Oral History with Ann Kilkelly, October 29, 2014 (Ms2015-007)

Interview with Ann Kilkelly

Date of Interview: October 29, 2014

Interviewer: Amanda Lilly

Place of Interview: Henderson Hall

Length: 01:05:40

Transcriber: Bryanna Tramontana

Amanda Lilly: Okay this is Amanda Lilly with Dr. Ann Kilkelly on October the

29th 2014. We are in her office in Henderson Hall and it's about two in the

afternoon-- a little bit after two. So thank you for doing this [laughter] once

again. I guess I will start out with the first question, which is: can you tell

us your name, date and place of birth and about your family and how you were raised?

Ann Killkelly: Okay well that could take us all day [laughter]. Ann Kilkelly,

middle name Maureen. I grew up in a little town on the St. Croix river in

Minnesota, Bayport Minnesota, on a very beautiful wild river. My parents were

(what I would 00:01:00call) working class in some ways, but slightly upwardly mobile. My

mother, her father, my grandfather, was a wild boxer and sort of a really crazy

plumber and swimmer and lots of physical stuff, and my mother was a lot like

that and she was also very independent minded and rebellious and known around

town as somebody you didn't want to mess with on political issues or--I would

say she's an activist, but we wouldn't really have used that term. But she was

very very profoundly interested in civil rights, well I wouldn't call her a

feminist either; she did take matters into her own hands. I wrote a story about

her called 'Revolution,' about when 00:02:00she and her friend Elvira took apart a stove

piece by piece and hauled it to the junk yard because it wasn't working properly

and she was fed up. Never told my dad. And we were not very wealthy people at

all, and he [Kilkelly's father] was very habituated to his perfect time

schedule, having lunch at a certain time. So they took a sledgehammer and a

pickaxe and demolished the stove, got a friend with a car, hauled it to the junk

yard and then brought cold cuts home, which was huge. That's why I called it a

revolution because that was like--anyway that's my mother [laughter].

My dad would have called himself 'lace curtain Irish' and I'm like second

generation, we're not sure, or third generation Irish. Not having much money,

the 00:03:00family was an old family and so there was a lot of sense of we're genteel

people even though we're not wealthy. So I grew up with that on that side with a

lot of sense of propriety about what it meant to be a woman, and much more

scrupulous Catholicism. My mother was kind of a wild card, a convert who

converted to Catholicism because she wanted to have a crucifix [laughter] and

not for any reasons of faith, but for the fact that she had seen in the movies

that it kept away vampires. So that's that, so what else--let's see what else.

I went to school there, but I was quickly transferred to other schools that were

bigger, in a larger city and eventually college. My education was very tended by 00:04:00my sister who was much older than I, eighteen years older, and at that time was

a school teacher. And she taught me to read when I was really young, like three,

and I went subsequently to school early, and then I went to high school early

and then I went to college early, and so forth. So that was a huge priority in

my family was education, and I was the first one to get a Ph.D., I think, in the

family. Unfortunately, neither my mother nor my father were alive when I

finished all that, but I think it's owing to them that I probably did, more to

my mother. So that's--what else did you ask me with that question?

LILLY: How you were raised.

KILLKELLY: I was raised to be pretty independent because my older siblings left

home, and I was the forth, and they were by that time really enjoying having

their own 00:05:00lives and having friends and playing cards--they were very social

people. I guess I was raised with a pretty ferocious sense of justice about

people that were poor, especially in people that were unlike other people. The

race thing was kind of a deal in our town cause it was mostly Scandinavians and

the few Irish families were looked on pretty much as suspiciously colored

people. You know, the Irish were categoried as colored people at one point in

history-- but it wasn't like that, but it was a fierce consciousness of our

working class origins, of our need to assert our rights in a way that was

somewhat compatible with 1950s 00:06:00thinking [laughter]. My mom did not make a very

'Leave it to Beaver' housewife image, very athletic, very wonderful dancer,

brainy, read tons of books--tons. Neither one of my parents had a college

education, but my mother read five, ten books a week. So I was raised to read, I

was raised to be good at math, I was raised to dance and sing, even though I

never got to play an instrument, because all of that disappeared as time went

on. So, I was raised by a Minnesota democratic liberal-- Democratic Farmer

Liberal party in Minnesota, which was really a unionized-- a pro union thing.

It's quite characteristic of the upper Mid-West, especially Minnesota, so

politically, all was very 00:07:00 liberal.

What else can I say? I was editor of the school paper. I was Minnesota 1962

State Champion in Water Ballet. I learned to cook very early and did, and I went

to the University of Minnesota for my B.A., majored in English, but did a whole

lot of dance and a whole lot of theater as well. And I graduated Magna Cum

Laude, or one of those three, I think it's a Magna, and got married right away

to a--I was a Vietnam protestor, I was also very much involved in the Catholic

church's anti-war stuff that happened and I graduated in 1969. So that was the

major, major time of the political conventions and you 00:08:00know student protests

stuff and I was very--on one hand I was really very naïve and really younger

than most people and fairly innocent of many things, yet I had a certain kind of

radical politics. My brother Dan, who also died when I was quite young, was a

history, not professor, but he studied history at college and when I was in high

school he--you don't mind a little story do you?

LILLY: No, go right ahead.

KILLKELLY: When I was in high school, maybe even junior high, he came home one

day as he often did and said "I wanna take you to something." And I would go

anywhere that he wanted to go and it was usually the zoo or something really

cool. However, this time he brought me over to the University of Minnesota,

Northup Auditorium. Huge, huge, like 00:09:00Burruss, and I think sat like four thousand

people. The speaker was George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, famous racist

politician, legacy of unbelievable stuff in the South. So George Wallace was

speaking and he told me nothing, I knew nothing about George Wallace at the time

and he told me, he said "I just think this is something you really need to

hear." So we went over to Northup Auditorium and there were protestors

everywhere, students with these black arm bands and signs about racism and all

kinds of stuff. And then we went in and he [Wallace] made this highly rhetorical

southern lecture, which I thought was so elegant in my naiveté. So when we went

out he [Dan] said "well what did you think?" and I 00:10:00said, "Oh I thought it was

really interesting and I don't quite understand it, but I thought he really

spoke beautifully and there is some sense in this alabaster cities he was

talking about" and he just looked at me and he said "don't you ever forget what

I'm gonna say now. He is talking about white people and black people and he is

responsible for the suppression of black people and you see all those people who

are protesting? That's why they're protesting." So he said like "you better get

smart."-literally- and he started giving me books so I had that, and my

upbringing was like having six parents and then having them all go away. So from

baby, sort of pampered baby to very isolated and on my own. So it was both things.

LILLY: So were you the youngest?

KILLKELLY: I was youngest by- my closest sibling, my brother Dan, the one that I

was talking about, was twelve years older than 00:11:00I am, and then one sister

fifteen, one brother eighteen.

LILLY: Wow.

KILLKELLY: And I was like their responsibility. My parents were very loving, but

they were a little bit handsoff with me, which I think was probably a really

good thing. Stuff I wouldn't let my kids do [laughter] or kid. It was a little

town, everybody watched out for other people.

LILLY: That's good. And you said you went to the University of Minnesota for

your Bachelors and the University of Utah for your Graduate?

KILLKELLY: Yes. Very good [laughter]. Good memory. Yes I did go. Once I

graduated and I got married right after that--by the way to somebody I didn't

even like. Part of it was my father was quite sick, he had had a major stroke

and he subsequently died like right after my wedding and by that time I knew I

was making a horrible 00:12:00mistake. I was also really young, I graduated at I don't

know, I was nineteen or twenty.

LILLY: Oh wow.

KILLKELLY: My family was really concerned given how sick my dad was, that I

would be taken care of, and so they really pushed me. I don't blame them at all,

but they really thought the answer was for me to go ahead and get married and

what not. So I did that. And then I spent a year in Graduate School at the

University of Utah studying English, but also dancing and doing Theater

History--I always did that combination. After the first year, my husband was

transferred, assigned, to Torrejon Spain.

Here's another story for you, you'll like this one. So this is 1969, so he's

been 00:13:00doing--he has a background in meteorology, studying meteorology [sic

metallurgy?], very talented and was on his way to Graduate School in that and

got hired by Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, three M, which was a young

company then and they were looking for young smart kids to make copper coins; to

bid for that so he worked on that bid. And they didn't get the bid and he

subsequently changed to psychology and prepared to be a graduate student when he

found out from his mother--who knew somebody on the local draft board--that he

better be careful because Vietnam was happening. So we debated, would we go to

Canada? Would he go to prison? Or go to war? I was much more ferocious about

that than he was, but he 00:14:00was also pretty anti-war. So in the middle of this an

Air force recruiter sort of got him convinced that he could be a psychologist in

the Air force, which was complete B.S. I mean, they'd tell any lie to get people

to enlist, but he enlisted as an officer so he didn't see combat in Vietnam, so

that was the one thing that was okay about that arrangement, and then we were

spent to Spain. Meanwhile, when he filled out his application form he cited his

work experience and abbreviated Metallurgy to MET. And the Air Force made him a

weather man. Meteorology, Metallurgy. He knew nothing about weather, and he had

to get a masters degree, without any preparation for that at all, in 00:15:00six months.

Because it was like the novel Catch 22-- sorry man you're in the Army, or Air

force. So it was an amazingly difficult thing and then he was an officer and he

was assigned first to go to Spain, Torrejon Spain, and predict the weather.

Which he never was very good at, he mostly called me and said, "which way is the

wind blowing?" [laughter] Anyway, the story of my marriage goes on and on, but

we went back to Utah after that year. I finished a masters and started a Ph.D

then. But we'd been in Europe, well Spain then Germany, we'd been in Europe for

four years I guess. I taught for the Air force, taught high school equivalency

English and then I was an agent for a Danish furniture company and traveled all

over and sold furniture.

LILLY: Oh 00:16:00wow [laughter].

KILLKELLY: I had to do something, then I had Dan, he was my son who was little.

So that takes me up to return to the United States, husband can't get back into

Graduate School, I get into Graduate School at the University of Utah again and

graduate later. And when I graduated, I split up with my husband. And then

there's years after that, but you should direct me to another question.

LILLY: I guess one of the things I would ask is how do you identify yourself now?

KILLKELLY: Sexual orientation? That's complicated because I was a very confirmed

heterosexual for most of my life, as was the expectation. That I never

questioned it and I was very pretty when I was young and I didn't have a very

good self-image, but 00:17:00I acted out the highly feminine role, I think, and that

began to degrade because the women's movement was growing and I was much more,

much more aware of feminist stuff. I found that in Germany, when I had a lot of

time to read and raise a child, I read Adrienne Rich and I read all the early

feminists so my sense of the breadth of what sexuality meant opened up in a big

way for me then. I always thought of myself as someone who was open to most

possibilities in that range, in that spectrum, but still not outside of the 00:18:00heterosexual boundary. But seeing other things and understanding sexuality in a

different way.

I actually only started to identify as a lesbian when I met Carol, coming here

and that was in 1991, but I had been the director of a Women's Studies program,

before that I had been teaching Women's Studies. I've been around women and I

knew at that point then that it was a matter of what happened next for me and I

was more and more bonded to women as friends. So, even though I understand the

argument, I am not a person that would say I was born one way or the other-- I

know that I was not. And I really happily went into a relationship with another

woman and we happily, but with difficulty 00:19:00came out very clearly, and openly and

have not really looked back on that. She was someone who was bisexual, but at

that time was married and she was an elder in the Presbyterian Church. It was a

big deal, I was one administrator and she was an Associate Provost and it

created quite a little stir among those people who cared. So identification

is--I identify with the LGBTQ category, if I had to pick one I'd probably say Q.

But I have theoretical issues with all kinds of things, which I'm sure you're

aware of, but that's theory, that's different from the way you live your life.

So I live my life with one partner, a woman, and 00:20:00our children are both grown up

and they're both healthy.

And Women's Studies had a whole lot to do with my understanding of all that, of

really watching the dynamics of what played out, especially with the few people

I actually knew that were out at Virginia Tech. When I came, I was bringing a

male partner that I had been with for a number of years, but the university

failed to actually support-- this is a fierce irony. I had asked for him to be

brought here on a partner hire, and there were several people including the then

Provost, that were really supporting me in that, but by a series of what you

would find extremely bizarre incidents-- 00:21:00some man that is still around was a

friend of somebody on the Board of Visitors who had the ear of the then

President James McComas. And the Board of Visitors wrote a letter and said, "you

cannot hire the partner, that it is Virginia Tech's policy." Apparently they had

just made the policy really clearly, just then, on that we do not hire the

partners of unmarried couples. So that gives you a measure of how things have

changed, so they wouldn't give him the job even though everyone had vetted him

and approved it. The Board of Visitors would not. As it turned out, it was for

me the better thing that happened because I met Carol and etc. 00:22:00So I hope that

gives you a picture--I think it's complicated. I try to say to my students that

I think the question of sexuality is too complicated for anybody to say

absolutely on a spectrum what they are, you know--

LILLY: I agree.

KILLKELLY: This is my feeling and I think that the political piece of it about

marriage and all of that is important for a certain kind of legitimation, but I

have critiqued the hold of Christianity over marriage and you know what I'm

talking about, I'm sure. I can't do it, because I think the institution is the

problem, but certainly people who want to be in that system should be able to

be. So you know, it's that shifting your politics around to be intersectional

and to balance a lot of 00:23:00different balls. You know I did teach in, or I said I

was the head of Women's Studies for seven years and was in that department for a

long time. So I've made it my business really to include that in my teaching and

as my own understanding shifted over the years of those issues and what part of

me was relevant. So before I came here and when my son was small, it was very

much about motherhood. I thought about motherhood and I was very influenced by

Adrienne Rich and Motherhood as Institution. Do you know that book at all?

LILLY: I haven't read it.

KILLKELLY: She's a poet, a lesbian poet, she's so important. And she wrote this

book of essays called On Lies, Secrets and Silences and she talked a lot 00:24:00 about

the institution of marriage and it's oppressive structure for women. But she did

it autobiographically with really talking about having a different structure of

raising her sons, she had three boys by herself and this was like--it completely

opened my eyes. So anyway, I like to think of it as complex rather than having a

clear answer.

LILLY: I understand, I completely--

KILLKELLY: I doubt I'll ever have another partner, but I don't know what's going

to happen in the next-- the few years, the twenty years or so I'll be here [laughter].

LILLY: [Laughter]. I completely agree because I identify as bisexual so I

understand how--and sometimes I think that the labeling is not always good.

KILLKELLY: I think it comes back to hit you in the face.

LILLY: Yeah.

KILLKELLY: You can argue that people can't help 00:25:00it, that they have no control

over it. You're taking a certain kind of agency away from them in a big way, I

think. I know a lot of gay people who would disagree with me radically because

that sense that I am who I am--

LILLY: Of identity--

KILLKELLY: Of identity, but I don't know I'm more of a post-modernist or

materialist feminist, I don't see it that way. I see it as very contingent.

LILLY: So you started at Tech in '92.

KILLKELLY: Yeah '91, '92.

LILLY: '92, and that's when you met your current partner. Did you have--correct

me if I'm wrong, when you married when you were young, did you have a child with

your husband?

KILLKELLY: Mhmm, yes I did.

LILLY: So you have a total of three children?

KILLKELLY: No I only have one [laughter].

LILLY: Oh okay, I thought--

KILLKELLY: Well no I have two because of my partner's daughter I would count in that.

LILLY: Oh okay, I was 00:26:00thinking that--

KILLKELLY: I know I loop around; I have no sense of the chronological, that's a

lousy historian.

LILLY: So when you came here and you met her you said that you and her came out

together as a couple. What was that like? Did your colleagues, did they treat

you differently, did the university treat you differently, or her?

KILLKELLY: It depends on how you look at it. I mean, but for the most part, our

closest colleagues were very helpful and both of us were tenured professors,

both of us had reputations in the university for doing some good stuff and so I

would say we were both pretty respected. But as the director of Women's Studies,

I was already the enemy in some places and that was said very clearly. 00:27:00 People

made sure I knew that someone had said that about me [laughter]. So it wasn't

that big a leap because people probably assumed that I was a lesbian anyway, but

they didn't because they remembered this deal with my partner, it was really a

mess. But I don't know--where was I going with that? Give me your question again?

LILLY: It was how were y'all treated differently by people in the community,

your colleagues and the university in general?

KILLKELLY: Well yeah on some level I think what happens to a lot of gay and

lesbian, LGBTQ people, what happens to a lot of them is failure to thrive. I

think it's not--I know there's a ton of overt hostility and discrimination, but

I think in the university system, the most powerful thing is silence. Is having 00:28:00not supportive community, is having people not acknowledge. And that, I think,

in terms of your progress through the system, I think has a subtle, but strong,

impact on people. I know that, it's odd that when you do that you don't know who

knows and who doesn't for one thing, and also other people don't necessarily

know in the institution, so you don't know what people know or what they're

saying. I always had the sense that-- even though I always faired very well in

the university- I was promoted and all that-- I always had the sense that there

was this opposition out there that I lived with. And I think Carol felt that

too, only Johanna, her daughter, 00:29:00was just like ten when this happened. But I

will say that turned out well also, but it was very very hard, this being a

close knit community. But what we did was we set ourselves up deliberately to go

to people before some rumor mill got to people, we went and said, to our deans,

to the provost, that we're with each other and it's very important that we have

your support, it's very important that you understand that the way people treat

us might not be the same. We did that with a lot of people that were in

supervisory positions to us and also people in-- she was a member of the

Presbyterian Church, which she left because at that very time they had

determined that weren't going to ordain 00:30:00elders that were gay. So she, in protest

basically, left that and I think also happily, 'cause that went with the whole

picture. With the family and the religious credibility and all that. So yes I

think people talk, but I wouldn't say--I mean I think on the other end of that

the bonds you make with people in those circumstances make you a much richer

person. I think I had the intellectual understanding to, both of us did, to know

what the underlying issues were, the assumptions and stuff. Because people

generally find me approachable people would come and ask me questions and the

kind of questions they asked were the ones 00:31:00that, "what is this really about? Do

you hate men? Do you not like men?" You know that sort of thing. People will say

really stupid stuff, and you know it happens all the time. So yes definitely.

And our families.

But at Tech, I think at that point, which would have been '93, '94, really was

changing in terms of the visibility of LGBTQ people. Not a lot, but you could

see it, you could perceive it the university was changing and Virginia was so

repressive in those days. It's a miracle we can even marry in Virginia even if I

don't want to. It was in the air, the issues were. There 00:32:00certainly weren't

classes, there wasn't a caucus. I think there was a women's network that I

belonged to and there was a group of gay women, or lesbian women that were a

community, but we didn't feel like we belonged exactly to that community partly

because of our position in the university. But partly because of the way we

identified, which was much more open I think. Nonetheless, it was a huge change

in our lives to be together, but we were very lucky. We were smart about the way

we did it and our children were fantastic. Because we raised them to be that way

partly, but also because they had support from other parents. So yes, but 00:33:00 also

have good fortune on the other side of that too, I think we're a lot of people's

favorite lesbians [laughter], cause we're nice. And people always think I'm

straight because of my curly hair [laughter], anyway.

LILLY: You said this was around '93, '94. Is this before the Safe Zone started happening?

KILLKELLY: Well before it, but things like that were starting to come up and the

big issues for me then were racial, racial stuff of all kinds with football

players being--or with the football program being sort of attacked for very good

reason, but also in a racist way 00:34:00over a very serious rape incident that

happened. It became a very famous case--Christy Bronkowski [sic Brzonkala].

LILLY: I think I remember that.

KILLKELLY: Probably, you might. So we were talking openly in Women's Studies,

that we knew the critique that black women had made of white feminists and a lot

of people had started writing about these issues. So the issue was more out,

much more out, people were starting to talk about marriage, were starting to

talk about rights. Not that they had them, but that the questions were in the

air. Not too long--when did Shelli [Fowler] and Karen [DePauw] come here? Do you

remember the date?

LILLY: I think it was 2002-2003.

KILLKELLY: Yeah, by that time there was sort of a critical mass, I think, of

people 00:35:00who went to bat for them. It wasn't just sexuality, but it was this

outrage that they would do this in a closed rather than an open--I forget the

name of the committee, it's an executive committee of the Board of Visitors and

they made the decision closed session, which is not legal. Those sessions are

supposed to be public.

LILLY: Actually we can probably go into that if you want.

KILLKELLY: Sure, might as well.

LILLY: So what exactly happened with Shelli Fowler and Karen DePauw?

KILLKELLY: You don't even want me to try to answer that do you [laughter]? I

mean you know some of the facts right?

LILLY: I know that there was a spousal problem with hiring Shelli 00:36:00because she

was--Karen was hired right?

KILLKELLY: As a Dean, right.

LILLY: It was a problem with hiring Shelli because they were together, so that's

what I've got in a nutshell.

KILLKELLY: Yes. So they could tell you specifically to be accurate, but I will

tell you what I know abou that in a nutshell if possible. It would have to be a

big nut. When they came, after Karen was hired, there was a period of time where

the English Department was vetting Shelli and had agreed to bring her in with

tenure, wanted to hire her and were excited about it, was all set to go. The

last stage of all this was like in June of the year they came. Where the Board

of Visitors, the same Board of Visitors made that 00:37:00decision that they would not

hire Shelli and it just blew up. For some reason, they decided to stay and

fight. If you know Shelli, then you know she's a real activist. Do you guys know her?

LILLY: No, I don't know her.

KILLKELLY: If you get a chance, take a class from her because she is really

special, so is Karen I think. This is when the protest, when Carol and I

organized the protest, and she collected a lot of letters and then we did this

Take Back the University March with duct tape on our mouths and academic regalia

and what not.

LILLY: Wow.

KILLKELLY: There were only about thirty five of us, there weren't many, but we

walked in our regalia over and we stood in front of Burruss Hall and various

things. It got some play in the 00:38:00newspapers, although they all said "it's too bad

hardly anybody came" [laughter]. But then a lot of stuff happened because of all

the letters. The shocking thing that happened in June happened when they were

moving here and but they still had the option of not coming and they decided to

be here. So that went on in various political issues that sort of involved them.

I can't remember how to reconstruct it, but it was about taking on the Board of

Visitors. Which was directed by a guy named Rochovich [sp], who's notorious and

who did a lot of anti-affirmative action work, and specifically 00:39:00anti-gay work in

Virginia many years ago. He is a real deal, but he's gone from the Board now and

the Board has changed spectacularly; they approved putting the language in the

Principles of Community. I helped start that Principles of Community stuff and

we fought about that issue, we just fought to get to be included, for sexuality

to be one of the terms or whatever the term of the moment was and we could not

get it through the board. They also, for a short time, wanted to vet every

decision we made about every speaker in class. I got a call from a Congressman

because we were doing women's month and Barbara 00:40:00Ehrenreich, I think it was her,

came to do a lecture on the sexual politics of meat. The other speaker they

identified was one Thank God I'm a Lesbian Mother, which was presented by the

religious program and gender studies. And they threatened us, well they didn't

threaten us directly, but there were all these editorials saying if Tech turns

on the lights for these things we should not put one penny of the state's money

into any of this. Fortunately those things didn't happen, but we were still in

the culture wars.

LILLY: Yeah.

KILLKELLY: So what happened then was through various administrative maneuverings

Shelli was given a full-time job by the 00:41:00unit that she is still in, which has

changed names, and given the status of a tenured faculty rank and all that, and

she was also working with the English, but she did not get a tenure track job in

English, and that's what she was prepared to do with a African American

literature and critical pedagogy and all of that. I think both of them have been

incredible agents for change in the institution. They were very very brave. They

had hate mail, they had death threats. It was really ugly and they just walked

through it and it was an amazing thing to see.

LILLY: I think what shocked me about it was when it happened in 2002-2003

because I was thinking that's so 00:42:00into the twenty-first century that this is

happening. I wanted to ask, at that time, did Virginia Tech have anything or any

sort of language in their hiring that no discrimination against sexual

orientation or gender at the time?

KILLKELLY: People had tried to get it and were also trying to get partner

benefits and all that. The conversation came up--well the irony of the situation

I described, was that they shut down a hire of a heterosexual kind in my case

and that became the defacto reason or the explanation.

LILLY: Oh because you weren't married.

KILLKELLY: Yeah, right. So it had a pretty bad effect on that, which was the

irony of ironies. And then when the Principles of Community were developed there

were 00:43:00several different attempts to include that language and the first time the

Board had approved it is this year.

LILLY: Really.

KILLKELLY: About how many months ago? I don't know, three or four months. Isn't

that incredible?

LILLY: Yes that's very incredible.

KILLKELLY: As I think of social change like that and social justice as something

like steering a houseboat. You may make a tiny adjustment and after three hours

the back end swings a foot in that direction. It's like way behind the

consciousness of many people.

LILLY: So not really at Tech, but just in Blacksburg in general, since you've

moved 00:44:00here in the early '90s and to now. Has there been any communities or safe

spaces for the LGBTQ community in Blacksburg, that aren't necessary part of the

university, that you have been a part of, or that has been a safe space.

Especially in the early '90s, because now I'm pretty sure it's probably a lot

different now or maybe more.

KILLKELLY: I think it's fine. I never call anything a safe space, so I will try

to answer that in the spirit which most people take it. A PFLAG [Parents and

Friends of Lesbians and Gays] chapter started here and so initially when we had

the PFLAG chapter initiated it was mostly LGBTQ people that were attending the 00:45:00meetings, so telling our stories and doing things like that. Once it became an

actual PFLAG thing we backed away from it because we thought it was really,

really important for the parents and friends to have their own space, to be safe

talking about it with each other. I've done a lot of work on the academic level

I think. Not as much as I would like to I've never taught a class or course

studies, which I could do. Just partly circumstances.

I'm trying to think of other things. This was the university though, I was on

the commission for Equal Opportunity 00:46:00and Affirmative Action. I don't know if

they call it that still. It's a university committee it oversees a lot of

different initiatives, so these subjects came up pretty frequently and there

started to be a little opening for the discussion of the issues, but actually I

got off the committee because as far as I was concerned, it was going backwards

in terms of Women's Studies and wasn't doing anything like enough. I have

sometimes participated in caucus events, that has helped a lot. I do a lot of

work with Jean Elliott, not a lot, but I do stay close to her projects and help

her with her projects. Sometimes behind the scenes. Other organizations and

community groups I would 00:47:00say no. Partly because we don't, very comfortably, fit

into the women's community. Partly, it's an odd thing because we feel completely

supported politically and personally, but the lesbian culture in Blacksburg,

it's not that it didn't appeal to me, it isn't that I didn't love a lot of the

people, but we had these major full-time jobs. We were very visible within the

institution and that socializing wasn't something we do with anybody. As far as

attending events in the community, performances. At one point I wrote--I

interviewed a lot of people, faculty and staff and 00:48:00had planned to make a piece

called 'Power Outage' and never did that for various reasons, I was disgusted

and cynical probably [laughs] to do that, so I didn't put myself out in that

way. And other people have done a lot too, so for me I don't feel like I have to

kind of carry the burden of being a leader in relation to that issue that I used

to feel. [phone rings] That's Carol.

LILLY: So I guess now I'll ask you about the Shamrock Bar and performing there.

That's in Bluefield right?

KILLKELLY: Right and it's sort of--I can't even remember if it's Bluefield West

Virginia or Bluefield Virginia because the line goes right 00:49:00 through.

LILLY: Is it still there?

KILLKELLY: No, not as it was. I don't know what the state of it is right now

because the building next to it was collapsing. When it was there--when the

Shamrock was operating as a bar. Carol was getting her hair cut and her

haircutter, who is a dear friend, his partner grew up in Bluefield, and as a gay

teenager he found the Shamrock Bar, which was where gay people went then. And

for a time also the African American 00:50:00community had its own place in the same

building. Early before the Shamrock came about there was a largely African

American bar that gays went to also. So Carol got really interested in this

story of this woman Helen Compton [sp] who was about sixty-five, seventy then.

She died maybe five years after that. Grew up in coal fields of West Virginia

and had stories about the Klu Klux Klan burning crosses on people's yards when

they found out somebody was having an extramarital affair, but also one of her

stories says the way she found out about gay 00:51:00people was that she saw these two

guys kissing and told her dad and he said oh yep there will be a cross burned

sometime soon.

So she decided that she was going to make a bar and a place where people could

be and feel safe. She herself sat at the door with a gun in her lap and watched

the street to make sure--she was an amazing character, amazing. If you ever want

to see a video, Carol would probably show it to you. She made this video 'It's

Reigning Queens in Appalachia.' So what happened, as Miss Helen told it, was

that she was sitting around with a group of men, and she was a lesbian, although

not openly out even in that community. Even though everyone knew, she didn't

even tell 00:52:00her son, straight ahead. Anyway it's crazy, but Miss Helen determined

she was going to have a place, she was gonna open a place that she would say

'the gays' would be welcome. And so she started this bar that was sort of a

lunch room during the day and actually there were some female prostitutes that

worked there. Sometimes business men in the community would come there for lunch

and a little something else, so it was this odd local joint during the day, but

at six o'clock it would become a gay bar. Helen would say, well right about five

o'clock every night, she'd say, "I'd say 'well you know, in a little while it's

gonna get awful noisy in here, these young people, they just make so much noise

and I really think you 00:53:00should….'" Basically she made them leave, but with that

little trick. So they're sitting around there talking, she's talking with a

group of men, gay men, and they're saying, they're talking about how much they

love wearing their mother's clothes and Helen says "you wanna do that here?" and

they said "Lord yes Miss Helen, we'd like to do that!" That's an exact quote

from her [laughter]. So she said, "well you can do that here." So these guys

went out and started collecting--I mean apparently they'd come back from the

grocery store with cucumbers and cauliflower and just all kinds of vegetables

and they'd go to the thrift stores and had a very hard time finding shoes --it's

a whole 00:54:00story. So they started performing and having drag shows there very often.

In this process of getting to know our hair dresser and his partner and finding

out about Helen, Carol went and met Miss Helen and talked to her about it and

said what she wanted to do this project where she took photographs of the drag

queens and that she would interview her and interview the drag queens and she

subsequently did. So I went along, of course, to most of these things and helped

her with whatever was needed. The place was- it was really a dive; it had kind

of a nice bar, but they had made these homemade chandeliers out of aluminum

foil, all this fringe, but the place had the atmosphere of like a, when there

was a drag show, like a 00:55:00community basement or a church basement. It had a little

railing, and when people went up to stuff money into somebodies outfit in the

cleavage it was sort of like communion [laughter]. So we hungout with the drag

queens and she would take photographs in the dressing rooms while they were

getting dressed. I ended up being a judge for a Miss Gay Virginia, which was a

drag queen. And they tried to do a Mr. Shamrock and have the women do it, but

Helen couldn't get the women to dress up. So she liked us so much because we

played music, and she said "what I want for my birthday is for you to come up

here and perform and get the women to perform." So we rounded up the women that

we knew which we knew and liked very much, so many of them, and they complied,

and I did a 00:56:00Motown performance. I studied Motown with a major Motown

choreographer actually, part of it was that he was a tap dancer too, so I got

the original Temptations backup choreography for 'Ain't too Proud to Beg' and

taught it to them.

LILLY: Oh that's awesome.

KILLKELLY: We put on suit jackets and mustaches including Carol's daughter who

was like thirteen at the time [laughter] and we just had a blast, I mean it was

a lot of fun. Largely speaking, I would say, safer than a lot of spaces I have

been in. Not safe either because up in that neck of the woods there's a lot of

gun violence and stuff.

LILLY: Yeah, maybe just more comfortable than other places.

KILLKELLY: Yeah. It was interesting that way and it was very eye opening to

watch this whole costume construction 00:57:00process and the make-up. I don't know if

you saw the photograph of one of the drag queens with hair--what was his name

her name? Miss Nikki was what he/she went by and applying make-up but doesn't

have the wig on, doesn't have the jewelry, doesn't have the fingernails yet, so

it's this transitional moment that's just really interesting. So that's the

story, and this went on for quite a while. She made the video, the photographs

went to the Smithsonian Archives and people have studied them and we still--Miss

Helen died and when she died she had a surreal funeral, but Carol had gone to

see her a lot because they got pretty close 00:58:00as well as the men, and we don't see

them much anymore because there was another gay bar there that a lot of the

people went to. The man who owns it was an early attendee at the bars saw it in

a different location, but the place just deteriorated because the building next

door was already collapsing. You should see the picture of the front door, it's

just this really kind of wrecked section of town- it's on main street, right by

railroad tracks, totally visible, it just has this little tiny sign that says

'Shamrock' and there's a cardboard cutout of a Shamrock on the door and that's

it. The windows are not- you can't see in, although Miss Helen could see out.

LILLY: 00:59:00Now I think the closest bar, they do Gay Miss America there, is The Park

in Roanoke. I think that's the closest one to here or to this area.

KILLKELLY: There's one in Johnston City, there's the big one in Johnston City

because we went around a lot to gay bars, then to drag shows to sort of study

drag shows. And our curiosity about that continues, but we really don't go out

to any bars. We didn't before that and we don't now, we're not bar people

[laughter]. But it was quite a chapter and it was amazing learning and the

video's lovely. You may want to see it.

LILLY: Yeah, I'll make a note of that.

KILLKELLY: I mean maybe you're interested outside this project. It's an amazing

thing that she did. It's a little rough now, because she wasn't working

digitally entirely. 01:00:00Now of course she could correct all the sound problems and

stuff and have better equipment, but it's an amazing piece of work.

LILLY: So I guess to kind of wrap up, is there anything that you would want

people to know if they listen to this. Is there a message that you want to give

people in the LGBTQ community or just in general. Is there anything that you

think- any advice, any kind of message?

KILLKELLY: I'm not a believer in single messages but, [laughter] which will come

as no surprise, but one thing that I really believe is that education on these

issues is absolutely important because nobody gets 01:01:00the depth of the systemic

issues. I mean, the culture is so saturated with heteronormativity and even

people in the community need that recognition of what the systemic--I think that

for the sense of isolation and the kind of dangerous isolation that is true for

so many. One way to understand that, that I think is really important, is to go

find classes. We have one, but go find that class, but also, I think, women in

Gender Studies is absolutely, really critical for people to know that in the

world or a world that's larger than this little place, that there are all 01:02:00 kinds

of people that are talking really seriously, in very comic ways and in

performative ways and all that, that are talking about these things. That it's

not, they're really not by themselves, but it needs to be studied because if

it's not, then I think our assumptions we go to default a lot. We don't examine

some of that stuff. So that's not exactly advice, it's just a strong

recommendation that people find out historically what's been happening around

here, what's been happening in the rest of the world. So that they're equipped,

actually, to deal in a much more open way. Now, we're going to have these

conversations in a much more open way and it's not gonna go well a lot of the

time and the change is 01:03:00slow. So I think that information and study and finding

the people that really can help you with that aspect of it and art, I think art

is-- performance all that, I think that's key. Because it has a way of creating

a space where things can be said that can't always be said in a serious way, not

in a--I don't mean that in a serious way, I mean that just aren't said usually,

with a structure of metaphor things can be looked at in a deep way without

people feeling endangered or exposed too much, but they have the opportunity to

enter into a world that way. I don't know if you know Jeff Mann, I hope someone

is interviewing him.

LILLY: I have talked to him I know who he is, English right? Yes I've talked to him.

KILLKELLY: Yeah, he's wonderful and he has a lot to 01:04:00say on that subject. But I

think using the arts--I don't like the word using, but working in the arts as

way to really expand communities that understand and care about these issues and

plus it's very pleasurable you know, potentially. Even if it's about bad stuff,

even if it's people telling stories, horrible stories, it's still in the realm

of metaphor so that people can look at it with a different framework. To reframe

your experiences is absolutely important, to tell stories for example. Yeah

that's what I would say, tell stories.

LILLY: Tell stories.

KILLKELLY: Dance, tell stories. Most of us dance.

LILLY: Alright I guess we will stop there thank you so much 01:05:00for doing this.

KILLKELLY: No problem it was fun. And I am just so thrilled that it's happening.

It is very moving to me that someone like David is doing what needs to be done

in a very systematic and complex way, you know. So that we're not just saying

"oh what we need are a few more gay people here, some representative there," but

somebody who's paying attention to what people are experiencing. So I am so

grateful to him.

LILLY: yeah I'm glad he's doing it too.

KILLKELLY: You like that he's your teacher?

LILLY: Yeah [laughter]. I'm really glad I took this class.