 name's Janie Stewart and this is my home in Ashland, Oregon. And like everybody, I'm old enough to have quite a long story. So I moved to Tekelma in 1970 to join my friends there. I was at that point a single mom. My kid was almost three and I was ready to see the world be really different than it had been. And that was, of course, the Vietnam War and a lot of disenchantment in every direction. So happened at that time that I had friends who had friends in the Bay Area who had moved to Magic Forest Farm. And I went to visit them and kind of fell in love and decided that I wanted to stay. And I was very clear that being a single mom in Marin County was a difficult life. Very just, I couldn't figure it all out. I couldn't figure out how to earn a living and raise my child and do do all the things. And it looked so good to live with other people who would help you. Some people that would help you take care of your kid and people that would, you could produce together. And I felt like I moved really far away from civilization and I felt like we were reinventing the world. And really, this place where we lived was only 20 minutes down to the town of Cave Junction. But at that time it seemed like it was hundreds of miles away. It seemed really remote. And I never left the farm for ages. I just stayed there and I was a worker bee. I always was busy doing this or that important thing. For people to live communally, you have to make some agreements. You have to have some shared goals. You have to have shared goals, shared values, shared respect for each other, different ways of being and doing and thinking. When we started out, how I got to the commune was not different than how many people did. So I had friends there and I went to visit and the founders of the farm were friends of mine when I was a high school girl. By the time I went there I was 25. So quite a bit of time had passed that we stayed friends but not in close contact. Then I had one of my very good friends at the time in the 1969-1970 was a woman from the Bay Area who helped me. She was just a good friend and really the person that showed me how to change a baby's diapers and how to know what to do when they cried and all checked the safety pins. So she was ready for a radical change in lifestyle and she moved to the farm. She went to meet the people at the farm and then eventually moved there herself. Then I went to visit her as well as these other people. I was just thinking. I wasn't planning to move. I was just thinking about how to have my life be different. That was a hard time being separated and having a child that cries and whatever. So this person I was so fond of and close to and one of the and we only agree we had lots of things we agreed about and we do today but we're very different kinds of people. When I came I was it was in my personality to kind of make friends with everybody. Everybody. I was not a threatening person and not I didn't overdo my opinions about things and I wasn't dogmatic and so I was invited to stay. It was a big deal to be invited to stay. As the years went and that was how the group formed was whoever was there loosely anyway whoever was there could invite new people to come. At the same time there were people marching through southern Oregon looking for land looking for who they could join and there was an assumption about in there was an assumption about Tekelma out in the alternative community that there was free land there and that wasn't really the case. What was really the case was the founders at Magic Forest Farm were an organized intentional community group in the Bay Area before they came to Tekelma and there were several other groups that had the same you know had they'd have meetings in Berkeley and organized and they really tried the earliest people the people that came there in 68 and 69 thought they were coming with very clear intentions about how they would live what they would share how they would build things how they would educate their kids very and then once they were there they you know reality came and people came and needed things and wanted things and so and different factions emerged among the group among the you know so if you were somebody that wanted to do a certain kind of work you were more likely to be able to stay and live there there were people there were some very creative artistic people who made the strong argument that it was just as valuable to paint a beautiful picture as it was to weed the onions so though there were huge amounts of political discussion or it not I don't mean big global I mean internal politics about how what you had to do to live there and who could live there and we eventually at some point we reached a mass that you there's no more room for any more people and at that point we decided that we could tell people that they couldn't live there and that was a huge huge to go from anybody who wants to be there could be there to whoever we were self-appointed we could say no you can't live there it was this complicated in the times because there were people who were saying no to somebody who really there was no difference in how they each arrived there it was just you know more of a pooling of being this kind of person or that kind of person and and so so who actually lived there evolved and it was a rough evolution for a few years but people's some very hurt feelings and some very angry people and people asked to leave and people vibed out and just it was not elegant and it was a learning process and over by the I'd say by the mid 70s it was the even by 72 73 it was very clear the direction we had become clear and evolved but those first few years were really poorly defined and and not handled very people's feelings weren't handled very well and the structure was just vague nothing was written down to say these are the rules it eventually did work I mean the the family is still connected absolutely that's right why was it so successful okay you don't want to sound like too groovy or anything I don't I'm not I don't think but I think that the people who remained connected and who are here to kill my east whatever that were a core of people who had really profound respect for each other and a lot of love of you know in a not hippie-dippy way just really appreciated qualities in each other I think there were plenty of conflicts and this person you know even as the years went by people it would change who was you know things worked and didn't work I think the fact of having children together was very much of a bonding experience I think we did some really hard things I think the hardest thing we did was we shared money and and that was for me that was really hard and so we had to at least we may not have loved it but we had to at least practice a level of trust that that certainly not the American way you know so that was hard some some of the stronger personalities had really superb highly values that you just had to really respect having Jim come and be you know help us form the medical community was huge you're very and he he's as you said he's a very not-assuming person but the fact of having that focus and feeling the how good we were doing in the world that really helped the co-op the school we had a school we had the labor co-op we had the clinic we had some community land we you know there were some and then all these various shared properties it held in different ways and we're so a lot of things to make us be integrated into each other's lives and I guess I have to say that was just like a real real respect for one another well so much traditional ritual wise things but we we kind of invented rituals as we went along and we didn't you know you could question was was dressing like a hippie was that a ritual you know and then some of the dresses some of the thing you know we're you know so we identified ourselves to the two outsiders by dressing similarly and sharing you know that kind of thing we didn't do thing we do like parties for certain events the solstice the early on we started doing a lot of people that with the Jewish background and we would do a Passover or this thing or that thing but not the some places had like actually even subgroups in the area had certain ritualized things we had things that I would say were tradition we developed lots of tradition and maybe depends how you define ritual we didn't have like we didn't have shamans and and drum you know things but music groups emerged drum groups emerged and I just was remembering in I think it would have been 72 in the early 70s when women's movement was taking off and we didn't come to the rules of the women's movement quite by reading the newspaper because we didn't read the newspaper but eventually we figured you know we clearly were learning how to be individual self-actualized whole people and the women learned how to do so it almost became some of the things that the women were going to do almost became ritualized and my friend and I used to come over here for a women's group because we felt like we needed that stimulation and it wasn't hadn't yet quite arrived there you know and by another year or so it it was there so we had so many things that were unspoken rules that might go to a little bit ritual like how we made the bread how we chopped the wood how we all that kind of the things that we needed to do certainly were ritualized but they weren't you know I don't know how they weren't church like or or that kind of thing but I I felt in myself and I felt among my friends that we were not we didn't want to have burdened some leadership or cultish rules or that kind of pretty individualistic and as some time went by I had to I could see I figured out that I wasn't really the best communal person and eventually moved from Majae Forest Farm to another less communal but also shared property across the valley there and kept my friends stayed connected and lived more individually and less communally in the process I learned a lot of things I learned carpentry skills I learned working skills are very active with green side up I think you have some of that footage they're very proud of being a part of the formation of an organization that allowed women to earn the same money as men and it was very controversial back in the day it wasn't wasn't really eagerly accepted and especially at first but it you know it took hold and so I planted a lot of trees and I did a lot of organizational work and that allowed me a set of new the organizational work allowed me to see a different set of skills that I could cultivate I didn't know I didn't think of myself as somebody that could do that kind of thing that well and became pretty effective and then well years went by and by the mid 80s 50 I guess 15 years went by I planted my first tree in 73 or 74 and I planted my last tree in 84 85 but forming a labor co-op was a very idealistic thing to do and I really grew in the process I really learned about my own competence more and then an opportunity came to earn money a different way I needed to do something different I was never a very strong tree planner anyway but determined and then I needed more money it was time for my kid to go to college it was time to just aging out of physical labor and an opportunity came to move over here to Ashland or to start working over here in Ashland and I we as I said we worked on houses and repaired them and prepared them to sell and make some money and it was a small group again some one of the people was one of the very same magic forest farm people and another neighbor and whatever so we got to continue in the tradition of everybody's work being valued the same way and or equally and did quite well with that did you know made enough money to have a life and for years I tried to live in two places and boy that was hard work all day and work all night and go home and work all day and all night some more and seeing that took kept us busy for a number of years and at that point I it became clear it was time to do the next thing do something a little different than painting and carpentry and whatever it wasn't gonna work for me indefinitely so it was time to go back to school and I had lived in San Francisco in the sixties and had three quarters of a degree completed you know are taking the coursework or and I didn't have a very clear plan of what I wanted to do but my intention was that I would find my I needed a degree to be able to work in social services and social services so you know I think I was raised to grow up and work in social services either that or teach and so when I went to explore what was possible and so you was very generous and very friendly and the person who the contact person I had helped me with looking at what I'd already done what I got my transcripts from the sixties came in tiny little print and and we figured out what we could do and a two first of all I got lots of credits for classwork that I'd taken like community college things along the way that I wasn't even gonna count I didn't even think they you know like art classes and stuff and then I got connected with the sociology department because they were the most of the ways that I had different credits and stuff that looked like the most accessible degree in the shortest amount of time I think I was more interested in having the degree than I was in content of my education I know I was so one of the wonderful things that happened was I was able to have quite a few credits for writing up something about life on how how a commune worked how our communes work how you know they for the sake of it being a an academic project I did some research about traditional communes and old you know if the old onitis and those kind and then the new new ones and but they were very generous with accepting my expertise that I had just acquired by being there and I don't remember anymore how many credits I got but I got a lot of credits for doing it I had to learn how to use a computer that was a really hard I was so hard things would happen I you know I'd write up something and then I would lose it I don't know where it went it's still out there somewhere but but so I inadvertently I learned how to do enough technical work to make it last I also had to wait meal up sometimes in the middle of the night to save my paper or find it because I couldn't find it anymore anyway I would I got I was very happy to do that and in the process I made friends with a number of people in the sociology department at that time and they'd all be gone now they're all because they're my age and there were four people there who had done they they were academics but they had done a similar kind of lifestyle experience up here in in off a dead Indian road somewhere and then out of it all one of the things that I did then for years was come back to some of the classes and talk to the class about how commune how they how they were formed how they grew what the some of the issues were what was the difference between cult communes and charismatic leader communes and and the our group was very we did not have leaders we didn't really welcome leaders somehow or everybody we didn't we didn't ever go that route of following somebody it was not a very good nobody was very interested in just following so made lots of interesting ideas and interesting conflicts and interesting discussions but it wasn't like the people whose children went off to wherever and that was just not even a possibility so so then for years I did I was able to make a contribution back to SLU by going in and talking to classes and stuff and it was very flattering you know I appreciated getting to do that and the degree that I got just having the goal of having a degree was what I needed to get to work into social services in this community and at that time so that was I think I got I think I finished school in 989 maybe or 90 and almost didn't matter what degree I had I was then able to find find work in social services I just needed to you know to do all the pass audits and whatever you just needed to have something so my first job was at Dunhouse my first job being and having the great education that I had and I was a volunteer coordinator I think it's an incredibly valuable social service and to the women who are survivors of violence having a place to go is just huge having a place to feel safe and it seemed like we were always full there were always lots of people there and in my naivety I didn't I I tended to really I started out really believing everything I did there were some funny stories where people just made up situations they were escaping from that they weren't really they just were taking advantage of the services so I didn't come into social services understanding the extent that people learn how to work the system but having there were times that I felt like we did really save somebody's life I have I've had a pretty privileged life so it wasn't in my own experience and I think there was some value I could be outraged on behalf somebody's behalf or be sympathetic on somebody's behalf or look at their situation I wasn't too close to it I had so some people that work in especially in the field of domestic violence are so triggered by reliving their own experiences and by my good fortune that wasn't my case at all so I could do I felt like I could do really good work with people you know I met doctors wives I met policemen's wives I met lots of people that were on the lower echelons of society that were struggling couldn't leave because they couldn't you know we're going to be able to buy milk for their kids whatever so I really really learned a lot about how pervasive the the issues were and I think I did pretty well with helping people make logical you know try to with my nature to try to figure out a solution to a problem not everybody wants you to do that and you know the longer I work in social services the better I understood that but in the in the early times we did meet somebody at Safeway and take them you know bring them to the house and make them swear to not telling their husbands and had a little cloak and dagger aspect I think it did really help people to feel I think probably the most helpful thing was the validating you know in in the big picture people just needed some encouragement they needed validation they needed practical ideas like how to get money how to get food stamps how to close their clothes their children that kind of thing so so on the physical aspect of providing shelter is obviously a huge issue today still for so many people and then adding in services and compassion I think I think it was a really important function um boy did I learn about how organizations work in that in that experience I was really naive because the organizations I'd worked with before were self-selected and this was I assumed a certain amount of autonomy and privilege of being able to decide what I wanted to do and how I would do it and all the and those maybe weren't the most useful they weren't really the skills that that group at that time was looking for so much and one of the things that was really an experience but one of the things that happened was the organization at that point in time had some um very generous funding from a family who owned a there's a beautiful house just down the road and the terms of the funding somehow the owner let the agency have it for I don't know a dollar a year some token amount but the man retained some kind of a voice on the board and a voice on the in the operations and was very concerned that Dunhouse not in any way appear to be a radical organization and at that time at that time there was a national domestic violence coalition that was a very significant organization it was you know shaping laws and and making the issues be very well understood by the public and there was a conflict about um whether we could or could not belong to that organization and most of the staff wanted and felt like of course we should that's the way to be informed it's a way to know what's happening around the country way to have access to legal information you know and I was I just talked the way I talk but I was very clear that I thought that was a terrible idea to not be a member and um somehow that got me that opinion got me identified with being a problem in the organization and uh and this guy had a lot of power he had a lot of money and people up the ladder in the organization really wanted access to the funds that he could provide so he got to run the show and they imported they brought in you know they brought in somebody who um um we were all pretty naive about HR laws and that kind of thing um but he they brought in somebody from California who understood the system you have a corrective action plan the person doesn't follow or whatever and in a matter of very short matter of time me and several other people were fired so that they could change over the situation to be more pleasing to the people that had potential money and it was a shattering experience for me and for several of the other people and it was the kind of thing that if you're an innocent coming from the country and moving to the big city and wanting to help people and I mean I had nothing but good intentions and uh I was just stunned I just didn't even know how I was going to get back on the horse and then you know things changed and I was able to move into another social service job that I I worked with adolescent girls for 20 years and uh ran a program and did you know it was all that was ancient history but it was a very traumatic experience to come out of um the innocence of just wanting to be a helper in the world to learning about how what underlying motives drive organizations and at that point one of the people from the the college did some some documenting of the story the details of the story with another woman and me so that and her goal was to educate people about how organizations work and uh I I don't know what became of that footage but it was a you know it was a project she was going to work on and she was uh she was a uh terrific person and I had to take a statistics class from her you know the previous year or two and I really was not a good student and she I was so it was just torture for me and she was so she said come on just you know you can do it just do it you know and what and encouraged me and somehow I made it through that class and then out you know with attribution theory you don't like somebody that is making you do something you don't want to do so then I got over it and did that and I really liked her after after I didn't have to do statistics anymore do you want her name here sure Cecile Burrill you've heard of her yeah well she's a storehouse and I would love to know if she's still around I haven't seen her so her her people so the people if you want names then the people who helped me her Ian Couchman and my favorite person was Johnson who's just a wonderful guy and I know I see him once I haven't seen him recently but he's around still but we've all got to be I'm 75 so you know they're not working but so those guys were all very receptive to growing me up without turning me into an academic or they might have wanted to but okay so where can I so from there I went to work at another organization and that was called Lydia Springs Girls Program and that grew then the years went by and ironically enough Dunhouse and the Lydia Springs programs merged and but by then things had changed was not an issue and I did I only needed to have a degree I didn't have a degree in adolescent psychology and you know I was like a personality fit I was able to feel really good about that job and really grew and was very comfortable and because it was so close I didn't I might have done better financially to have tried to move up the career ladder but I loved working right here I could be at work in one minute you know so it was just great and then I also probably would have taken continue some education but I had some pretty catastrophic health issues at the early 90s so it worked out great for me to just have a job that was right there and feel good about my clients and feel good about what I was doing and I guess I have to thank SOU for giving me the the piece of paper that made it so I could get the job