Sandy Fluck, February 20, 2022

Sandy Fluck, February 20, 2022

Sandy Fluck recalls her childhood in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, work in higher education, connection to A Chorus Celebrating Women (ACCO), and relationship with her partner of over 30 years.

Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives

Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives

2022-02-20

Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs.

video

LGBT-28

Mary Foltz

Sandra Fluck

01:32:32

5.4 February 20, 2022 Sandy Fluck, February 20, 2022 LGBT-28 01:32:32 LVLGBT-2022 Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - ) Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Sandra Fluck Mary Foltz video/mp4 FluckSandy_20220220_video_TRIMMED.mp4 1.0:|33(8)|68(14)|89(2)|108(14)|127(3)|146(11)|163(16)|178(5)|197(8)|220(7)|237(5)|256(15)|279(3)|300(9)|319(3)|338(8)|353(2)|372(6)|397(5)|418(9)|439(12)|458(6)|477(3)|500(13)|517(9)|542(4)|561(4)|580(5)|599(3)|618(13)|637(7)|658(13)|677(8)|700(14)|717(13)|732(15)|747(11)|768(11)|789(6)|812(3)|831(3)|852(11)|875(8)|896(14)|917(7)|950(6)|967(16)|990(8)|1011(14)|1032(9)|1051(3)|1074(12)|1093(12)|1116(13)|1135(12)|1152(16)|1173(5)|1192(13)|1217(10)|1236(11)|1255(5)|1274(7)|1293(14)|1312(3)|1329(5)|1346(11)|1365(13)|1382(16)|1401(2)|1422(6)|1441(4)|1460(6)|1481(14)|1504(8)|1529(3)|1548(11)|1571(6)|1588(9)|1609(10)|1628(15)|1649(6)|1672(19)|1695(13)|1714(8)|1737(4)|1758(7)|1783(5)|1806(13)|1827(14)|1848(4)|1871(15)|1892(9)|1913(5) 0 https://youtu.be/8a2WpKsPVOQ YouTube video English 1 Interview Introductions MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz and I’m here with Sandy Fluck to talk about her life and experiences in the Lehigh Valley. We are meeting at Sandy and Bev’s home, here in Delaware, just a little outside of Rehoboth Beach. And the date is February 20th, 2022. We have funding this year from ACLS, which I should have said earlier. And I’m going to start with just a few quick questions before we jump into the interview and the first one is, would you be willing to state your full name and spell it for me?&#13 ; &#13 ; SANDY FLUCK: Sure. My real name is Sandra, so Sandra Fluck, F-L-U-C-K. &#13 ; &#13 ; MF: And would you share your birthday?&#13 ; &#13 ; SF: My birthday is January 30th, 1947. 0 110 Early Childhood / Experiences in Primary &amp ; Secondary School MF: And since we’re doing this arc of your life history, I’ll start with this question. Will you tell me a little bit about your childhood?&#13 ; &#13 ; SF: Okay. All right. I grew up in the Lehigh Valley. I was born in Bethlehem, in St. Luke’s Hospital Fountain Hill. And I spent most of my life there, but as a child -- it was a nice life. My friends refer to my family as the Leave it to Beaver kind of family. My dad worked at Bethlehem Steel, and practically every man I knew worked at Bethlehem Steel. My mother was a mother. Both my parents had gone to college. My mother went to Moravian, my father went to Lehigh. My mother graduated from St. Luke’s Nursing School, but once she had kids she became a stay-at-home mom like most of my friends at that time. I had a nice childhood. I had an older brother and an older sister. We were pretty close. But what I remember mostly about my childhood, aside from a real sense of a loving family, was, as a girl, I didn’t have the privileges that boys had. And I think that’s kind of an important piece of who I became. 0 582 Finding Her Passion SF: But my junior year, in my methods class, I had a phenomenal professor and she just turned me on to teaching. And I can remember sitting in that class and looking at her sitting behind her desk and thinking, “I’m going to do what you’re doing one day.” And that was the first time, other than wanting to be an engineer, that I found something that, “Okay, this’ll work for me.” So, I finished school and I became an elementary teacher for, I guess, 17 years. I’d loved teaching, but it wasn’t challenging. And I like to be challenged. So, I taught for three years and then I quit. And a group of us formed of a little group in Long Island, New York, and we bought old houses and fixed them up and resold them, and I did that for a year, and made enough money that I took a year off. &#13 ; &#13 ; And during that year, I became very introspective, and I studied, and I thought. It was a really neat year for me. Then, I came back home to Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley and I went back to teaching. And then I taught for another 15 years. And then, I went to Moravian College. And that’s when I really found that I was doing what I wanted to do. Up until that point, I asked for a transfer in schools or grade levels or whatever every three years because I was bored. And I thought, “Well, I’ll go to Moravian and I’ll stay there maybe three or four years and then I’ll go to a big university so I can do some research,” those were things I was interested in. 0 787 Time in Higher Education MF: I’m curious. You talked about going to the undergraduate degree in education. Can you describe for me how you went from that undergraduate degree, where you got your doctorate degree, what that doctoral program was like?&#13 ; &#13 ; SF: Sure. I went to East Stroudsburg, I guess was it a university or just a college then? It was just a college when I went. Went to East Stroudsburg, and as I said, I started as a Phys. Ed. major and changed over to elementary. And then, I was teaching in a school in New Jersey, in a district. And as a teacher, you really have to get your master’s degree, so I just went back to ESU for my master’s degree and I just continued in elementary ed because, I hate to say this, but it was easy. So, I just did it. And a couple years into teaching, I went to summer school. &#13 ; &#13 ; One of the other pieces of my life is, there were times in my life where I was very church oriented. And I was a Christian Scientist for quite a few years and a couple of summers I went to summer school at the Christian Science school called Principia. And what I found when I went to Principia the first summer, I got reconnected with that desire to be a college professor that I had when I was a junior in college. And I came home that summer thinking, “All right, you’ve got to get into a doctoral program and get going.” So, I did. 0 1124 Teaching Philosophy MF: Did you have a teaching philosophy when you got to Moravian that you really wanted to impart to your students?&#13 ; &#13 ; SF: I did. My belief is -- and I always told my students this -- I’m not here to make you one of me. One of me is enough. You need to be you. We need to find out what your talents are, what your gifts are, and how can we bring those to the classroom? That’s what I loved about being at Moravian, because I knew my kids. They knew me, they knew they could come into my office anytime they wanted to. They had me on speed dial. They could call me 24/7. They could come to the house. We could have dinner together. It was very important to me that, that we be a family. &#13 ; &#13 ; My students, I knew them as freshmen, but I had many of them as advisees beginning their sophomore year, for sure. And in the early days at Moravian, I taught sophomore classes, too. So, I had them as sophomores, as juniors, and seniors, so I really knew them. Later on, when I became chair of the department, I had to give up some teaching. I taught the children’s literature class ; I gave that up as sophomores. But I had them then, as juniors. And as juniors, I taught the math methods class, but we also had this, what we called junior block. And I just knew my kids inside and out. 0 1388 Moravian’s Education Program &amp ; its Evolution MF: I’ll ask one more question since we’re sort of in this work life arc, but I’m curious how Moravian’s education program evolved over the time that you were there. You first started out in your post-doctorate right away, but then, you were able to see the whole development of that program through the new building. So, how did it evolve?&#13 ; &#13 ; SF: Education has always, from day one, been important at Moravian. And when I went there, education, and I guess, business, were probably the biggest programs, and they may be now, I’m not sure. So, it was a big program when we started. There were three full-time faculty members in the education department when I started. And there was, of course, no graduate program then. But it was a wonderful program to begin with. So, I came into something that was already beautiful. And I felt very at home. &#13 ; &#13 ; There were two gentlemen teaching in the program at the time. And there was a woman, and she’s the one who left, and I took her place. And they just welcomed me with open arms. I couldn’t have been happier with the two guys. And we grew, we got larger. In the beginning there were maybe 20 elementary ed kids. And that grew overtime to 40, 50 elementary kids. So, I am sure I had some impact on that, but I think it was, we all had impact on that. I was out in the schools with student teaching supervision, and you get to know all the principals in Bethlehem, and you get to know the teachers, and you get to know, whether it’s at elementary, middle school, or high school. And so, a lot of kids are encouraged to come back to Moravian. 0 1697 Navigating Being LGBT in Higher Education &amp ; Personal Life MF: You mentioned diversity within the program and that leads me to think about something that’s adjacent to work. I’m wondering what it was like for LGBTQ people in the field of education at that time. Would you be willing to talk about that?&#13 ; &#13 ; SF: Sure. Okay, so for me, personally, I didn’t become an out lesbian until, I guess, really until I was with Bev. And teachers who were gay or lesbian, they couldn’t be out. They just couldn’t be. At least not in Pennsylvania, not in the Lehigh Valley. I don’t know if they would have been fired or not. But it just would have been too hard for them. So, any of the LGBTQ faculty that I knew, I don’t think I knew any in the public schools who were out about their orientation. There might have been some, but I didn’t know them. Now when I came to Moravian, Bev and I had just become partners the year before. And Bev is just always very vocal about who she is. [laughs] I tend to be a little more private. Not anymore, but I was a little more reserved in those days. 0 2215 Connecting/Relationship with Bev MF: You started to talk about Bev now a little bit. Should we talk about how you met? And then, we can work our way up to ACCO, a bit. How did the two of you meet?&#13 ; &#13 ; SF: Sure. Ok so, I come from a very musical family. My brother and sister both musicians and I grew up singing all the time. I was always in the church choirs, and glee club, and those things. But as I finished all my schoolwork, I finished my doctoral program, I finished my business degree, I finished all these things and I thought, “Well, now what am I going to do?” And I said, “Maybe it’s time to do something for yourself, something outside of education.” So, I said, “Well, I always wanted to take voice lessons.” Okay. So, I asked our soloist in church. I said, “I want to take voice lessons. Who should I take from?” And she said, “Well, Beverly Belnome is the best in the Valley.” That was Bev’s name at the time, Beverly Belnome. And I said, “Okay.” So, I called Beverly Belnome and I got an appointment with her. &#13 ; &#13 ; This is a long time ago and I can see it like it was yesterday. I went to her house because she taught out of her home. She opened the door and I immediately fell in love with her. I mean, she just took my breath away, you know? So, went in, we had our first lesson. And now, she’s kind of -- I don’t know if she told you any of this or not, but she’s a hands-on kind of person, touchy-feely. Even though she wasn’t raised Italian, she was very Italian. And she had to get to know me and whatnot. And we talked about how you breathe right. She took my hand and put it on her chest, like right here so I could feel her breathing. And of course, I’m like, I’m out in la-la land somewhere, I can’t even focus on breathing, I’ve got my hand on this woman’s chest and I’m absolutely madly in love with her already. So, that’s how we met. 0 2733 Establishing A Chorus Celebrating Women (ACCO) MF: Okay, we’re back. And we’re just going to begin to talk about ACCO. And so, I’ll just say, tell me a little bit about ACCO.&#13 ; &#13 ; SF: Okay. ACCO came about -- I can’t remember dates, I’m not really good at that. Bev and I, it was in the early ’90s. Bev and I went to Michigan Womyn’s Festival with our friends, Ann and Sharon at that time, and I had a great time. Bev didn’t have a great time, but I had a great time. But on the way back, I don’t know if it was Ann or Sharon, Bev will remember. One of them said, “Bev, you really ought to start a women’s chorus.” So, she hadn’t really thought about it. And she decided she would. So, she did a lot of research. Bev did a lot of research and found -- with her classical background, she knows a lot about women composers who have not been acknowledged in the classical field. &#13 ; &#13 ; In fact, most people think, “Oh, it’s classical music, a man had to write it.” So, her passion was in the classical field and not knowing anything about Holly Near and that whole group of women writers. So, she forms ACCO, did a lot of fundraising things, like Ann and Sharon had a gathering at the house and we had a fundraiser there, and other people did that. And Bev auditioned. I don’t even know how we got the word out. We worked through the Y in Allentown, the YWCA in Allentown. And in the beginning, we rehearsed there. But the group just formed, and it was women. I don’t think any men ever asked if they could join the group because it definitely had women in the title. But we were both lesbian and straight women, so it didn’t matter your sexual orientation as long as you were a woman and you were interested in singing women’s music. 0 3095 Impacts of ACCO&#13 ; SF: So, with the grant money, we were able to do the workshops and bring in people and do good programming, because again, it was more about celebrating women in music. And one of the other things that, that Bev, and all of us really, had an interest in was also diversity. And so, she came up with the idea to work with Ysaye Barnwell, who they had become friends by now, Bev and Ysaye, and they had a program where they, we went to Northeast Middle School and the children there wrote poems or stories, and Ysaye chose a few and put them to music, and then ACCO went and we performed with the chorus and we did a spring programming with them. And the music teacher, we chose Northeast because Bev had a connection with the music teacher there and knew her, through Moravian, actually. Denise had gone to Moravian. &#13 ; &#13 ; So, we did special things like that. We did Martin Luther King Celebration Day at Muhlenberg College every year, we came and sang a program there. We did Take Back the Night kinds of things. So, we did a lot of important things. I think back in the ’90s, more of that was happening, sometimes, than now. I mean, now there are other movements. But there was a lot going on and a lot of music going on in those days. And people didn’t know anything about the music we were singing. So, it was exciting. 0 3453 Relationship Between ACCO and the Steel Chorus of Bethlehem / Connection to Steelworkers MF: What was the relationship between ACCO and the Steel chorus? You mentioned that earlier. &#13 ; &#13 ; SF: They didn’t have a relationship except for Bev. [laughs] I don’t know how much you talked about this with Bev, but when the Steel was closing, what’s the name of the theater? &#13 ; &#13 ; MF: I think Touchstone. &#13 ; &#13 ; SF: Touchstone, thank you. Touchstone Theatre was writing a play called “Steelbound.” And Bev got involved in the music of that. And that was all through grant work. So, Bev and Ysaye, again, Ysaye Barnwell, did the music for that. And then Bev got a chorus together and we sang. And that was phenomenal. And there were people who told their stories, and we performed. It was a mixture of storytelling and singing those stories. All the music for that was from personal stories of Steelworkers and Steel families. I don’t know if she gave you a CD of that, or not. &#13 ; &#13 ; MF: Did that have special significance for you, as a child of a Steel family? 0 3661 Family / Views on Relationship MF: I’m curious about, because we’ve come back around almost full circle to discussion of the Steel, which makes me think about your family. Earlier you talked about Bev’s mom moving in with the two of you. Could you talk a little bit about your family, their responses to your relationship with Bev? &#13 ; &#13 ; SF: Sure. So, by the time Bev and I came together, my father had already passed on, so he never knew Bev. And I’m sorry about that. My mother and I were very close. And when Bev and I came together, the hard part for Mom was, up until then, I was Mom’s partner. So, in some ways, Mom felt like Bev was taking her place and pushing her out a little bit. But I told Mom, we were in New York, we had taken Mom to see a show. And we were walking down, I don’t know, Fifth Avenue or somewhere in New York, and I told Mom, I said, “Bev and I are more than friends.” I forgot exactly what I said. And I said, “We’re going to be living together, and she’s my partner,” and Mom said, “Okay.” That was it. “Okay.” So, Mom became part of our life. 0 3902 Evolution of Faith MF: This sort of connects back to earlier we had talked about your faith, being a part of a Christian Science faith tradition. How did your faith evolve over your life story? &#13 ; &#13 ; SF: I was raised in the Lutheran Church, actually Bev and I both were. And I always, we always went to church and everything, but it was more about music, going to sing. And then, actually, I was in college, and it was my sophomore year in college when I met -- I’ve only really had one other relationship than Beverly, and that was with someone from college. And her family, actually, she was Christian Scientist. And so, I was introduced to Christian Science through her and her mother. And I remember going to the Christian Science Church and talking with people and I just, I liked it. I liked how I felt. I liked the philosophy of it. And I liked that it was about love. 0 4257 Ties to LGBT Organizations / Community in the Lehigh Valley MF: Well, we talked a little bit about ACCO, we’ve talked about faith tradition. Were there other, were there LGBTQ organizations? I know ACCO, it was straight women, it was more about women, as an organization.&#13 ; &#13 ; SF: Yeah, just women.&#13 ; &#13 ; MF: But were there other LGBTQ organizations in the Lehigh Valley that mattered to you during the time period that you were active in ACCO?&#13 ; &#13 ; SF: Well, I’m sorry to say this, but no. [laughs] Honestly, I don’t even know what was available. We didn’t have–– for me, I guess for both of us, we were so busy working, that you’d come home, you don’t have time to do anything else. I think, honestly, Liz and Trish did more when they came to the Lehigh Valley to promote diversity of any kind. And we never even had any lesbian friends until we -- well, we had one couple that we were friends with. We met a lot of people through Liz and Trish and through that organization, through what they were building. But outside of them, no. No, really. And we certainly supported them. But no, I’m sorry. &#13 ; &#13 ; MF: I know that ACCO sang at Pride, I think. 0 4589 Validating Relationship with Bev / Marriage Equality MF: Tell me a little bit about, you got married later on, but you did a commitment ceremony. Tell me a little bit about that.&#13 ; &#13 ; SF: Oh, we did. Actually, it was Liz and Trish who said, “Vermont just opened up civil union. We’re going to go out, we’re going to get a civil union.” I forget what year it was. We have the certificate hanging downstairs. And they said, “Why don’t you come with us? This other couple is going with us.” So, the six of us went up in their van, and we got married. Or, we got the civil union. We have pictures and I think we may even have a video of it, I’m not sure. It didn’t mean anything in Pennsylvania, but it meant we did something, so it was the beginning. So, we had that. It was nice. &#13 ; &#13 ; The officiant was a woman, and she was really sweet. And Bev and I, I wrote something to say to Beverly, and she sang something to me, and neither one of us knew what the other was going to do, and at the end, the gal is practically crying while Bev’s singing and whatnot. And we had already had wedding rings. We gave each other these on our seventh anniversary, so we didn’t do wedding rings, but we each, without knowing, bought each other a bracelet. She bought me a diamond bracelet, and I bought her an emerald bracelet, because we’re going to the green state of Vermont, so my whole thing was about green and emeralds and stuff. 0 4929 Life in Rehoboth Beach MF: We’re kind of getting into your retirement, so maybe I’ll ask one last question. Tell me about retirement down here in Rehoboth. What made you move down here? What is your life like?&#13 ; &#13 ; SF: Well, let’s see. Bev and I, we both love the beach. And we both grew up going to the Jersey Shore, Long Beach Island. And so, in our first years together, we still were going to Long Beach Island because that’s what we always did. And that got more busy and more crowded and more, there was nobody there like us. So, we’re living in the Lehigh Valley, there’s nobody there but us except when we have a party, and 50 million women show up at our house. And then, we’d go on vacation and again, there’s nobody there like us. &#13 ; &#13 ; So, friends of ours -- actually, it was Ann again, I mentioned Ann and Sharon earlier. Ann had been coming down here. And she said, “Why don’t you check out Rehoboth sometime?” So, we came down and did Bev tell you this story? All right, I’ll tell it. I wasn’t going to tell it, but I will. We came down here, we were staying at a bed-and-breakfast, a gay-owned, a lesbian-owned bed and breakfast, Wendy’s. And Bev had gotten a really bad case of poison ivy and she was miserable. She was just miserable. She was scratching and itching and just moaning and groaning. 0 5497 Closing Remarks MF: Thank you so much. We’re right at the at the end of the interview but before we conclude, is there anything that you thought, “Oh, I kind of wanted to talk about that today,” and we missed it? Is there anything you want to add at the end?&#13 ; &#13 ; SF: You know, I don’t think so. I think, no, I’m okay. I don’t like talking about me so much. [laughs].&#13 ; &#13 ; MF: Well, I appreciate the fact that you did talk about you. Thank you so much. 0 MovingImage Sandy Fluck recalls her childhood in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, work in higher education, connection to A Chorus Celebrating Women (ACCO), and relationship with her partner of over 30 years. INTERVIEW WITH SANDY FLUCK FEBRUARY 20, 2022 MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz and I'm here with Sandy Fluck to talk about her life and experiences in the Lehigh Valley. We are meeting at Sandy and Bev's home, here in Delaware, just a little outside of Rehoboth Beach. And the date is February 20th, 2022. We have funding this year from ACLS, which I should have said earlier. And I'm going to start with just a few quick questions before we jump into the interview and the first one is, would you be willing to state your full name and spell it for me? SANDY FLUCK: Sure. My real name is Sandra, so Sandra Fluck, F-L-U-C-K. MF: And would you share your birthday? SF: My birthday is January 30th, 1947. MF: Thank you very much. And then, before we started this interview, we reviewed a consent form and I just want to go back through three questions about consent. Do you consent to this interview today? SF: Absolutely. MF: And do you consent to this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made available publicly online? SF: Yes. MF: And do you consent to this interview being accessible to researchers and to archive staff for educational purposes? We might use it in articles or in short clips about the archive. Would you consent to that? SF: Yes. MF: Okay. And the final consent question is, you are aware after we sign this consent form that you'd have 30 days once I send you the transcription to decide if you want to pull the interview, or if you want to redact something from the interview, or if you're okay with it to move forward in the archives? SF: Yes. MF: Fabulous. So, I want to start just by saying thank you so much for being here with me today. SF: You're welcome. Thank you. MF: And since we're doing this arc of your life history, I'll start with this question. Will you tell me a little bit about your childhood? SF: Okay. All right. I grew up in the Lehigh Valley. I was born in Bethlehem, in St. Luke's Hospital Fountain Hill. And I spent most of my life there, but as a child -- it was a nice life. My friends refer to my family as the Leave it to Beaver kind of family. My dad worked at Bethlehem Steel, and practically every man I knew worked at Bethlehem Steel. My mother was a mother. Both my parents had gone to college. My mother went to Moravian, my father went to Lehigh. My mother graduated from St. Luke's Nursing School, but once she had kids she became a stay-at-home mom like most of my friends at that time. I had a nice childhood. I had an older brother and an older sister. We were pretty close. But what I remember mostly about my childhood, aside from a real sense of a loving family, was, as a girl, I didn't have the privileges that boys had. And I think that's kind of an important piece of who I became. I wanted to play the sports that the boys did and being a little girl in the early '50s, we didn't have softball, they still don't have football, we didn't have any of those things. What we had was swimming, which I excelled in those areas, but I wanted to play baseball and stuff. And I can remember my brother being on a Little League team and I was always there. I always wanted to play Little League, and of course, I couldn't because I was a girl. And finally, the coach said, "Well, you can be the bat girl," and I got to sit in the dugout which was phenomenal. And then the next year, his little boy wanted to be the bat boy, so I got kicked out. So, there was always that sense that girls didn't quite get what boys did. And I felt that in school a lot, too. I was more interested in subjects that were more geared to the boys. I was the math and science geeky girl and that was more boy related. I wasn't interested in reading and writing as much, as were more feminine dominant. And my dad was an engineer so I grew up with math. I grew up with Daddy giving me problems to solve at the kitchen table kind of stuff. And I went through Bethlehem Public Schools. My whole career, I always felt like I was never really encouraged. And this, this may not sound exactly right because it's my childhood memory. I think it was 1957, I want to say, Sputnik went off. And it was like, the next day, we were all given a math test. Now I know it didn't happen that quickly, but I think I was in seventh grade, I was at Nitschmann, it was Junior High, then, and we were all, across the city of Bethlehem, given a math test. And they took the top kids, whoever did it as well as we did, and we were accelerated. So, I became part of that accelerated math project in Bethlehem. And by the time I was a junior at Liberty, I had calculus, I had three years of algebra, I had plain geometry, analytic geometry, and something they called advanced placement mathematics. And they virtually ran out of math courses my senior year. The thing that I want to say there was that as a junior in those math classes, it was almost all senior boys in those math classes. I was one of, by then, maybe two, maybe three girls left in that accelerated group. I was a straight-A student in math. My teacher never once called on me to answer a question, never once called on me to go to the board and put a problem on the board, because I was a girl. Who cared? My counselors never encouraged me to pursue mathematics. I wanted desperately to be an engineer. I wasn't encouraged to pursue that. So, that was, I'd say, the downside of my childhood. My parents encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do. But as I got older, those memories stayed with me and they've always helped me look at my students differently, not as boys or girls, but as people with likes and desires and needs. So, I think that formulated me quite a bit. Other than that, I was a happy kid. I excelled and I did well and I played sports. And my sports more became personal sports. I was a diver. I was a gymnast, because I really wanted to play football but I could only do that out in the street with the guys. I'm rambling now, aren't I? When it came time to decide where to go to college, I really didn't even want to go to school because I never felt like I got enough out of school. I was in advanced classes in almost everything. I was in advanced German classes and we already talked about the math and science. My senior year I had an extra time slot and I wanted to take an extra language. I wanted to take Russian and they said, "No you can't. You can't do that. You can't take extra languages because you're in the math and science track." I thought, "Why can't I do that?" So, those things put me back. So, my senior year, I pretty much spent in the gym. They needed somebody to teach swimming, so I taught a swimming class. I pretty much wasted my senior year, I think, at Liberty. But anyway, I was very much, as I said, involved in sports. So, when it came time to decide where to go to college, I just went to school because my parents said I had to go, not because I wanted to. And so, I went to play sports, so I became a Phys. Ed. major. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I had several injuries, and I guess my sophomore year was pretty brutal, and I had to change my major, I just couldn't do it anymore. So, I had some good friends who were elementary ed majors, and I thought, "Oh, I'll just become one of those, I don't really care." But my junior year, in my methods class, I had a phenomenal professor and she just turned me on to teaching. And I can remember sitting in that class and looking at her sitting behind her desk and thinking, "I'm going to do what you're doing one day." And that was the first time, other than wanting to be an engineer, that I found something that, "Okay, this'll work for me." So, I finished school and I became an elementary teacher for, I guess, 17 years. I'd loved teaching, but it wasn't challenging. And I like to be challenged. So, I taught for three years and then I quit. And a group of us formed of a little group in Long Island, New York, and we bought old houses and fixed them up and resold them, and I did that for a year, and made enough money that I took a year off. And during that year, I became very introspective, and I studied, and I thought. It was a really neat year for me. Then, I came back home to Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley and I went back to teaching. And then I taught for another 15 years. And then, I went to Moravian College. And that's when I really found that I was doing what I wanted to do. Up until that point, I asked for a transfer in schools or grade levels or whatever every three years because I was bored. And I thought, "Well, I'll go to Moravian and I'll stay there maybe three or four years and then I'll go to a big university so I can do some research," those were things I was interested in. I never got bored. I loved my students. And it makes me cry. I found that part of my background coming in, I think, helped me be a better teacher. And I think my students loved me as much as I loved them. So, I spent 25 years at Moravian and my doctorate degree is in math education. So, that was my specialty and that's what I came there with. But I taught all kinds of things and about half of my time there I was also chair of the education department, so that's when I really also found that there was no way I could be bored because running a department, doing all of the state requirements for certification, and teaching, and we also had a graduate program. So, I got to work in the schools with teachers. All of that became very important to me so I didn't get bored. So, that's kind of my evolution of childhood into adulthood. What else do you want me to talk about? MF: I'm curious. You talked about going to the undergraduate degree in education. Can you describe for me how you went from that undergraduate degree, where you got your doctorate degree, what that doctoral program was like? SF: Sure. I went to East Stroudsburg, I guess was it a university or just a college then? It was just a college when I went. Went to East Stroudsburg, and as I said, I started as a Phys. Ed. major and changed over to elementary. And then, I was teaching in a school in New Jersey, in a district. And as a teacher, you really have to get your master's degree, so I just went back to ESU for my master's degree and I just continued in elementary ed because, I hate to say this, but it was easy. So, I just did it. And a couple years into teaching, I went to summer school. One of the other pieces of my life is, there were times in my life where I was very church oriented. And I was a Christian Scientist for quite a few years and a couple of summers I went to summer school at the Christian Science school called Principia. And what I found when I went to Principia the first summer, I got reconnected with that desire to be a college professor that I had when I was a junior in college. And I came home that summer thinking, "All right, you've got to get into a doctoral program and get going." So, I did. So, I thought, "What do I really want to do my doctorate in?" So, I started out at Lehigh because it was convenient and, I don't know if I should say this or not, but I didn't like their program [laughs]. I didn't even finish the semester. I went to, like, two classes and I thought, "This is not going to challenge me. I'm out of here." So, I left. And I really knew that math was my love, so I looked around for not math, but math education because I loved teaching math. And I found Temple was the place to go for me. At that time there were some of the best math educators at Temple University than in the whole country. I got to work with some really phenomenal people. So, I went to Temple, and I taught the entire time that I was also doing my doctorate. My major professor, her name was Ann Wilderman. She was well-known throughout the United States. We became friends, actually, and she had several bouts of cancer prior to meeting her, and then, my final year in the program she got very sick, and I actually taught her graduate courses for her. We had a nice relationship and she taught me a lot but that was the sad piece of it. But anyway, so I finished my degree at Temple and then I did some adjunct work at Moravian and then a job opened up at Moravian. They asked me to apply, and I applied, and got the job, and left public ed. So, it wasn't too long after I actually had my doctorate degree that I went to Moravian, again, not really knowing where that path would go because I just assumed -- when I was at Temple, that was in the very beginning stages of computers, believe it or not. My dissertation was actually done on a typewriter. But it was the beginning of the TRS-80s and stuff like that. So, I was involved in the beginning stages of technology, and I liked it. So, after I finished my doctorate degree, I felt like, "Well, now what can I learn?" So, then, I went to business school, and I got a degree in computer programming because I had to do something. And we learned RPG and all these crazy languages that nobody knows anything about anymore. But it was fun. But what I found there was, I was staying up all night long writing programs, and having to get up and go teach. I thought, "Well, this isn't going to work. It's not a balanced life. I have to give it up." So, I didn't go that route. I needed balance in my life. So, that's how I got to Moravian. And there was something I wanted to tell you there, I just forgot what it was. I can't remember. It'll come back. MF: Did you have a teaching philosophy when you got to Moravian that you really wanted to impart to your students? SF: I did. My belief is -- and I always told my students this -- I'm not here to make you one of me. One of me is enough. You need to be you. We need to find out what your talents are, what your gifts are, and how can we bring those to the classroom? That's what I loved about being at Moravian, because I knew my kids. They knew me, they knew they could come into my office anytime they wanted to. They had me on speed dial. They could call me 24/7. They could come to the house. We could have dinner together. It was very important to me that, that we be a family. My students, I knew them as freshmen, but I had many of them as advisees beginning their sophomore year, for sure. And in the early days at Moravian, I taught sophomore classes, too. So, I had them as sophomores, as juniors, and seniors, so I really knew them. Later on, when I became chair of the department, I had to give up some teaching. I taught the children's literature class ; I gave that up as sophomores. But I had them then, as juniors. And as juniors, I taught the math methods class, but we also had this, what we called junior block. And I just knew my kids inside and out. I knew all about their backgrounds, their boyfriends, their girlfriends, their whatever they were doing. After several years at Moravian, we built the new academic building--- which isn't new anymore--- but part of that was the education department got half of the third floor. And it was incredible. So, we had this beautiful space. We had a big room, opening, where our offices were around it, but the students had this big table. They could work. They were there, sometimes, all weekend long working on projects, or they'd be there all night long working on stuff during exams. And so, I was there with them. I always believed that teaching really is an art. And you can learn a lot about teaching, a lot about pedagogy. But if you don't have the fire within you to be a teacher, then go away. Because you can't just learn. You have to have the learning, but you have to have the artistic talent for it. And my kids worked hard, and they knew they were going to work hard. I would tell them the first day of class, "Teaching isn't a nine-to-five job. Especially elementary teaching, because elementary teaching is where you don't have a lot of free periods, and you take all your work home with you. So, you're not done." And so, they needed to know that if it's a lot of hard work. And I think I saw my kids build their strengths. We did a lot of work together to do that. I still hear from some of them. And I got to know them personally. I got to know some of their very tragic stories. And that's when you realize, as a teacher, you're a counselor, you're a mother or a father, you're everything they want you to be, and they need you to be. And whether it's at the college level, or second grade, it doesn't really matter. They're children. So, my college kids were my children. MF: I'll ask one more question since we're sort of in this work life arc, but I'm curious how Moravian's education program evolved over the time that you were there. You first started out in your post-doctorate right away, but then, you were able to see the whole development of that program through the new building. So, how did it evolve? SF: Education has always, from day one, been important at Moravian. And when I went there, education, and I guess, business, were probably the biggest programs, and they may be now, I'm not sure. So, it was a big program when we started. There were three full-time faculty members in the education department when I started. And there was, of course, no graduate program then. But it was a wonderful program to begin with. So, I came into something that was already beautiful. And I felt very at home. There were two gentlemen teaching in the program at the time. And there was a woman, and she's the one who left, and I took her place. And they just welcomed me with open arms. I couldn't have been happier with the two guys. And we grew, we got larger. In the beginning there were maybe 20 elementary ed kids. And that grew overtime to 40, 50 elementary kids. So, I am sure I had some impact on that, but I think it was, we all had impact on that. I was out in the schools with student teaching supervision, and you get to know all the principals in Bethlehem, and you get to know the teachers, and you get to know, whether it's at elementary, middle school, or high school. And so, a lot of kids are encouraged to come back to Moravian. We had a lot of local kids from the Lehigh Valley. The one thing that, and I think it's still an issue at Moravian, maybe not as much, but it's not a diverse population. I can count on less than one hand how many non-white students I had during my 25 years there in elementary ed. So, that was something that I always was wishing that we had more diversity and I tried to encourage -- I went to Easton because they had a bigger diverse population at that time than Allentown then, really Allentown and Bethlehem. They had a population I could reach better. And I tried to work with their administration, and they told me point-blank, "Not going to happen," because our, they told me that their kids of color, they would get scholarships to virtually anywhere they wanted to go. And that was the time then. And Moravian didn't have that kind of money. And being a division three school, you weren't going to get athletic scholarships. So, that was the only issue I had at Moravian. But you work with what you have. So, we grew. And as we grew, we became instead of three people we became four people. And then we decided to have a graduate program. And that was, that was great. One of the things I got to do in the graduate program was kind of teach outside of the program. And I was fortunate that I could go into a school district, Bethlehem, Parkland, Allentown, Easton, each of those districts, that I designed courses just for them, always around math education. I did a series of courses in Easton, for example, on just teaching better and going into the classrooms and videotaping and watching our videos, and, "How do you do this better?" kind of thing. It was all around math education. So, that was really nice in the graduate program. We eventually grew, and when we came into the new building, I think we were maybe seven faculty members, I'm not sure. So, we grew. And we were all part of that growth. And I think just being out in the schools, and all of us were out in the schools a lot, and just being out there with your name and your face and who you are. And our students were phenomenal. So, it worked. We grew. MF: You mentioned diversity within the program and that leads me to think about something that's adjacent to work. I'm wondering what it was like for LGBTQ people in the field of education at that time. Would you be willing to talk about that? SF: Sure. Okay, so for me, personally, I didn't become an out lesbian until, I guess, really until I was with Bev. And teachers who were gay or lesbian, they couldn't be out. They just couldn't be. At least not in Pennsylvania, not in the Lehigh Valley. I don't know if they would have been fired or not. But it just would have been too hard for them. So, any of the LGBTQ faculty that I knew, I don't think I knew any in the public schools who were out about their orientation. There might have been some, but I didn't know them. Now when I came to Moravian, Bev and I had just become partners the year before. And Bev is just always very vocal about who she is. [laughs] I tend to be a little more private. Not anymore, but I was a little more reserved in those days. So, I was an out lesbian at that point. So, that was 1989 or '90, I think, when I came to Moravian. And at that time, nobody had an issue with it at Moravian. There was never an issue that I knew of. The issues were more about me being a woman instead of a man. I can remember being hired and the same year that, that guys got hired that I got hired, they got more money than I did. I don't know what it's like now. But, that's a whole different aspect. Nobody ever questioned me about being a lesbian. My students knew right away. I never had any complaints from students or parents or anything, at least not that I knew of. We didn't have spousal benefits at that time but that came through work, through Liz, as the center now, through Liz and some work in the Consortium of Lehigh Valley Colleges. That came later on, so Bev had benefits then, through Moravian. But as far as the kids, times were very sheltered then. It's still very sheltered in the Lehigh Valley. And I know I used to tell my students, because Facebook was coming about in those days, I'd say, "You can't have a Facebook page. You can't do it because anything that's out there, a principal's going to look at when he's thinking about interviewing you, or she's thinking about interviewing you. So, anything you put on there is going to go against you." So, yeah. We had to be very careful about those things. MF: Did you also have to be careful in college? How did students navigate that? Or was that not as... SF: No, it was a problem. When I was at East Stroudsburg, and I graduated from there in 1968. So, I was there '64 to '68. I didn't know I was a lesbian then until my sophomore year in college. That's when I had my first encounter. But I can remember as a freshman, I think, as a freshman, there was obviously -- I mean, this is a school in those days where girls went to play sports and there were a lot of lesbians, but nobody talked about it. But I do recall kids getting in trouble for it and being hauled into the dean's office or whatever. And I do remember having, having the counselor, our hall counselor, our dorm counselor, I forget which, having a meeting with my whole floor because there had been complaints about two of the girls who were doing what they shouldn't be doing. Nobody ever even used the words. So, yeah, it was an issue. And yet, it certainly was prevalent. But it was an issue. You couldn't be out and about with it. So, anyway. MF: You talked about college life, and you just mentioned briefly that Bev was able to get benefits through Moravian. Could you just describe what that was like, pre-marriage equality, to be thinking about partner benefits? How did that work at Moravian before they allowed partner benefits and after? Can you just describe that? SF: Well, before they had it there was no benefit. Well, that's not true. There was no insurance benefits kind of thing. But she was allowed to take classes if she wanted to, to take classes for free, which she never took advantage of, by the way. And what else would there have been? I think that was it. And I don't remember when it actually -- see, Bev never had a "full-time" job where she had benefits. She was always adjunct faculty and teaching private voice lessons. And so, her insurance always had to be private. On the other hand, at Moravian as a full-time faculty member, I had all those benefits. When that finally came, it still wasn't as good as a "married couple." She could come into my policy, but I paid a lot for it, whereas had we been a husband and wife, that would have just been a benefit. So, it was a help because she got insurance. But we still paid for it. And I don't know when that changed, to be honest with you. It's kind of interesting, because we tend to not worry about those things. We just go along and we're a happily together couple. But even little things, like when we bought our house in Danielsville, and that was, I don't know, '92, maybe, our realtor told us, "Don't let them know you're lesbians." So, I had to, the house was bought in my name. She was just my friend. And the next day, after we bought it, the next day we had to redo it and put it in both our names, and we had to pay for that. Because the realtor told us, "They might not sell to you if they know you're lesbians. And there's nothing I can do about that." So, that was something I didn't expect because I just didn't ever think like that. Who cares? But people care. MF: You started to talk about Bev now a little bit. Should we talk about how you met? And then, we can work our way up to ACCO, a bit. How did the two of you meet? SF: Sure. Ok so, I come from a very musical family. My brother and sister both musicians and I grew up singing all the time. I was always in the church choirs, and glee club, and those things. But as I finished all my schoolwork, I finished my doctoral program, I finished my business degree, I finished all these things and I thought, "Well, now what am I going to do?" And I said, "Maybe it's time to do something for yourself, something outside of education." So, I said, "Well, I always wanted to take voice lessons." Okay. So, I asked our soloist in church. I said, "I want to take voice lessons. Who should I take from?" And she said, "Well, Beverly Belnome is the best in the Valley." That was Bev's name at the time, Beverly Belnome. And I said, "Okay." So, I called Beverly Belnome and I got an appointment with her. This is a long time ago and I can see it like it was yesterday. I went to her house because she taught out of her home. She opened the door and I immediately fell in love with her. I mean, she just took my breath away, you know? So, went in, we had our first lesson. And now, she's kind of -- I don't know if she told you any of this or not, but she's a hands-on kind of person, touchy-feely. Even though she wasn't raised Italian, she was very Italian. And she had to get to know me and whatnot. And we talked about how you breathe right. She took my hand and put it on her chest, like right here so I could feel her breathing. And of course, I'm like, I'm out in la-la land somewhere, I can't even focus on breathing, I've got my hand on this woman's chest and I'm absolutely madly in love with her already. So, that's how we met. Now, she was living with a man at the time. And so, I mean I knew there was no way that she and I were ever going to be a couple. And the other side to that is, I was very big in church at that time, and you really couldn't be a lesbian and be in a Christian Science Church at that time. So, I never really thought -- and I was like best friends with a gay man, and we did everything together. We went to concerts and theater and everything, so my life was okay. I wasn't expecting to have romance. So, Bev and I became friends. And we were friends for almost 10 years. And we did a lot together. We would always go to the beach for a day trip or so. We always ended my school year celebrating by going down to Illick's Mill and buying a pack of cigarettes and smoking down at the water, which then we gave up for the year. We always celebrated the first snowstorm by walking across the bridge to the South Side to go to Grotto for pizza, which I don't think is there anymore. So, we did little things like that. And over time, later on in her life, I don't know, maybe eight years or so into our friendship, over that time, I moved her many times. I think you know this story. She'd go, she'd leave John, and she'd get an apartment, and then, she'd go back to John, and then they got married, and then she moved out. So, she moved all these times. And every time she was moving, I moved her. She didn't have a lot, but she did have a piano. And that was a lot to move. So, the last time I moved her, I said to her, "The next time you move, you're going to move in with me." And that was true. So, she finally decided to leave John, her husband, and then she went to work at Valley Youth House, and she hooked up with a woman there for the first time in her life, and she found she really enjoyed being with women. And then, she told me about it, and I was mad because I wanted her to be with me. And so, then, for a while, we had this kind of awkward relationship because she was still seeing this other woman. And now she knows that in my past, that I've been with women and she, I think, is getting the sense that I really want to be with her because I keep telling her I want to be with her. So, one night we were, we were -- oh, what the heck was the name of that diner? I don't know if it's still there anymore, it's on Union Boulevard. There's a diner. We had gone to the movies. We saw Dead Poets Society, carpe diem being the message, right? So, we went out to get something to eat after the movie and we're sitting in the diner across from one another at a booth, and we both said, "We're really not hungry. What are we doing here?" So, we left. And I was driving. And as we went around the curve on Union Boulevard, she said to me, "Do you want to come home with me?" Or, "Do you want to spend the night with me?" I forget. She'll remember the words. And I said, "Do you mean it?" And she said, "Yes." And that was the end. That was the beginning of the end. So that was, what year was that? I don't remember, '89? Anyway, somewhere around there. And that was it. We never looked back. We had a couple of sticky moments in the beginning, but she said, we both agreed to, we'll give it a year and if we're together in a year, then we'll move in together. And about seven or eight months into that year -- and this is Bev, this is Bev to the max. She does this kind of stuff all the time -- she said to me, "Oh, I gave notice to Dan on the apartment, so I can move in tomorrow." And my back immediately went into spasm, and I couldn't move. Because I'm more of a planned person. "You said a year. I still have two months to get ready for you to move into my house." I just had a little half a double, me, and my cats. Anyway, she moved in. So, we went from this little house, two-bedroom house, myself and my two cats, she moves in with her dog, my cats hate the dog, so we get that. And shortly after that another dog moved in with us, now we're in this little house, two cats, two dogs. And pretty soon, her mother moved in with us. [laughs] So, it was quite a beginning. But it worked. That first year was a really rough year with lots going on with her mom. And then, we got the bigger house and stuff. But anyway, yeah. It's been a great 30, what are we at, 33 years? Yeah, 33 years. And it's just been a wonderful journey together. Really great. So, it was all about the music. And when we were friends during that time between my voice lesson and becoming partners, I went to every concert she ever did. And I have always, and still to this day, I mean, she starts to sing, and my heart just melts. She has the kind of voice that I love, and she's the person that I love. So, it's been a great trip. So, that takes us to ACCO, maybe. Should we do ACCO a little bit? [break in audio] SF: Anticipated, is this okay? MF: This is so wonderful, yeah. We'll go in different directions. We've done a wonderful career arc. We've done your relationship arc ; we can talk a little bit... [break in audio] MF: Okay, we're back. And we're just going to begin to talk about ACCO. And so, I'll just say, tell me a little bit about ACCO. SF: Okay. ACCO came about -- I can't remember dates, I'm not really good at that. Bev and I, it was in the early '90s. Bev and I went to Michigan Womyn's Festival with our friends, Ann and Sharon at that time, and I had a great time. Bev didn't have a great time, but I had a great time. But on the way back, I don't know if it was Ann or Sharon, Bev will remember. One of them said, "Bev, you really ought to start a women's chorus." So, she hadn't really thought about it. And she decided she would. So, she did a lot of research. Bev did a lot of research and found -- with her classical background, she knows a lot about women composers who have not been acknowledged in the classical field. In fact, most people think, "Oh, it's classical music, a man had to write it." So, her passion was in the classical field and not knowing anything about Holly Near and that whole group of women writers. So, she forms ACCO, did a lot of fundraising things, like Ann and Sharon had a gathering at the house and we had a fundraiser there, and other people did that. And Bev auditioned. I don't even know how we got the word out. We worked through the Y in Allentown, the YWCA in Allentown. And in the beginning, we rehearsed there. But the group just formed, and it was women. I don't think any men ever asked if they could join the group because it definitely had women in the title. But we were both lesbian and straight women, so it didn't matter your sexual orientation as long as you were a woman and you were interested in singing women's music. I want to say -- and I'm not sure if this is true or not -- 100 percent of what we did was written by women. And that was the focus, bringing women's music to the Valley, to people, anybody who would listen. Bev's focus was definitely in the classical arena. And in the beginning, we did a lot of really hard stuff, probably harder than we should have been doing. [laughs] But it was fun. And then as we grew, and there was more influence from the women in the group, and the group got larger, other composers would come in, more of the folky kind of stuff. But we sang in all kinds of languages, probably seven different languages. And we did all kinds of music. We rehearsed once a week. So, it was a lot of work. And as we grew, the library of music grew, and one of our members, Charlene, became the music librarian so I didn't have to schlep it all the time. We did workshops together. Bev brought in some famous people. We worked with Ysaye Barnwell from Sweet Honey in the Rock. We worked with -- I forgot who all we worked with. But we actually became very close, as a women's community, because we did sessions together, even counseling together if you will. We had weekend retreats maybe once a year, and you get close when you spend time together with the women. I can't say that, that we became friends outside of ACCO too much, but we were close, and we could count on one another, especially within your own group. I was a second alto and there aren't a lot of second altos in the world. So, sometimes there are only two of us. At the most, we had four. And we were always very close, and we were very sincere and very dedicated because altos are like that. Sopranos give you a lot of trouble, always. So, ACCO took a lot of work. And I've always been the kind, I've always been there to support Bev in her work. I came from the math-science background. If I wanted something at school and we couldn't afford it at Moravian, I wrote a grant and I got it. And you could do that in math. You could get a grant for almost everything. The Arts, it's a little different ballgame. You don't get paid a lot in the Arts. You don't get anything done unless you get a grant to do it. But you have to get help doing that. So, we had a board for ACCO because we had to eventually get our 501c3 or whatever it's called. And one of the gals was a good grant writer, Marilyn Roberts. Maybe someday you'll get to talk to Marilyn. She's in the Lehigh Valley and she was at Muhlenberg in the theater program. And Marilyn did a lot of grant writing for us, so that was great. We got funding from Lehigh Valley Council of the Arts, and Pennsylvania Council of the Arts. And people like, I'm trying to think, Linny Fowler gave us money but I'm not sure if that was just for the Steel Choir or if it was for ACCO, too. That might have just been the Steel Choir. So, with the grant money, we were able to do the workshops and bring in people and do good programming, because again, it was more about celebrating women in music. And one of the other things that, that Bev, and all of us really, had an interest in was also diversity. And so, she came up with the idea to work with Ysaye Barnwell, who they had become friends by now, Bev and Ysaye, and they had a program where they, we went to Northeast Middle School and the children there wrote poems or stories, and Ysaye chose a few and put them to music, and then ACCO went and we performed with the chorus and we did a spring programming with them. And the music teacher, we chose Northeast because Bev had a connection with the music teacher there and knew her, through Moravian, actually. Denise had gone to Moravian. So, we did special things like that. We did Martin Luther King Celebration Day at Muhlenberg College every year, we came and sang a program there. We did Take Back the Night kinds of things. So, we did a lot of important things. I think back in the '90s, more of that was happening, sometimes, than now. I mean, now there are other movements. But there was a lot going on and a lot of music going on in those days. And people didn't know anything about the music we were singing. So, it was exciting. As a musician it was great for me, as a choral singer, because the only opportunity you get to sing chorally is if you are in a church choir, or if you're in a community choir. I wasn't involved in church and a church choir, so I, this was great for me because I really missed singing. Singing had always been a big part of my life. My family sang at the drop of a hat. We didn't do anything without singing. So, it was important to me. And I loved it. I loved learning. We learned a lot. Bev introduced us to a lot of techniques. And the music was great. It was wonderful. MF: You described the personal impact of ACCO, the cohesion of the group. Could you talk a little bit about the community impact of ACCO? I mean, you're singing at MLK Day at Muhlenberg, you're singing at Take Back the Night marches. Did you get a sense of the import of ACCO in the larger Lehigh Valley? SF: Yeah, that's a hard question. You never know how much impact something has on a community. I think, we did a winter solstice concert every year and I think people looked forward to that. I really think they did because we had a good crowd for that, always. Did it accomplish what we hoped it would? I doubt it. Because our country, our culture, doesn't celebrate the Arts like other cultures do. And I think that is probably the biggest loss in our society, or one of the biggest losses. So, people would come and, yeah, they would enjoy it and what did they take away? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, there were women who joined the choir, of course, because they heard us at a concert and they'd go, "Oh, I want to do that." So, that had an impact. It became a place for some people to come and sing. Did it change lives? Did it change the community? Did it impact the community? I think maybe at the time it was a big piece of the community. It's gone now. So, what impact did it have? There is no chorus. There's no Lehigh Valley Women's Chorus anymore, that I know of. So, I don't know. MF: Just as you described, I think listening to Bev, listening to you, that personal impact, that ability to go to variety of different places, including places of education, to put students' music, their writing to music, it had an impact. SF: It had an impact, and I'm sure, especially the students that wrote something and it was put to music, that impacted their life forever. So, yes, I think in that. But if you walk down the streets of Allentown today and said, "Hey, did you ever hear of ACCO?" They're going to say, "No." So, not in the big picture, but individuals that it touched, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, yeah. And it still touches my heart. I can go to one of our first concerts, one of our winter solstice concerts that we did at the Community College, at NACC, and I can remember walking down the aisle and singing. I can remember pretty much everything that happened. And it takes me back there. So, for us who were part of it, absolutely, it had an impact. Absolutely. MF: What was the relationship between ACCO and the Steel chorus? You mentioned that earlier. SF: They didn't have a relationship except for Bev. [laughs] I don't know how much you talked about this with Bev, but when the Steel was closing, what's the name of the theater? MF: I think Touchstone. SF: Touchstone, thank you. Touchstone Theatre was writing a play called "Steelbound." And Bev got involved in the music of that. And that was all through grant work. So, Bev and Ysaye, again, Ysaye Barnwell, did the music for that. And then Bev got a chorus together and we sang. And that was phenomenal. And there were people who told their stories, and we performed. It was a mixture of storytelling and singing those stories. All the music for that was from personal stories of Steelworkers and Steel families. I don't know if she gave you a CD of that, or not. MF: Did that have special significance for you, as a child of a Steel family? SF: It did. I grew up, as I mentioned earlier, everybody I knew worked at the Steel. So, I still can't imagine the Steel not being there. But yeah, it had very significant impact for me. And what was really interesting for me is I grew up in a white-collar family. So, my family didn't come home dirty from working in the Steel. But the stories that were written were all by the blue-collar workers. And I had no idea what those guys went through. I had no idea because my daddy always had a suit and tie job at the Steel. And I mean, those stories were heartbreaking. Heartbreaking, what those guys went through. Now I know my dad saw those stories because he was in the mill, even though he was supervising. But my dad didn't talk about what happened, ever. So, hearing the stories was really heartbreaking in a lot of ways, for me. But so much happened. And as one of the songs goes, "Something happened in the mill," and Bev and I often will say, "Boy, something just happened in the mill." It's just amazing. But that was a whole other world down there. I mean, hospital, everything. My father didn't have to go to a doctor, or St. Luke's hospital for anything. Everything was done right there in the mill. I don't think people have any idea how big that was. It was huge. But yeah, I was really taken by the Steel Choir. I can still, you can probably hear it in my voice. It was very impactful. MF: I'm curious about, because we've come back around almost full circle to discussion of the Steel, which makes me think about your family. Earlier you talked about Bev's mom moving in with the two of you. Could you talk a little bit about your family, their responses to your relationship with Bev? SF: Sure. So, by the time Bev and I came together, my father had already passed on, so he never knew Bev. And I'm sorry about that. My mother and I were very close. And when Bev and I came together, the hard part for Mom was, up until then, I was Mom's partner. So, in some ways, Mom felt like Bev was taking her place and pushing her out a little bit. But I told Mom, we were in New York, we had taken Mom to see a show. And we were walking down, I don't know, Fifth Avenue or somewhere in New York, and I told Mom, I said, "Bev and I are more than friends." I forgot exactly what I said. And I said, "We're going to be living together, and she's my partner," and Mom said, "Okay." That was it. "Okay." So, Mom became part of our life. My brother was fine. My brother, he could care less. My sister is a born-again, right-wing Christian. I don't know how else to put it, except like that. So, she wasn't happy about it at all. So, how that worked out, my sister has two daughters. At that time, my brother had one son. And they're all similar in age, the three nieces and nephews. So, my first niece, my sister's daughter, got married and Bev was not invited to the wedding, okay. So, then my nephew got married, and of course Bev was invited to the wedding because that's my brother's child. And the family, we all sat together, my sister and her husband and everybody, and we had a wonderful time. And I thought, "Oh, this is great. We're okay." So, now the next niece gets married. Bev's not invited again. So, I went, and I said to my sister and her family, I said, "This is the last time I'm coming to an event without Beverly. So, if she's not included, I'm not either." So, the next big event that happened was they had a big celebration for my sister's fiftieth birthday. Bev was not invited. I didn't go. That was it. I was done. So, I'm not quite sure how it happened, but over time, my sister always had Christmas gathering for everybody and I didn't go for a couple of years, and then, one year, we both got invited and we went. And so, then it was okay. I mean, they never approved of us as a couple, but we were allowed to be there together. But there was about maybe a three or four-year period where there was nothing. But that was about it. And my, as I say, my brother's side of the family, they're fine. They could care less. My sister and my nieces, none of them approve but they're all okay. They just know who we are. MF: This sort of connects back to earlier we had talked about your faith, being a part of a Christian Science faith tradition. How did your faith evolve over your life story? SF: I was raised in the Lutheran Church, actually Bev and I both were. And I always, we always went to church and everything, but it was more about music, going to sing. And then, actually, I was in college, and it was my sophomore year in college when I met -- I've only really had one other relationship than Beverly, and that was with someone from college. And her family, actually, she was Christian Scientist. And so, I was introduced to Christian Science through her and her mother. And I remember going to the Christian Science Church and talking with people and I just, I liked it. I liked how I felt. I liked the philosophy of it. And I liked that it was about love. And I remember going to my minister in the Lutheran church, because I was a member, I had to leave the Lutheran church in order to become a member of the Christian Science church. And I had to talk with my minister about that. And I remember telling him, he asked me, "Why?" And I said, "Well, all the years in the Lutheran church, I never once felt like God loved me." I said, "But in the Christian Science church, I feel that." So, that's really what it was about for me. And I told you earlier that I spent a year off studying. That year was studying Christian Science, too, and the Bible, actually. I had read the Bible many times but not studied it. So, that year, I spent really going deeper into my own soul, I guess, and studying Christian Science, and studying the Bible. And then, I was pretty active in the Christian Science church in Bethlehem for years. I was a reader, and I was treasurer for many, many years. And when Bev and I became a couple, I realized I couldn't be totally true to my commitment to Christian Science. And so, I left the church. But I think, and I'm not positive about this because I think if I really wanted to go back I could, even as an open, gay person, I think I could go back now because I think they've changed. But the rules were so strict. When I became a member way back when, you had to vow that you don't smoke, you don't drink, you couldn't even do coffee, you couldn't have caffeine. It was very strict guidelines. And no out of marriage sexual encounters of any kind, so it was more, it was very confined. And when you study, and people that are in Christian Science, they say, "I'm a student of Christian Science," because you're always studying and it's this huge piece of who you are. People will say things like, "I say my prayers before I go to bed," and I would think, "But I'm praying all day long. How can you just take five minutes before you go to bed and say a prayer?" You have to be in a prayerful state all the time. And that's what Christian Science is about. It's always holding the positive thought. Something happens, you're always trying to negate that bad thing and know the truth about it. So, it's like a, it becomes 100 percent of who you are. And when I met Beverly and we became a couple, really, I knew that I couldn't give 100 percent of who I was to that church anymore. And I chose a different path. So, it didn't change me. I mean, I still have a deep spiritual sense and so does Bev. We might think a little bit differently about things, but it certainly, it gives me peace in my life. MF: Did you join a different church tradition after you--? SF: No. We both grew up in, as I said, the Lutheran church. And Bev sang in churches forever, and synagogues. And we've gone to churches. For me, I don't want to make a commitment to anything else. And I know if I join something, I am committed to it and I have to work for it. And I have enough to do. But we haven't found a church that we'd want to be part of, right now. We both miss the music of church, though. And we're trying to find that, but we haven't found it. MF: Well, we talked a little bit about ACCO, we've talked about faith tradition. Were there other, were there LGBTQ organizations? I know ACCO, it was straight women, it was more about women, as an organization. SF: Yeah, just women. MF: But were there other LGBTQ organizations in the Lehigh Valley that mattered to you during the time period that you were active in ACCO? SF: Well, I'm sorry to say this, but no. [laughs] Honestly, I don't even know what was available. We didn't have---- for me, I guess for both of us, we were so busy working, that you'd come home, you don't have time to do anything else. I think, honestly, Liz and Trish did more when they came to the Lehigh Valley to promote diversity of any kind. And we never even had any lesbian friends until we -- well, we had one couple that we were friends with. We met a lot of people through Liz and Trish and through that organization, through what they were building. But outside of them, no. No, really. And we certainly supported them. But no, I'm sorry. MF: I know that ACCO sang at Pride, I think. SF: Yeah, we did. We sang at Pride. But Mayfair wasn't then a music fest. But yeah, Pride was the only thing that really came about in the Lehigh Valley. MF: Because it was smaller. You'd have two bars, maybe two organizations. SF: Yeah. And Bev and I aren't big drinkers, or I don't drink at all, so we didn't go out a lot. We did like to dance, but there really wasn't -- that's why being here is so much different. Yeah. And most places, even bars, like the Stonewall was probably the biggest place. And that was so men-dominated that you didn't feel comfortable really doing that. So, we had a lot of parties at the house, though. This is kind of cute. When we lived in Danielsville, it was a party house. And um, there might have been parties where we had 50, 75 women. And we didn't even know where these women came from, but they were all lesbians. They were all within driving distance of Danielsville. We had a volleyball net out in front ; we had a swimming pool in the backyard. It was crazy. And we were away one time, and one of our girlfriends was staying at the house, and must have had a party or two because we've had other parties where people would come and we didn't know them and we'd say, "Well, how'd you get invited?" "Oh, we were here before." "What do you mean, you were here before?" "Oh, you know, when -- I don't want to mention any names, I don't want to get anybody in trouble." So, it was a party house. And we would have potlucks, women potlucks. And there were a lot of women in the Lehigh Valley that had no place to go. There was just no place to go. So, there was a period of a couple of years where we had a lot of gatherings, and a lot of just having fun together. Yeah, I had forgotten about that. Because there wasn't, there was no place to go. MF: Tell me more about the Danielsville years. Because you moved from your condo out to that area. SF: Yeah, we moved. I had a little half a double in Bethlehem that Bev and I lived in. And then, we moved out to Danielsville because we just needed more space. So, it was nice. It was an acre, and gardens and everything that we built, and we did a lot of work out there. But why did we move? We just didn't have enough room, I guess. Yeah. It was fun trying to find a place because I would say, "Well, I only want to be 20 minutes from work. I don't want to have to drive that far," and we would push that, and push that, and push that. It was about a half an hour, maybe 25 to 30 minutes. But it was a beautiful ride, and I could decompress on the way home. And it was a real redneck neighborhood. In fact, there was a house down the street from us that had a big, white cross in the yard. Everybody knew we were a couple, and everybody was okay with us, but nobody ever talked about it. But we were friends with the people next to us and across the street kind of thing. But yeah, it wasn't a gay-friendly neighborhood [laughs]. But we did okay. I don't know what else to say about that. MF: Tell me a little bit about, you got married later on, but you did a commitment ceremony. Tell me a little bit about that. SF: Oh, we did. Actually, it was Liz and Trish who said, "Vermont just opened up civil union. We're going to go out, we're going to get a civil union." I forget what year it was. We have the certificate hanging downstairs. And they said, "Why don't you come with us? This other couple is going with us." So, the six of us went up in their van, and we got married. Or, we got the civil union. We have pictures and I think we may even have a video of it, I'm not sure. It didn't mean anything in Pennsylvania, but it meant we did something, so it was the beginning. So, we had that. It was nice. The officiant was a woman, and she was really sweet. And Bev and I, I wrote something to say to Beverly, and she sang something to me, and neither one of us knew what the other was going to do, and at the end, the gal is practically crying while Bev's singing and whatnot. And we had already had wedding rings. We gave each other these on our seventh anniversary, so we didn't do wedding rings, but we each, without knowing, bought each other a bracelet. She bought me a diamond bracelet, and I bought her an emerald bracelet, because we're going to the green state of Vermont, so my whole thing was about green and emeralds and stuff. So, we exchanged bracelets. It was nice. We went up the night before, and our friend, I think Laura was with us. She did some other work for us. And we had a nice night together, and we got married, and came home. Well, civil unioned, I guess, and came home. But it was, I don't know how long after that that states started to open up more, but Vermont was the first, at least on the East that we could get to, we could drive there. I don't know if California was opened up by then or not. I don't know. But again, it was Liz and Trish who said, "Come on, we've got to do this." "Okay." They were a big influence that way. MF: And was it important to you when marriage equality was passed? SF: You know, it was important because, only because to me equality is important across the board. It didn't make me feel any different to have a paper that said, "I'm married." I mean nothing was going to change how I felt about Beverly. Financially, it was not helpful for us to be legally married. In some ways it was a financial detriment to us. But we did it because we think it's the right thing to do. I think I've always questioned, "Why can't you do something? If you want to do it, why can't you do it? I'm not hurting anybody. I'm not injuring anybody or killing anybody. Why can't I marry Beverly? What's the big deal?" So, in that respect it was important to us to be married. And again, we got married here in Delaware because we were told that anything we had somewhere else wouldn't matter in Delaware. You had to do it here. So, when that came, again, it was Liz and Trish, I have to blame my whole life on them. They told Beverly-- I was traveling a lot. After I retired from Moravian, I did a lot of consulting, and I was traveling a lot and Liz, I guess, told Bev a story about a couple who weren't married and one of them was in an accident or something and was in the hospital and the partner couldn't go see her because they weren't married, and the family stepped in. So, they said, "You two really need to get married," so I came home Thursday, and I was leaving on Monday, and Bev said to me, "We're getting married this weekend." "Oh, okay," I said. So, we go to the courthouse to get our papers on Friday, we go to the beach on Saturday, we get married, I leave again on Monday. So, it was no big deal. But we're married, we're legal, and we file our taxes together [laughs]. And she doesn't have to do anything, I do it all [laughs]. "Hey, I need that report, give it to me." "Okay." MF: It's great to live with someone who does math. SF: The accountant does it, I just sent it off. But anyway, those things are important only from a -- for me personally, it's again, about, "Why can't I do that if I want to do that?" It goes back to that little girl who wanted to play baseball, but I couldn't because I was a girl. "What do you mean I can't marry Beverly? I love her, she loves me. Why can't I marry her?" So, it's more about that. MF: We're kind of getting into your retirement, so maybe I'll ask one last question. Tell me about retirement down here in Rehoboth. What made you move down here? What is your life like? SF: Well, let's see. Bev and I, we both love the beach. And we both grew up going to the Jersey Shore, Long Beach Island. And so, in our first years together, we still were going to Long Beach Island because that's what we always did. And that got more busy and more crowded and more, there was nobody there like us. So, we're living in the Lehigh Valley, there's nobody there but us except when we have a party, and 50 million women show up at our house. And then, we'd go on vacation and again, there's nobody there like us. So, friends of ours -- actually, it was Ann again, I mentioned Ann and Sharon earlier. Ann had been coming down here. And she said, "Why don't you check out Rehoboth sometime?" So, we came down and did Bev tell you this story? All right, I'll tell it. I wasn't going to tell it, but I will. We came down here, we were staying at a bed-and-breakfast, a gay-owned, a lesbian-owned bed and breakfast, Wendy's. And Bev had gotten a really bad case of poison ivy and she was miserable. She was just miserable. She was scratching and itching and just moaning and groaning. So, she's in the room, drugged out and everything. Everybody else is out playing cards in the lobby area and having fun. I came back to the bedroom, and I said, "Don't you want to come out and have some fun? All you do is scratch and itch." Well, not smart. She got really mad at me. And so, she told me to get lost. So, that night, I guess about 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning she got up and she said, "I'm going to the hospital. I can't stand it any longer." I said, "Well, I'll take you." No, no, no, no, no, no, she was still mad at me. She said, "I'm going by myself." So, she did. She took herself over to Beebe, came back. I'm sitting out on the porch on a rocking chair with everybody, feeling absolutely horrible. And so, she comes back and goes back to her room, and I go back and I go, "Honey I am really, really sorry. I was so insensitive." I said, "What can I do to make this up to you?" And she said, "Buy me a beach house." And I said, "Okay." So, [laughs] that's how we got to Rehoboth. I'm not sure if it was that time or the next time we came down, we went and we looked at -- oh, I know. So, we asked the owner of the place where we were saying, we asked Wendy, "Wendy, where should we look? What are some nice condo things that we should be looking at?" And she gave us the name of two different sections that we should look at, so we did. We looked at these two different sections. First of all, I'm not wealthy, Bev's not wealthy. We don't have a lot of money. I don't know how we ever thought in this lifetime we were going to buy a little beach house. So, we figured we can start with a condo, we'll figure it out somehow. Anyway, we drove around these two areas, and we drove around this one area, I forgot the name of it, behind Big Fish. It'll come to me. Anyway. We're driving around. And there were two women out, and we said, "Could we see your place?" "Come on in," they showed us their place. And it was really nice. So, we kind of got a sense of the end units, they were up and down, and they were roomy and nice, and we liked that. So, we got a realtor, and we said, "We're interested in getting one of those end units, sometime." "Oh, they never go on the market. There's only six of them in this whole place. They never go on the market." Okay. So, that was the summer. I think it was September, because school was just starting, and we get a call from the realtor, "One of these units is coming up." I took off from school, we went down, we bought it. And I don't know how we ever bought it. I don't know how we ever got a mortgage, but we did. And that was the beginning. And then, we had it for, I think, nine years, eight or nine years, and we would rent it because we really couldn't afford it. And so, most of the summer we rented it. And I rented it just through Moravian. I would put out an email and friends at Moravian would be renting it for a week here and a week there, and then we'd come down off season and stay weekends and stuff and get used to the area. And every time we would come down here for a weekend, Bev would be looking in the paper at the real estate. And I'd say, "Honey, stop looking in the paper. We can't afford anything else. We have a house, we have this. Come on." And she kept looking, she kept looking. And so, I don't know, a bunch of years into this now, and she's really looking seriously now. And I said, "You know, we can't buy something unless we sell this condo." And she said, "Okay." And now, she's getting really serious because this is like our ninth year, our eighth or ninth year. Now, we're looking at houses. And we had a realtor, she took us to a couple of places, we didn't like anything. Houses, not in development, just houses. We didn't like anything. And then, we saw one house that we kind of liked. And then, I picked up blueprints, and I saw a blueprint of a bathroom that I liked. I said, "I want to see a house that has this bathroom in it." She said, "I'll have to take you out to Independence," which is here, where we are. And we came out here, and we liked it. We liked it here. The clubhouse had an indoor swimming pool. We liked all that. "Okay, we like it here." Now, at this point, we had this realtor, who also had our condo, and that was up for sale now. And we said to her, "We can't do anything until that condo sells." We came out from looking at this place, the realtor got a message, "Your condo just sold." So, we made enough profit in nine years on that condo to begin this house. And that's how we did it. And we came here because of the women's community. Everywhere we went in Rehoboth, there were women like us. Everywhere. And we just don't have that and didn't have that in the Lehigh Valley. So, we knew we both loved the beach, but it was the women that brought us here. The women really did it. So, that the song that says, "There's something about the women," there's something about the women. Because yeah, that's what brings you here. The community of women is phenomenal. We have met, I can't tell you, how many wonderful women here. Everybody retires here, pretty much for the same thing. They want to be with the women. And if you have a problem there will be women lined up at the door to help you. Some of our friends are single and if they have like surgery or something, there's just, right away, a chart is formed and meals are coming every day, you've got a job to do, you're doing the laundry, you're taking the dog out, you're doing whatever. It's just, that's how it is. It's a huge women's support group here. And at our age, that was perfect. So, Bev was turning 70, I was still working at Moravian full-time, and she said to me, "I'm going to be 70. I'm leaving. I'm moving to the beach." Because our house was done by then and we weren't living in it, but it was here. And so, she said, "Are you going to retire and come with me?" I said, "Well, I guess I have to." So, I did. I didn't want to retire. I loved my job. But I did because I loved Beverly more. So, we came. But then I started to consult, and so, I was still busy. And I was out there all the time until COVID hit, and then I was home. So, COVID really made me retire. So, a year after COVID, my company asked me to come back and I said, "No," because I'd been home, now, for a year. I was used to it. So, that's kind of that. It's a great place to be. MF: Thank you so much. We're right at the at the end of the interview but before we conclude, is there anything that you thought, "Oh, I kind of wanted to talk about that today," and we missed it? Is there anything you want to add at the end? SF: You know, I don't think so. I think, no, I'm okay. I don't like talking about me so much. [laughs]. MF: Well, I appreciate the fact that you did talk about you. Thank you so much. SF: I'm sure Bev's going to say, "Well, did you tell them this? Did you tell them that? Did you tell them this?" MF: Well, you know, hey, we can always come back out again. We don't mind coming down to the beach. SF: You are always welcome at our beach. Always welcome. MF: Well, thank you so much. SF: You're welcome. Thanks for having us. END OF AUDIO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=