HerlandVoice-1996-03-v14- no03_ocr.pdf
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HERLANDV ICE
March, 1996
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Shape The Future
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by Helen Stiefmiller
Ever since I started working at the Oklahoma Territorial
Museum in Guthrie I have been exposed to many aspects of
Oklahoma's history that are not given their due in the text books.
Not surprising, one is women's history. There are many
outstanding and interesting women who have added to the
colorful tapestry of what makes Oklahoma a wonderful state.
Women like Kate Barnard, Carrie Nation, Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher,
Maria Tallchief, Clara Luper, and Wilma Mankiller have all made
their marks. In honor of Women's History Month I've decided to
share the story of a not well known woman who didn't necessarily
do good deeds, but nontheless, was an example of independence
and nonconformity in an era when these traits were sacrilege.
One of the most colorful and interesting outlaws of
Oklahoma Territory was a woman known as Tom King. Tom
King was born Flora Quick in 1875, the youngest and favorite
daughter of a wealthy Missouri farmer. Full of nerve and energy
she assisted her father in herding cattle and other ranch duties.
When she turned 14 years old she was sent to Holden College to
learn to play the organ and practice the other art of fine young
ladies. She must have hated it because in a few weeks she
returned home to "resume her outdoor mode of living".
A year later her father died leaving her and her siblings a
substantial inheritance of land and money. Her siblings sent her
to Seldania to go to school where she remained only one semester.
When she returned she met and married Ora Mundis "a dissolute
character whose principal object was to get her estate". The
couple was seen regularly drinking in the saloons having a good
old time. Out of the blue, Flora sold the land she inherited and
moved to Oklahoma Territory arriving in Guthrie in November
1892 where she and Ora led "a checkered life" of drinking and
gambling.
Ora abandoned Flora when her money ran out. She
didn't dwell on her misfortune. She became friends with the
former mistress of a gambler named Jessie Whitewings. Jessie
taught Flora the tricks of the trade and in a short time Flora had
her own gambling business on the comer of Fourth and Grant
where she traded for horses and money. No scandal was
associated with her until she brought charges of assault with
intent to rape against a Doc Jordan. Jordan didn't deny the
charges and skipped town. After that no man would go into her
business.
Rora known as a flashy dresser threw away her stunning
Volume 14 Number 3
Your ideas and desires for the future of Berland Sister
Resources are important to us! The Berland Board would like to
invite everyone to come share their ideas for the future direction
of Berland on the last Saturday of this month, March 30. We will
meet at Berland from 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
We will be looking at how Berland serves the
community, what we are doing right, and what we could do to
improve or services we could add. All current and past board
members, volunteers, and anyone just interested in Berland can
come and enjoy lively discussion, fellowship of sisters,
refreshments, and intellectual stimulation.
Be there, and let your "Voice" be heard!
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7:00 p.m.
Come join us Saturday evening, March 30 at Berland for
aneveningwith
Marca Cassity.
costumes and donned cowboy garb, and instead of trading horses,
began stealing them. She now traveled under the name of Tom
King. Apparently, she was extremely successful in this endeavor
because she allegedly took horses from the field, pasture, city
streets, anywhere, reselling them across Logan, Canadian, and
Oklahoma Counties. She also participated in a train robbery.
She was arrested a number of times and used her charms
to escape from jails in Guthrie, Oklahoma City, and El Reno .
After a final incarceration in El Reno, Tom was released on bail,
due to her obvious pregnancy. She jumped bail and left
Oklahoma for good. No one knows what became of her or her
child.
Years later, Heck Thomas, a retired U.S. Marshall,
described to a reporter what was supposed to have been Rora's
end: A young man killed during a holdup near Tombstone,
Arizona, proved upon examination to be a woman.
Measurements and body scars were said to match those of Tom
King.
Herland Sister Resources
2312 NW 39, OKC, OK 73112
Family Matters
by John D'Emilio, Director
The Policy Institute of NGLTF
What is a family? According to opinion polls, a majority
of Americans understand family as a group of people who love
one another and take care of each other in good times and bad.
What is a family? In the hands of the radical Christian
right, it has become a symbol and a weapon. A symbol of an
imagined past when everything was just fine. A weapon that
divides people into categories of good or bad, moral or immoral,
productive citizen or irresponsible parasite. The allegedly "profamily" rhetoric of the radical right is deeply homophobic and
antifeminist, and exploits historically powerful racist stereotypes.
What is family? For lesbians and gay men, family has
become the frontier issue in our struggle for freedom, justice, and
respect. Everywhere we look, family issues are surfacing--in the
courts, in state legislatures, in workplaces, in the schools, in
communities of faith, in the activities of our community centers
and other organizations. Sometimes, picking up a copy of a gay
newspaper, nothing but family issues of one sort or another seem
to fill its pages.
It wasn't always so. When I was first coming out in the
late sixties, as a college student influenced by the hippie
counterculture and the first wave of radical feminist theory,
"family" was something I could do without. It seemed that my
only choices were to have a family, which meant my family of
origin, or to be gay, which meant exile and escape from the
constrictions of a heterosexist institution.
So why does family seem so important to us in the
1990's? Is the concern for family simply a defensive, reactive
move on our part, a knee-jerk response to the "traditional family
values" rhetoric of the Radical Christian Right? Or does the rise
of family issues tell us something about how we have changed
and what we want?
I think it's the latter. There are good reasons growing out
of the history of our movement and communities that have pushed
family issues to the front burner.
One has to do with the growing diversity of the public
face of our movement and our community organizations.
Lesbians, for instance, have often taken the lead in campaigns
involving custody, adoption, and our right to be parents. Lesbians
and gays of color have spoken and written passionately of the
importance of strong, extended family ties for the survival of their
home communities in the face of racism, and of their
unwillingness to have to choose between family ties or their
sexual identity. As gays and lesbians in smaller communities
come out of the closet and organize for change, family is
something just around the comer, not something to escape from.
Family issues challenge homophobia in new and
important ways. One of the most destructive and persistent
stereotypes used to perpetuate hatred against us and keep us
isolated and separate is the claim that we are a danger to children.
The gay man who molests children, or the lesbian teacher who
corrupts her students, have been common cultural myths. As
more and more parents come out of the closet and assert their
2
Her/and Voice
March, 1996
right to keep their children, as more and more of us choose to have
children even after coming out, we force the issue of queers and
children in proactive ways.
Parents are becoming front-line activists in institutions
that reach into the lives of most Americans. Take the public
schools, for instance. As the children of openly gay or lesbian
parents make their way through the public schools, these parents
have to confront the insidious effects of homophobia in
compelling ways. Will the schools, through their curriculum, be
teaching these children to hate their parents? Will these children
be the targets of ridicule, ostracism, and harassment? What must
parents do to protect the integrity of their family relationships and
to keep their children from harm? The actions they take--whether
at parent-teacher conferences, at PTA meetings, or in one-on-one
conversations with the parents of their children's friends, is the
stuff of permanent grassroots social change.
Family issues matter. Whether it be the public rituals we
create to celebrate our committed relationships or our decisions to
have children in our lives, the articulation of a lesbian and gay
"family politics" has the power to move our freedom struggle
forward.
March is
Women's History
Month
Celebrate your own history by
visiting Herland during regular
business hours and sharing your
family or personal history in
writing.
Herland is also offering a
DISPLAY
to celebrate this special month.
Come on by!
Published by: Herland Sister Resources, Inc. 2312
N.W. 39th, Oklahoma City, OK 73112
Circulation: 1200
The Voice is offered as an open forum for community
discourse. Articles reflect the opinions of the author and
not necessarily those of Harland Sister Resources.
Unsolicited articles and letters to the editor are welcomed
and must be signed by the writer with full name and
address. Upon request, letters or articles may be printed
The Voice is
under a pseudonym or anonymously.
printed on recycled paper.
Herland Sister Resources
SUNDAY
.
MONDAY
/
March 1996
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
THURSDAY
SATURDAY
FRIDAY
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HSR Spring Retreat May 17-19
Watch for more information in the April Voice
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Spring begins
St. Patrick's
Newsletter
submissions and
calendar items
due
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COUNSELING FOR LESBIANS
available Wednesday evenings.
M.E.D./M.H.R./C.A.D.C. /L.P.C. at 321-0134 for an appointment.
For more information contact Jo L. Soske
HEAL YOUR LIFE - a support group for HIV positive and catastrophic illness will meet every Thursday evening from 7 to 9 p.m. at
Unity Church of Practical Christianity, 5603 N.W. 4lst in OKC starting March 7. This group will offer alternative healing methods for
healing Body, Mind and Spirit. Please phone 789-2424 for more information.
SCHOLARSHIP FOR CHILDREN OF LESBIAN AND GAY PARENTS - For the third year, the Gay and Lesbian Parents
Coalition International (GLPCI) and Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere (COLAGE) will be awarding scholarship money to
further the education of deserving children of lesbian or gay parents. In 1996, the total scholarship pool will total at least $1,000.
Formerly known as the GLPCl-COLAGE Scholarship Fund, the Fund was recently renamed as the "Lee Dubin Memorial Scholarship
Fund" in loving memory of a longtime member and former Treasurer of GLPCI, who died suddenly in 1995. Applicants must have at
least one lesbian, gay or bisexual parent and be emolled as a full-time student in an accredited post-secondary institution. The
scholarship recipients will be announced on July 6th, 1996 at GLPCl's 17th Annual Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Applications for the 1996 Lee Dubin Memorial Scholarship are available now by writing to GLPCI at P.O. Box 50360, Washington, DC
20091; or fax (201) 783-6204. The deadline for applications is May 15, 1996.
ASTRAEA LESBIAN WRITERS FUND ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS FOR 1996 AW ARDS - The Astraea National Lesbian
Action Foundation today announced the submission deadline for its 1996 Lesbian Writers Fund. Now in its sixth year, the Lesbian
Writers Fund will be making awards of $10,000 each to emerging lesbian writers of fiction and poetry. The prizes will be awarded in
June of this year. "Astraea is the only foundation anywhere in the world that commits substantial grant monies to support lesbian
writers," according to Astraea program director, Ivy Young. "The Writers Fund has made it possible for past winners to have that space
where creation is possible. And we are happy to be able to continue the program," Young said. The deadline for applications is Friday,
March 8, 1996. Interested writers should write or call the Astraea Foundation for guidelines and an application form at The Astraea
National Lesbian Action Foundation, Attn: Lesbian Writers Fund, 116 East 16th Street, New York, NY 10003; or call 212-529-8021.
The Lesbian Writers Fund was made possible by a generous founding grant from lesbian philanthropist Joan Drury. A committed
lesbian feminist writer, Joan sought to help provide other lesbian writers with "a room of their own," in which they can nurture their
work. Astraea also awards the Sappho Award of Distinction to an already established lesbian writer. The Sappho grantee is awarded
$5,000. Previous Sappho Award winners are Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldua, Adrienne Rich, Joan Nestle, and the 1995 winner,
Chrystos. There is no application process for this award. For more information on Astraea, the Lesbian Writers Fund, and other grant
programs at Astraea, visit our Web page at http://www.imageinc.com/astraea/.
to THE VOICE
(,!>·•.-;- I'
The Chautauqua Center
Director
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REBECCA R. COHN, Ph.D
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
PO Box 5119
Norman, Okla. 73070
405 321-2148
Individual - Couples
Family Therapy
Retreats
3
Her/and Voice
March, 1996
NonProfit Org.
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Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73112
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