always used to probably drink more when I was with men 
Page 15 of 19 
 
and then drinking I'd end up in, usually, in some kind of sexual situation that I didn't want to be 
in and didn't know how not to be, because by the time, I would just be too far gone with alcohol. 
And, you know, I wish I could say that I somehow always was my own person, and I was a good, 
strong feminist, but, I mean, that came to me late in life, you know, a real sense of that. I was a, I 
was a pushover, and I, you know, lived all that stuff. I can remember in those, those years, just 
after, after graduate school, when I was dating, I was working at the child guidance clinic in 
Pennsylvania, and I remember beginning to feel that I didn't believe all this crap that I was 
reading about. You know, what it meant to be homosexual. I didn't believe the Freudian 
interpretation, and I didn't buy that stuff, even though I was working in a very Freudian type of 
environment. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  33:57 
What kinds of things? Some examples of what you're talking about. 
 
Margaret Anderson  34:02 
Oh well, the Freudian you know, ideas that you, that you haven't fully matured in your sexuality, 
you know, you become blocked, you haven't made it to the, up to the stage. So that you know, 
you know you could be functioning, on all these other levels, if you are homosexual, it means 
you are not mature on the sexual level. I didn't believe that. I didn't believe it was sick. I thought 
that all, that most of the studies and stuff that people produced all this information, it was 
because they never got to see the healthy homosexuals. Their clientele, they're, you know, their 
ideas and theories are always drawn from a clientele, probably by clients who were emotionally 
distressed [?and that's, then they?] would come to all these theories about what it must be like to 
be homosexual. So, I say I was out with most of the people I worked with back then, that was in 
the '60s, then, when I came out to Minnesota, I wasn't out right away.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  35:24 
How old were you then? 
 
Margaret Anderson  35:30 
Well, I came up here in '64 and I was born in '31. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  35:32 
33. 
 
Margaret Anderson  35:32 
33. Thank you, [?I'm never good at math?], never was. And I really didn't come out until Nancy 
and I split, and, remember that song, Me and Bobby McGee, [?and, now, what is the?]--"freedom 
is another word for nothing left to lose." There's a line in that song, and I didn't have anything 
left to lose at the point when I left Nancy, I had nothing else, I'd lost everything. And she was 
busy phoning up people and raising hell and, and so I just went, I just went up and down the halls 
at work to everybody who was important to me there and laid it out. This is who I am. This is 
what's happening in my life right now.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  36:17 
This was in Duluth?  
Page 16 of 19 
 
 
Margaret Anderson  36:30 
Yeah, the mental health center that I worked at, I worked at a mental health center. It was 
interesting, the different reactions I got, "Oh, I always figured that," "Gee, I wonder how come I 
didn't figure that out," or, "Oh, okay," to a couple of men who had a hard time with it at first, but 
finally. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  36:55 
Do the men have a more difficult time than the women?  
 
Margaret Anderson  36:59 
Yeah, I think so, but only one or two. And they couldn't quite understand it. But I, I was never 
really very close with, I don't know, with straight women, I almost was uncomfortable, and I 
didn't quite know how to be intimate with a straight woman, on a friendship basis. And I had, 
there was this wonderful woman there, social [?woman?] there, who literally pursued me and 
said, "We are going to be friends. I want to be your friend." And in two days, I'm going to visit 
her in Phoenix. She has been my friend for years, ever since. But and the, the women in 
psychology meeting conference that was here at Hotel Weston, were you at that, did you go to 
that? 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  37:54 
No, but I know [?the one that you're talking about?]. 
 
Margaret Anderson  37:59 
Yeah, one of the, one of the sessions was a straight woman and a lesbian who had been, who 
were friends, and it was around those issues about, what kind of issues are there for friendships 
between straight women and-- 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  38:16 
That's wonderful. 
 
Margaret Anderson  38:17 
--lesbians. Yeah. And Sharon, Sharon and I have been very close friends. So, actually, I went to 
live with she and her husband when I, when Rosemary, when I left Nancy. I just had nowhere to 
go. I also had to declare bankruptcy. That was Sharon's husband who suggested I do that, he was 
a lawyer. It was a big mistake.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  38:43 
It was a mistake to declare bankruptcy?  
 
Margaret Anderson  38:44 
It's a mistake for women to declare bankruptcy anytime. Men can get away with it. But women-- 
it's hard enough to get credit as a woman without being a woman who's had a bankruptcy. I 
mean, I just, I've never been able to get credit since. I can get credit at a bank that I've dealt with. 
But, I've never been able to get a credit card. When I was making $24,000 a year, I could not get 
a credit card, [inaudible], because of that bankruptcy.  
Page 17 of 19 
 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  38:44 
That's good to know.  
 
Margaret Anderson  39:16 
Yes.  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  39:19 
You said that part of that process of deciding that you were a lesbian, [?that I was going to do 
this?], was knowing that all the myths that psychology was saying about it were wrong. What, 
did you have role models in your life that told you they were wrong? Or did you just know that 
you were a good person?  
 
Margaret Anderson  39:40 
Yeah, I wasn't, I knew I wasn't sick, and I knew that, and I knew other people that weren't. I 
mean, I had met other women and men, you know, and I knew they weren't. It didn't make any 
sense to me. Yeah, I think I was beginning slowly, to have some, caring about myself. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  40:08 
This started after your relationship with Nancy?  
 
Margaret Anderson  40:11 
Yeah, during that time. That is kind of incongruous, because, you know, I don't know why, but I 
think that this whole business with Nancy was related to my alcoholism. I mean they're separate 
things, you know, some things I knew, but I just couldn't, you know, the alcoholism just kind of 
stopped me from being able to go further with them. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  40:35 
When you moved to Duluth, did you find a women's community right away? Did you connect 
into a group of women? 
 
Margaret Anderson  40:48 
No, not right away. There were two women that lived down the street from us that I got to know 
that I specifically sought out. One of the women was a professor at the local college [inaudible], 
she was part of as a teacher. And I had the one that was a professor was sort of in the social 
services area. And I went to some kind of meeting that she was running, and I deliberately did it, 
went up and introduced myself afterwards and told her that I was, had heard about her and was 
living two blocks away. And we got, we got to be good friends with them, and we began to do 
things with them. They were kind of-- 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  41:39 
Who is "we"? 
 
Margaret Anderson  41:40 
--well Nancy and I. They were kind of, sort of positive, but not terribly. [?They were good 
people?]. We spent, we did a lot of things together. They were real good friends, [inaudible]. 
Page 18 of 19 
 
And then when I was, then at work, a woman was obviously a young lesbian came to work, but it 
was months before I ever said anything to her, and I just sort of, sort of blew her away. You 
know, she just wasn't used to that. But she was living in a, she also was living, we all lived in a 
bit of land called Park Point out there, and that's where the people who were different, sort of, 
lived out at that park. And she lived with another woman who was a teacher, who now 
[inaudible]-- her name was Julie. So, I, Julie and, what's the other name, I got to know Julie and 
Maureen. Then got to know some other women [?than them?].  
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  43:00 
What sort of social atmosphere was there for you?  
 
Margaret Anderson  43:03 
Well, those days it wasn't, wasn't as much, it was still people from work, mostly people from 
work, and then those other, those two lesbians, two sets of lesbians. Wasn't until after, and even 
when I, I was living with Jane, became involved with more lesbians. There was a, like another 
woman at work who was a lesbian, a psychologist, and then [?the two of us were friends with her 
and her partner?]. And Jane, she was never really comfortable, she was never really comfortable, 
in those days. We did some things with Julie, and at that point, Julie had a new partner. But 
Julie's new partner had been in the convent with Jane, so they knew each other from the convent, 
because they were both ex nuns and so that was, we did lots of things with them. It's interesting 
because now Jane and Julie are together and they live in Hollywood. That's the other thing about 
the community, are all the connections. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  44:18 
 It's very small.  
 
Margaret Anderson  44:19 
Yeah. It's somehow kind of wonderful, in a way, all the threads that connect you to so many 
people all over the country. 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  44:31 
Were there places for you to go in the city? Were there bars or [inaudible] bookstores? 
 
Margaret Anderson  44:34 
In Minneapolis, not in Duluth? Yeah, Minneapolis there was the les-- the Amazon Bookstore, 
which is still there, it's been about 13, 14 years now, it's been going. And there were a couple of 
bars, but we didn't get that in Minneapolis very often, most of the state, even. Now, things are 
different. But what Rosemary and I used to do-- There was one year when we had kind of an 
open house every Friday night. It was just sort of open, you could, from six o'clock on, people, 
women could show up there. And some nights there'd be 20 women there, some nights there 
might be three or four. And I always would have something like chili or soup, and people would 
bring stuff, and sometimes it was a night of dancing or talking, or maybe it'd be sort of political 
stuff. Just never knew, depending on who was there, what it was going to be like and-- 
 
Kristin Boughton-Morin  45:35 
When was this? What year was this?  
Page 19 of 19 
 
 
Margaret Anderson  45:35 
Well, that was before [?Susan Jordan?] moved out here, probably '77. Yeah, that was later on. 
That was a coffee house in Duluth, in the basement of the Unitarian church, every other variety. 
And there's a bar over in Superior Wisconsin that a gay man who used to teach at the College, a 
Catholic college, [inaudible]. But most of the socializing was in people's homes, and there was a 
large group. So, even when I was with Jane, I can remember going to a Christmas party with 
Jane, at these two women's, at this couple's house, and there was, there maybe was 50 to 60 
lesbians, you know, there. Yeah, which isn't very many, but in Duluth, that's quite a bit. That was 
before the dykes started moving up from Minneapolis, you know, living out on the farms, around 
the country [inaudible], move up north. [Recorder beeps] Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot about that. 
Move up north and live in the country and live in the country and have a dyke, kind of a special 
dyke job, you know, like [?logs your trees or something?]. No, I know a couple that did do that. 
 