Posted on Nov 11, 2023
'Old Lesbians' documentary highlights the importance of recording 'herstory'
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The new film shines light on the Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project, which has been preserving the legacy of women who love women for a quarter-century.
“Two, four, six, eight! How do you know your grandma’s straight?” These words rang through our nation’s capital on April 25, 1993, during the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi-Equal Rights and Liberation. Now, three decades later, if you pose this question to filmmaker Meghan McDonough, she’ll say, “You don’t necessarily!”
McDonough, 30, has spent the last year working on her documentary short “Old Lesbians,” which delves into the archives of the Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project (OLOHP) and honors the project’s late founder, Arden Eversmeyer, who died last November at 91.
“Two, four, six, eight! How do you know your grandma’s straight?” These words rang through our nation’s capital on April 25, 1993, during the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi-Equal Rights and Liberation. Now, three decades later, if you pose this question to filmmaker Meghan McDonough, she’ll say, “You don’t necessarily!”
McDonough, 30, has spent the last year working on her documentary short “Old Lesbians,” which delves into the archives of the Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project (OLOHP) and honors the project’s late founder, Arden Eversmeyer, who died last November at 91.
'Old Lesbians' documentary highlights the importance of recording 'herstory'
Posted from nbcnews.com
LGBTQ+
Movies
Legacy
Washington
Rights
Posted 6 mo ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."After losing her partner of 33 years in 1985, Eversmeyer, a self-proclaimed “old lesbian,” looked for support groups for lesbians her age but found none. Two years later, the Houston native, then 54, decided to fill the gap herself and created a community called Lesbians Over Age Fifty (LOAF).
LOAF’s mission statement described it as a “social networking and support group for women 50 years of age and older, and their partners, whatever their age.” About a decade after the group’s founding, when some members’ health began declining, Eversmeyer was compelled to preserve her friends’ life stories before they were lost forever.
When Eversmeyer recorded her first interview in 1998, the Old Lesbians Oral Herstory Project began in earnest. The group’s goal was simple: preserve the stories of lesbians over 70 in their own words. She didn’t realize interviewing a few of her close friends would lead to a decadeslong journey of traveling the country, training fellow interviewers (who also typically had to be 70 or older), and recording hundreds of women’s life stories.
The archive now includes more than 800 recorded interviews and is being preserved in the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, an all-women’s college in Massachusetts. The interviews were recorded on audio tapes and were then transcribed and put together with photos and other supporting documents.
McDonough first stumbled upon the project in early 2022 while searching for lesbian history archives online. In 2020, she visited the Lesbians Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, New York, and wanted to see if any other institutions or projects like it existed. Two years later, when McDonough was perusing the OLOHP website, she decided to schedule a Zoom call with Eversmeyer. The two then arranged for McDonough to interview the project’s founder in person a few months later at the Queer History South conference in Dallas.
OLOHP’s mission and Eversmeyer’s story inspired the filmmaker to make a documentary short. McDonough, a Brooklyn resident who has been out for about 10 years, said she has long felt that representation for queer people was lacking. As a young member of the LGBTQ community, she said she wanted her generation to know more about their predecessors — the good, the bad, and the flat-out tragic."...
..."After losing her partner of 33 years in 1985, Eversmeyer, a self-proclaimed “old lesbian,” looked for support groups for lesbians her age but found none. Two years later, the Houston native, then 54, decided to fill the gap herself and created a community called Lesbians Over Age Fifty (LOAF).
LOAF’s mission statement described it as a “social networking and support group for women 50 years of age and older, and their partners, whatever their age.” About a decade after the group’s founding, when some members’ health began declining, Eversmeyer was compelled to preserve her friends’ life stories before they were lost forever.
When Eversmeyer recorded her first interview in 1998, the Old Lesbians Oral Herstory Project began in earnest. The group’s goal was simple: preserve the stories of lesbians over 70 in their own words. She didn’t realize interviewing a few of her close friends would lead to a decadeslong journey of traveling the country, training fellow interviewers (who also typically had to be 70 or older), and recording hundreds of women’s life stories.
The archive now includes more than 800 recorded interviews and is being preserved in the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, an all-women’s college in Massachusetts. The interviews were recorded on audio tapes and were then transcribed and put together with photos and other supporting documents.
McDonough first stumbled upon the project in early 2022 while searching for lesbian history archives online. In 2020, she visited the Lesbians Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, New York, and wanted to see if any other institutions or projects like it existed. Two years later, when McDonough was perusing the OLOHP website, she decided to schedule a Zoom call with Eversmeyer. The two then arranged for McDonough to interview the project’s founder in person a few months later at the Queer History South conference in Dallas.
OLOHP’s mission and Eversmeyer’s story inspired the filmmaker to make a documentary short. McDonough, a Brooklyn resident who has been out for about 10 years, said she has long felt that representation for queer people was lacking. As a young member of the LGBTQ community, she said she wanted her generation to know more about their predecessors — the good, the bad, and the flat-out tragic."...
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