Oral History with Antiga

Antiga: Okay.

Miriam: Your name is Antiga.

Antiga: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Miriam: Do you have preferred pronouns?

Antiga: Oh, she, she, she. Her, she, her.

Miriam: Yes, okay.

Antiga: That's is my preferred pronoun, yes.

Miriam: Okay. Do you mind telling me your birth year?

Antiga: Yes. I mean, I will. 1932.

Miriam: Okay. Do you mind telling me your race or ethnicity?

Antiga: I think I'm very white, whatever you put there.

Miriam: White, we've got a block for that.

Antiga: Okay. Ignore it.

Miriam: Where you were born? What city?

Antiga: Asheville.

Miriam: Okay.

Antiga: Mission Hospital, actually. The old Mission Hospital.

Miriam: Okay. Got that. I have your mailing address and I have your telephone number. We want the mailing address so that we can send you the transcript. I'm going to make a note here that you need-

Antiga: Large print.

Miriam: Large print.

Antiga: Yeah. You might also add to this, because we've already written it. Roberta Greenspan has done an obituary for me when I die for the Lesbian Herstory Archive. Is that right? No, it's not right. It's for, what is it for? 00:02:00How could I forget that? LC, Lesbian Connection.

Miriam: Okay, I'm not familiar with that, so I'd love to hear about that.

Antiga: Okay. That's good. I guess I'll just jump right in.

Miriam: Okay.

Antiga: There has been a, you may be aware of this. There's been a big controversy about womyn-born-womyn and anybody else. There's a group called WomonWrites, W-O-M-O-N-W-R-I-T-E-S, WomonWrites. They have recently split over the womyn-born-womyn thing. Half of them have gone to being, wanting 00:03:00womyn-born-womyn in their group and the other half is anybody who thinks she's a female can join. I don't know much about what's going on with the other ones. I know only a little about what's going on with the one that I identify with, womyn-born-womyn.

Antiga: You can look on Lesbian Connection. There's a, Woody wrote something about this on there. You can put that as a what, auxiliary document? I don't know what you call it.

Miriam: That would be on the internet, Lesbian Connection?

Antiga: I think so. Yeah.

Miriam: Okay. You were saying that Roberta has written your obituary for this?

Antiga: Yeah, she has.

Miriam: For this organization?

Antiga: Yes, she has. You can have that, just because it tells you about my life.

Miriam: Okay. I can get that from Roberta?

Antiga: Yes, I'll tell her to give it to you.

Miriam: Great. All right. You were talking about womyn-born-womyn. How would you like to go from here?

Antiga: Let me think. Let me go back to my birth in Asheville. I was born in the old Mission Hospital. That's when it was a brick building in the same site it's in now, but not nearly as big as it is now. I was born over there in 1932. My father was diagnosed with diabetes just as I was about to be born, so my mother did not know if he would get here for my birth or not. Of course, I was being referred to as he before I was born. You know how that goes, but all right. He 00:05:00did get back before my birth. My mother, as happens with a lot of us, her labor was induced because she had a small pelvis, and they were worried, so they induced my labor. Yes, this is quite funny. Later on, it's funny.

Antiga: Back then, this is 1932, remember. They were still using forceps. They used forceps. Of course, the forceps slipped, and I was born with a black eye. I've had ongoing, I don't know what to call it. I don't want to call it difficulties exactly, ongoing whatever from that, my birth trauma. Let me just leave it there. I was born in 1932. Oh, yes. This is important. My father was 25 00:06:00years older than my mother, and so she was 30 when I was born, and he was, how old would he have been? 55

Miriam: That's all right.

Antiga: That was my start in this world. My parents, being very, very far apart 00:07:00in age, decided only to have two children, and it turned out to be me and my sister and that was it. In 1934, I was born in '32, she was born. We were of the generation that was coming out of the Depression. There would be fewer of us than later on. I did that. My father, okay, he was a psychiatrist at Oteen at that time, and we lived quote, what they used to call it then, 'on the post'. There are several buildings there. They're probably nurses' dorms now, but back then, we got to live there because it was right across the street from Oteen. Oteen has expanded a lot since then. That's it. Let me just say this right now. 00:08:00I do something called co-counseling or re-evaluation counseling. It's known as RC. In RC, yawning is supposed to be release of tension, so I'll probably yawn a lot, because I do.

Miriam: Right.

Antiga: That's that. Now, I was brought up in Asheville. During the war years, I was 32, 42, through 45. My father was so much older than my mother, he had been in the First World War. He had been in Paris in the First World War. He didn't have to go in the Second World War. I had that blessing, I think, to have my 00:09:00father here. He was a farm boy. He liked to have a garden. We had a big garden. We had, it might have even been an acre of our garden back then. Now, somebody's house is on that land. We still have some of it, because we had Concord grapes there and a chicken house. The chicken house started out as a goat house, because my sister was not able to drink cow's milk, so we had goats, and that was fun. We had that growing up. That was a goat house, and then it turned into a chicken house later.

Antiga: All right. That's Asheville. Okay. I went to Haw Creek Grammar School 00:10:00for two years. My mother, who was raised in Southern Ohio, felt the schools down here were terrible, so she changed me to Newton Academy as I went into third grade. Of course, my sister was going into first grade, so I think that was better for her. I met a woman. At that time, she was young, Mary Jane Shelton, who was Jewish, unbeknownst to me about the anti-Semitism of my father, who basically said, "You cannot have Mary Jane for a friend. You cannot have her over here for overnights, and she cannot have any of the privileges that anyone 00:11:00else has." I was little. I couldn't do anything about that right then.

Antiga: Later on, I did something about it, but the later on was after we were in high school. I wrote to her. I said, "I apologize for my father, who was really bad, and blah, blah, blah."

Miriam: How did you feel about that?

Antiga: I hated it. Yes, I hated it. It seemed to me, it was none of his business, and he should just stay out of it, but he was the elder and he had a 00:12:00say and I didn't have a say. Okay. I graduated from Newton Academy.

Miriam: Where was Newton Academy?

Antiga: It's over on Biltmore Avenue. It's where, there's a big, what you do, over there now that does, what do you call those things? It does the things where they torture you with your breasts.

Miriam: The mammograms, the imaging center.

Antiga: Yes.

Miriam: I know. Okay.

Antiga: That's where it was.

Miriam: I know the spot there.

Antiga: It was in what's now the parking lot.

Miriam: All right.

Antiga: There it was, and so, what else?

Kathy: Hey.

Miriam: Hi.

Kathy: How are you doing?

Miriam: Good.

Antiga: Hey. This is Kathy.

Kathy: I'm Kathy.

Miriam: Hi, Kathy. I'm Miriam. Good to see you.

Kathy: Good seeing you, too.

Antiga: Where was I? I was still, I think, back in grade school, wasn't I? Just about. I was saying, I went to Newton Academy then, and my sister went to Newton Academy from the first grade, which I think was easier for her. David Millard Junior High, which is over off of College. It's no longer anything that has any recognition as David Millard, but it was there, and then I went to what was then Lee H. Edwards High School. Back then, the white high school and the Black high 00:14:00school were separate. The other one is still there. I can't think of what it is now. That building is still there. It's a community center now.

Miriam: Stephens Lee?

Antiga: Stephens Lee.

Miriam: Yes, right. Okay.

Antiga: Yes, Stephens Lee. That was my high school years. Then my mother made a prediction at my birth, which she had the power to put in place. That prediction was that I would go north to college. North to her meant Ohio. I went to Wooster College for two years. Then my father, I think it was him, said that I had to come back to North Carolina to finish college. At that point, if you were a 00:15:00junior going into the junior year and you had a good average, a woman could get into UNC then. This was still the male college, but I got in. I went there for two years, and then I was there for another year. I had some graduate work there. I got married there. I met my, who is now my was-band, I met him in the cafeteria there, like you would meet somebody. I met him.

Antiga: My parents were very upset. I hadn't realized the extent of their anti-Semitism until then. They were totally upset. Yes, they were upset as any 00:16:00parent could be, because they were the parents, and they were paying for my college. I never had to pay for my college. They said, "All right. You're coming back here to North Carolina," which I did. I got into UNCA, drove up here with somebody who you may or may not have heard of, Wade Hall. He's a lawyer. He's my age. He's 87, about. He used to drive up here, but Wade, yes. Wade had polio when he was young. He had a car that he could drive without using his feet on the pedals, hand, drove it by hand. I used to ride back and forth with him. I 00:17:00had the summers off, and I lived in a neighborhood. My father was the only professional person in that neighborhood.

Antiga: The other ones were much younger than my father, of course. They had to go off to war. All their parents, male parents, went off to war. They all came back, which is good. After they came back, we all played outside back then. There was no television, really. I've never liked television. When my kids were growing up, we had one television set down in the basement. I never had time to watch it, so I just haven't ever liked it. My kids watched it. Back in those 00:18:00days, you only had one television set in the whole house, not like today, where there's a television in the kitchen and there's a television in the bedroom, etc. Luckily, my kids did not have that.

Miriam: Why do you say luckily?

Antiga: I don't think I've ever liked television. I was just away from it, because it was down in the basement and I never had time to get down there. My children, there were four of them. Mindy was six when Dan was five and a half, when Georgia was three, when Adam was just born. They were close together.

Miriam: Very close.

Antiga: If I had done that again, I'd do it differently, but I don't have that to redo.

Miriam: Right.

Antiga: I might not have even had children at all, but I don't know about that. In my later life, I thought, "Why did I have children? They are a pain in the veritable rear end," which they are. I have gotten along okay with my two daughters, not very okay with my sons. Dan, who's the older one of the boys, is in Thailand, which is fine. He has a girlfriend over there who is close to the age of his daughter, and she doesn't like that, but that's how things are. That's how men are. I don't have a very good relationship with any men in my 00:20:00life now, including my sons. That just happened. That happened at the divorce.

Antiga: There was a divorce. Of course, it was all my fault, you know. He had nothing to do with it at all. It was all my fault, and I ruined his, this is Adam, the younger one. I ruined his happy home. That has been there since I left. He has not done any of the work he could be doing to work on that. Who knows?

Miriam: Could I ask you a question about that? I missed something. Is your husband the one that you met when you were up north in college?

Antiga: No, Chapel Hill. I met him in Chapel Hill.

Miriam: Chapel Hill, okay.

Antiga: Yes, I met him.

Miriam: He's the one that your parents-

Antiga: Didn't like.

Miriam: Didn't like at all.

Antiga: He was Jewish, and they did not like that. They let me know about that.

Miriam: You married him anyway, had kids with him.

Antiga: I did marry him anyway. I lived with him for 22 years, had four kids. Then by that time, I thought, "This isn't working for me, so I'm gone. I'm leaving," which I did, and which my younger son, still apparently, as far as I can tell, holds against me, but I did have a talk with him. He hasn't been willing to talk to me at all until recently. Finally, I called him, and he called me back, so I had a small conversation with him recently. The one that's in Thailand is in Thailand. He started out having a work assignment in Thailand. Then he met, I don't even know her name, but he does have a girlfriend who's 00:22:00almost the same age as Emma, who is his daughter. Emma doesn't like that, so there. That's that. She also has not been able to cut her ties with him.

Antiga: The other ones, of course, are still living with Adam, the other one. He has four children. One of them is Liam, and that's the older one, and then there are triplets. You can imagine how that happened. I wish they'd pay attention to their own business, those people who do that, but they aren't doing it, so they're triplets. Apparently, at that time, there were a lot of triplets out in Seattle, so he had all the equipment for the triplets. He had a stroller for 00:23:00three of them. That's been his life. Kathy's probably having her breakfast. She may not have had it before she went. There are four of them, one older, and three triplets.

Antiga: I just made, Eden is one of the triplets. I just made her a collage book. I didn't like having to print everything out, which I did, because they don't teach them script any more. Luckily, Emma Rose, who's older, she reads script, so I wrote to her a lot in script. I had one thing for her, and then I 00:24:00lost it, so I started another one. Now she's got two, but she's got them, and she appreciates them. Georgia, my third child, she had the thing I made for Emma Rose. No, not that. Eden. Eden's in that family, Emma Rose is in that family. Emma Rose is my older son's daughter. Eden, Rachel and Joshua are the triplets from Adam's marriage. They're there. I'm going to yawn. If you have questions, hop right in.

Miriam: Okay.

Antiga: Otherwise, I'll just yawn.

Miriam: You said you identify as a lesbian.

Antiga: Yes. I haven't told you about that, have I? I was married for 22 years.

Miriam: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Antiga: The moment I left him, I decided I'd have a much better chance with women, and have stuck with that decision ever since. That's where I got that. I was, this was in Minnesota. There was a group called Maiden Rock Women's Learning Institute. There's a spot in Wisconsin that is known as Maiden Rock, and it is supposedly some place that someone jumped off of, a woman. I don't know. Maiden Rock Women's Learning Institute was very important. Most of these 00:26:00women were all lesbian, and I got along really well with them. I went that direction.

Miriam: That was in Minnesota?

Antiga: It was in Minnesota.

Miriam: Were you living in Minnesota at the time?

Antiga: Oh, yes. I skipped that part. When did we go to Minnesota? 1970. We went to Minnesota, and we were there until '77 is the year I got a divorce. Of course, he had a second wife who has all the money. She does, but I wrote in my journal, I'd rather be poor and on my own than have all the money.

Miriam: Can you say some more about that process of your deciding you wanted to be with women rather than men?

Antiga: Okay. There was this Maiden Rock Women's Learning Institute, and we had weekends. I went out to a weekend. I met a woman who was not at all monogamous, but at that time, I didn't care. She, I got involved with her. Then little by little, she stopped writing to me. After that, I was involved with somebody in the Twin Cities. Her name is Lvetann. Lvetann means dandelion in Norwegian. 00:28:00That's her heritage. I got her name from Tanya, whose daughter was Lvetann. I was there at her birth, Lvetann's birth. Yes, I was. I don't know if there's anything more to say about that. I was there when she was born. All right. If you have a question, go for it.

Miriam: How are you doing? Are you doing okay with this?

Antiga: Yes. Yawning doesn't mean I'm tired.

Miriam: I understand.

Antiga: No, I'm doing okay.

Miriam: Okay, great.

Antiga: Lvetann.

Miriam: I didn't quite understand about Lvetann. You were there at her birth? 00:29:00Tell me some more.

Antiga: Lvetann was born, I don't know when. She's 19 or 20 now, but the name came from that, because the woman that we ended up calling Lvetann, she always thought of herself as a dandelion. Maybe I'll sing you her dandelion song, which is really good. "I've been through fire, and I've been through wind. I've been through many storms, and you saw me bend. Bent low and twisted down, but I didn't break, didn't break. You can see I did not break. I've been sprayed with poison and trampled to the ground, mowed off. Still, I go on and on, blooming and flourishing, and I won't stop, won't stop. You can see I will not stop." 00:30:00That's her Lvetann song.

Miriam: Wow.

Antiga: Which I like a lot.

Miriam: Wow. Was she the person you were in a relationship with?

Antiga: Yes. Yes. Let's see. Let's go back there. I was in a relationship with Geri for a little while, but she had other women. I didn't care about that, but it got to the point where she wasn't answering my letters, and so I just decided, "I don't need that." I found Lvetann, who was monogamous, as they say.

Miriam: What does that mean?

Antiga: It means there's only one person in your life, monogamous.

Miriam: I knew what monogamous meant, but you said "monogamous, as they say," like that might mean something.

Antiga: Who knows, if it did mean something different? But no, same old meaning. 00:31:00Then after Lvetann moved into HUD housing, she lived with me for a while, but that didn't work very well, so she moved into HUD housing. After that, things were much better between us. She lived there, and I lived here. Yeah, that was her. Then, I don't know where Melva came in. Melva may have come in before Lvetann or after. I don't know. I think maybe she came in before Lvetann. I think she did. Yes. She was another one. Melva was certainly not monogamous, and I didn't care. That was not something that I cared about. I think Melva came 00:32:00first, and then Lvetann. Then, I haven't been involved with anybody since I got down here. That's been, I came down here in 1999.

Miriam: From Minnesota?

Antiga: Yeah.

Miriam: You had been in Minnesota all that time?

Antiga: I had.

Miriam: Okay.

Antiga: Yeah, Mother left me some money, and I had enough money. It costs a lot of money to move across the country. Until I had the money, I stayed up there. I wanted to come back to the mountains, and I did. I've been here ever since. Okay. Anything else needs clarifying?

Miriam: You said since you've been back here in Asheville, you haven't been involved in a relationship?

Antiga: I have not. Kathy takes care of me. Kathy's my caretaker.

Miriam: How did you make that decision not to be involved with anyone?

Antiga: It just seemed like it wasn't working. I came to the conclusion that lesbian relationships are very much like heterosexual relationships. That's the conclusion I came to.

Miriam: How did you arrive at that conclusion?

Antiga: I just looked around.

Miriam: Okay.

Antiga: I have been happily on my own since then.

Miriam: All right. What does being a lesbian mean to you?

Antiga: That's a good question. Originally, it was more political than anything. It was saying this is okay, and we get to do this if we want to. There was the 00:34:00threat of that from the beginning. Then recently, this thing came up about women preferring to have womyn-born-womyn in there. Half of them saying, "No, no, no. Anybody who thinks she's a woman can be a woman." The other half is that.

Miriam: What do you think about that?

Antiga: I don't agree with it, but it's their choice. This ought to be in here somewhere.

Miriam: Are you looking for your table?

Antiga: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Miriam: Back to your right, a good bit further back to your right. Almost there now. Nope, a little bit more. Nope. Here. No, that's the bedstead. Here. Can I 00:35:00help you? Can I do it?

Antiga: Yes, you can.

Miriam: I'm going to put it on the table.

Antiga: Okay, put it on the table. Wait a minute.

Miriam: Okay.

Antiga: Okay, where are we? I don't know where we are.

Miriam: I was asking you what you think about the, what you described as the controversy between womyn-born-womyn and?

Antiga: There's about half of us, felt like you had to be a womyn-born-womyn to be a lesbian, and the other half said, "Anybody who thinks they're a lesbian can be a lesbian." You can see I don't agree with that.

Miriam: How come?

Antiga: Good question. Let me think here.

Miriam: Take all the time you want.

Antiga: Okay. During my years in the interim, I did go to, where was it? It's 00:36:00called Michigan, and they have made this, I think. I always say this or better when I'm doing magic. I think they're making it something better than it used to be, but I don't know yet. It's too soon, because Lisa Vogel was the main person who was doing Michigan. It seemed that she just got tired of it. It had been 20 years, and there was a big controversy. The controversy, of course, was from the people who are from my point of view, male, who want to get into women's rights. That was, you can look at the, Woody Blue wrote a thing about that, and I think 00:37:00you can put that as a supplementary document.

Miriam: Okay. Woody Blue?

Antiga: Mm-hmm (affirmative), in Lesbian Connection. That's her view of what happened, and I wrote something, too, for Lesbian Connection, which has not yet been published, so you can hunt for it if they ever publish it. I don't know if they will.

Miriam: Great. I'd love to see that.

Antiga: Yeah, Roberta and I did that together. That's there somewhere. I did send it in. It should be there somewhere, in the Lesbian Connection files. I don't know if they're going to print it, but you can see.

Miriam: Okay.

Antiga: Okay. That was the split. It's interesting that the split is also 00:38:00splitting, which is, that's just the way it is. I don't know anything about the other side of the split, because I'm not in it, because I expect that's splitting, too. I don't know. I'm making that up.

Miriam: What's the split in the split that you're involved in?

Antiga: The split in that one is, should we hurry or should we take our time? Some of them say, "No, we don't need to hurry. We don't have to hurry. We can take our time." The other ones are, "No, we have to do this right away."

Miriam: Hurry to do what?

Antiga: Let's see.

Miriam: Is that a dumb question?

Antiga: No, it's not a dumb question. The other ones, the ones who said anybody 00:39:00who thinks she's a lesbian is a lesbian, and they took womyn rights had the fall gathering all scheduled and the spring. They decided to go ahead with that schedule, so they took that. We don't know what to do next exactly. There is a, and I said to Lynn, I said, "They're splitting, too. I don't know over what, because I'm not in there, but if we're having a split, so are they." I'm making that up, because I don't know.

Miriam: Right, you're imagining that or thinking of that, hypothesizing that.

Antiga: Yeah, I'm imagining that. I am hypothesizing that. Okay. Is there anything more that we need to cover here? Let's see.

Miriam: I wanted to ask you another question about the Lesbian Connection, since 00:40:00I'm not familiar with that.

Antiga: Okay.

Miriam: Is it a group that meets regularly?

Antiga: They put out a publication. They did have, I seem to have gotten off of their list. I guess it is 4:00. They had somebody who was doing audio for the Lesbian Connection, which was good for us that can't see, but I seem to have gotten off of that list. Roberta's over here reading it to me, but I think I need to get back on their list and say, "I still need the audio." They have somebody at Lesbian Connection that reads it for you, and puts it on a CD. Nice, but I think I have to get back on there, because I was on there for a little 00:41:00while, and I seem to be off that now. It's a publication that's been going on for many, many, many years, publishing whatever anybody sends in. They have some, what? Word limits. If you can get it in for that word limit, then you can send it in. Roberta and I did send it in, and we'll see. You can keep looking and see if it's, Antiga and Roberta.

Miriam: I will. It sounds like that's been real important to you.

Antiga: It has been important, and continues to be important. Yes.

Miriam: How come?

Antiga: Because most of the LC people are womyn-born-womyn. They keep that as 00:42:00part of their base, so I like to hear from them. I don't know. I don't know how I got off their list to have the audio version sent to me, but I think I have to call them up. Roberta and I need to call them up and say, "What do I do to get back on that list?"

Miriam: Are there other organizations or groups that have been important to you in terms of supporting you?

Antiga: Yes. I started in 1969. I joined NOW, the National Organization for Women. I have been on and off involved with them all that time, and I was in a 00:43:00group called the Emma Willard Task Force on Education, which was named for Emma Willard, who, years and years and years ago, she was teaching women how to do things that they were not given in their regular education. She was very important way back when, to help women get an education. I think education for women is very important, and what I know about that is that at the first, the women's education in Britain, they would allow women to take all the classes, but they wouldn't give them any proof that they had done that. It took a long 00:44:00time for them to get that in England. In my very biased opinion, England is one of the more biased patriarchal cultures in the world. Do I have to say anything more about that? I don't know.

Miriam: You've been involved in NOW and the Emma Willard Society.

Antiga: Task Force, yeah, on Education.

Miriam: And Lesbian Connection. Are there other organizations? Let me ask you a different question, kind of related, but different. Who have your mentors been?

Antiga: Who have my mentors been?

Miriam: Yeah.

Antiga: Matilda Joslyn Gage is one of them, for sure, and Matilda Joslyn Gage was basically left out of, let me say it this way. She wrote the first history 00:45:00of women's suffrage. Then she was too radical for Susan B. Anthony. Susan B. Anthony was trying to get everybody involved, and so she couldn't have Matilda Joslyn Gage. Elizabeth, what was her name?

Miriam: Cady Stanton.

Antiga: Cady Stanton, and Matilda wrote the Women's Bible. They took all the things that mentioned women in the Bible, which were very few, and commented on them. They did that. That was too much for Susan B. Anthony, so she wanted. She actually finagled to get especially Matilda Joslyn Gage out of it, because she 00:46:00was too liberal for Susan B. Anthony. She was trying for the South. She wanted everybody to vote for women's suffrage, and she didn't think that they would do that if Matilda Joslyn Gage was involved, which they might not have. I don't know about that. She took her out. All right. There were two suffrage associations. One was the national, and the other was the American Women's Suffrage. The American was a little bit more conservative. Lucy Stone was in that one, and her family, but when Susan B. Anthony put those two together, she specifically fixed is so that Matilda Joslyn Gage couldn't be there.

Antiga: Matilda got, I can't remember what publication she started because of that, but she did that. Susan B. Anthony had a more, she had a wider view of what suffrage was, and in fact, 1848 was the first Women's Studies. You wouldn't call it that. The first group that actually met to discuss it, and who was in that was Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. Susan B. Anthony wasn't in it yet. They started that, and 1848 is considered the beginning of the women's 00:48:00movement in this country, which was that meeting in Seneca Falls, later on, the meeting at Seneca Falls to, what? When they were trying to send a missile to England, so they had it later on one of that to say, we don't like this. In fact, there are some interesting songs that came out of that women's studies, whatever that was, that. I'll tell you.

Antiga: Of course, the missiles were already sent there, so the missiles were 00:49:00there, and there was a whole group of women who were protesting that, and they, do you need to say anything?

Kathy: No, I'm just taking my sandals off. I like to be barefoot.

Antiga: All right, good. The 1848 was the original Seneca Falls meeting. Then later on, and I don't know when they did this, but they had a reprieve of that when we, the United States, was trying to send missiles to England, which they did anyway, of course. There was always that backdrop going on in the women's movement.

Miriam: Do you know any of those songs?

Antiga: Maybe. Let me think. I think, "Come spinning down to the, come spinning down to the green. Come spinning down, la la la, to the land where the spirit sings," something like that. Come spinning down came from that protest. There were more. I don't know them all, but I do know that one. The 1848, which, as I say, did not include Susan B. Anthony yet, but what's interesting about that, 00:51:00Sally Roesch Wagner wrote an interesting article about where these women all lived. They all lived in upstate New York. They were right near the reservation. Was it the Onondaga? I think so. It was the Onondaga. They looked across the border and said, "What's going on over here?" Women over here get to own their own horses. They get to do this. They get to do that, so the women were very much, and this includes Susan B. Anthony, influenced by their proximity to the Native American women.

Miriam: Wow.

Antiga: It was very interesting. You can get that pamphlet from probably, just a minute. You can get it.

Miriam: Yeah, I'm sure I can find it.

Antiga: You can find it.

Miriam: Matilda Joslyn Gage was one of your mentors?

Antiga: Yes.

Miriam: Others?

Antiga: Elizabeth Cady Stanton was also. She was good. I had an interesting thing happen to me. The [inaudible] went to see Alice Paul, who had gone to England and brought back the more militant tactics to this country, and she had all sorts of pictures of women. She asked them, [inaudible] Firestone, to name these women, and she couldn't. Then I was thinking, could I have named them? Yes, I could've, because before it was Elizabeth Cady Station, Matilda Joslyn Gage. Even Susan B. Anthony, although she was trying to get Matilda Joslyn Gage 00:53:00out because she was too radical, and she succeeded, but Matilda started something called a Women's Union, I think, something different. She didn't let that stop her, so she's there. All of those. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, even Susan B, although she treated Matilda very badly.

Antiga: The other ones were Lucretia Mott. She was one of the original women at the Seneca Falls 1848 original, and in fact, if you want to read a good fiction 00:54:00about it, read Sue Monk Kidd's book about that time. She has done a really good job, I thought, of putting those women into a fiction.

Miriam: Really? I know her work, but I'm not familiar with this book.

Antiga: It's called, just a minute. Something about flying. It's very interesting, but in the folklore of the Black people, there was a lot of stuff about flying. They could fly back to Africa. That was interesting. All right.

Miriam: I'm going to change direction a little bit, if that's okay.

Antiga: Okay.

Miriam: Are you doing okay?

Antiga: Yes. I think so.

Miriam: Are you getting tired?

Antiga: I'm doing pretty good.

Miriam: Okay. Let's see. You said you came back to Asheville because you wanted to come back to Asheville.

Antiga: To the mountains, yeah.

Miriam: To the mountains. What is it about Asheville that keeps you here, that wanted you to come back and that keeps you here?

Antiga: I think it's the mountains. These are the oldest mountains in the world, and I have loved them from the time, when I was little, my mother would take us up the mountain with a picnic. Back then, it was hairpin curves all the way, all the way, all the way, all the way, until we got up on the top, and then she would open her picnic basket, and we'd have a picnic up there. It's both a memory, my early years here, and my parents both loved the mountains. My father, 00:56:00let's see. He was 70. Let's see. Just a minute. My mother was 38, and he was, how old was he? Anyway, they both loved the mountains, and he was close enough to retirement that he didn't have to move. If they wanted to send him somewhere, he wasn't going to go.

Antiga: That worked for them, and they didn't. They didn't try and send him any place else. He was, both my parents really loved the mountains. That was true, and they didn't want to live any place else once they moved down here. They 00:57:00loved the mountains, and I love the mountains, and my sister lives in Winston-Salem now. She's still in North Carolina, and I don't know what's happening with her, really. I think she likes the mountains, too, although I don't think she would move up here. I don't know. I don't know.

Miriam: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Did you have paid employment during your life?

Antiga: Yes.

Miriam: What kind of work did you do?

Antiga: No, that's not a question I was answering.

Miriam: Okay.

Antiga: When I was born, my mother hired Maybelle, a Black woman, because I always had two mothers, up until the war. Then she got a better job, better 00:58:00paying job out at the Oteen, being an orderly. There was no men left, so she got that job, and she was there during the war. She was. She came back to work for Mother after that. After that, Mother didn't need full-time because Maybelle was full-time with us until the war. After the war, Maybelle came once a week or whenever she came. She was, my mother was fierce. She said, "All right. Are you paying social security for Maybelle?" If they weren't, they had Mother to answer to about that. Maybelle did get enough social security to live. There's a 00:59:00building downtown that is, I don't know, if it was like HUD housing or what, but it was very low-cost housing. She had enough of that.

Antiga: She did not want to go. Both her sons and daughter did well in the white world, very, very well. Elizabeth married somebody who was a vice-president of one of the Midwest universities. She wanted Maybelle to come up there and live with her, but Maybelle wouldn't. She just wanted to stay in the mountains. She loved the mountains. Maybelle would not do that. She never left here, but she did have, I don't know if it was HUD housing, what was the equivalent of HUD 01:00:00housing, then, which she liked, and she wanted to stay here and be with her friends, so that's what she did. She did not want to go live with her daughter, and her son was in Europe, so she didn't particularly want to go to live with him either.

Miriam: Sounds like you stayed connected with her.

Antiga: Yeah, we did. That was, yeah, Mother was very connected, stayed very connected with her. We did. We did stay connected with her. I am going to lie down here, and you can keep talking to me if you want to.

Miriam: Okay. I think we can wrap things up in just a few minutes, if that's okay with you.

Antiga: That's fine.

Miriam: I have two or three things that I wanted to mention. Let me see if there's anything here I want to clarify.

Antiga: You can put this over on that chair over there, and then this, I'll put back under where I am.

Miriam: Okay. I'm going to take the black pillow?

Antiga: Yes. It goes over there somewhere.

Miriam: Okay.

Antiga: Probably where you found it when you came in. Let's see here. I don't know.

Miriam: Over here, you think?

Antiga: Yep, that's good. Yes, that'll be excellent. All right. Let me just, you can ask me more questions if you have them.

Miriam: Okay, I'll just wrap this up, and maybe you'd be willing for me to come back sometime.

Antiga: All right. Probably.

Miriam: Probably.

Antiga: What you should know is that I am on hospice now, so that means who 01:02:00knows how long I'm going to live?

Miriam: Right.

Antiga: You should do it sooner rather than later.

Miriam: Okay. Have you ever been interviewed before for a life history?

Antiga: I have, but not recently.

Miriam: Do you know where we could access that interview?

Antiga: I don't know.

Miriam: Don't know?

Antiga: Let's see who did it. This was in Minnesota, so you'd have to look in there to see what you can find.

Miriam: Okay. What do you think are the particular needs of lesbians in Asheville?

Antiga: All right, that's a good one. This is a bias of mine, so don't be surprised, but to be called lesbian and not LGBT, that leaves lesbians out. That does. That would be my thinking of what was needed in Asheville.

Miriam: To be called lesbian.

Antiga: Yes.

Miriam: Rather than some other word.

Antiga: Some other word, precisely.

Miriam: Okay. Are there other needs that you can particularly think of?

Antiga: Let's see, name, importance. I think that's the main thing that I would think of.

Miriam: All right.

Antiga: Okay.

Miriam: This has been wonderful.

Antiga: Good.

Miriam: What a gift. Thank you so much.

Antiga: Okay.

Miriam: Thank you.

Antiga: You can go over it and see if you have more questions.

Miriam: I will. I will, and are you willing to put your mark on the release form now?

Antiga: Right.

Miriam: Permission form?

Antiga: I did say I was going to do that afterwards.

Miriam: Yes.

Antiga: I did say so.

Miriam: If you could just do it somewhere up there, by that, I don't know. Here's a pen.

Antiga: Okay. Tell me, somewhere near what?

Miriam: Can you see my finger?

Antiga: Yeah.

Miriam: Put it just right by my finger.

Antiga: All right.

Miriam: Whoops.

Antiga: Just about did it.

Miriam: Seeing your signature makes me want to ask you one other question, because you told me you don't use a last name.

Antiga: I don't.

Miriam: Why?

Antiga: Because at this point in my life, I don't need one. I have had a last name, as you can see, from my signature. Yeah. It's a preference not to have a last name.

Miriam: Because?

Antiga: There are other people who do that. You may have or may not have heard of Starhawk. She just goes by Starhawk, and I know what her name is, too. Let's 01:05:00see. Who else? Rihanna uses just one name. Let's see. Who else? Let's see who else I can think of. That's all I can think of right now.

Miriam: That's okay.

Antiga: But some of the women are thinking that they don't need a patriarchal name to identify themselves, which I also agree with that.

Miriam: All right. Okay, I'm going to turn this off. I've been talking with Antiga on September the 9th, and I'm going to end this recording now.

Antiga: Okay.