Audio Interview, Sue Cowell, January 23, 2012

SUE COWELL: So even though I've worked on other races--

I mean, honestly, with Tim's, it wasn't an issue.

But in the early stages of working

on Louise Slaughter's race, it was a little bit of an issue.

I ended up-- that was more Fran Weisberg's paranoia.

Because there is a whole article here about Louise's race.

And there was going to be an interview.

And they had wanted to interview me.

And the kibosh was put on it.

EVELYN BAILEY: Can we go back to your earlier days before 1970.

SUE COWELL: Before 1970?

EVELYN BAILEY: Where were you born?

SUE COWELL: I was born 1952 in Jamaica, New York.

EVELYN BAILEY: Jamaica?

SUE COWELL: New York.

It's a--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Queens.

SUE COWELL: --city.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

SUE COWELL: Yeah.

Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: Did you go to school in New York?

SUE COWELL: No, we moved out to Long Island.

I don't even know exactly when.

Probably when I was, like, four or five.

EVELYN BAILEY: And high school?

SUE COWELL: We lived in Hicksville,

the home of Billy Joel.

Billy Joel had a garage band, Plainview, East Meadow,

all those towns.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

Were you out then?

SUE COWELL: Oh, no.

No.

But I mean--

EVELYN BAILEY: Did you know you were gay?

SUE COWELL: Well, I knew I was a tomboy.

And I knew I liked playing with my male friends, plus the age

breakdown on my street is like, the boys were my age.

But there were a couple of girls,

they were a couple of years older than me.

And at certain points, that doesn't really work,

because I'm a little shrimp.

And they're into boys, and I was just into playing with boys.

But I knew from having a major crush on--

I was always the teacher-pet type

of thing, and not for all my classes,

but I had my favorites.

So my art teacher was one of those first adults who

sort of treated me like I was the adult, not like I was

a kid, like you would actually have conversations

and things like that.

Then I'd help her prepare--

even after I left and went to junior high,

I'd go back once a week or sometimes more and just help

if she was doing art shows and things like that.

And so I think that was more where

I started to develop emotionally as opposed to just being

a little rug rat running around and playing baseball

and beating up boys.

Only once.

So that was a turning point just to be able to start

to even know yourself.

And I know at one point that I wanted to marry her.

But I wouldn't let me think about it

for too long, because I knew it was never going to happen.

It's sort of like titrate the thoughts, control them.

So I knew it, but I didn't act on it

until when I was in college, right around the time

that I was graduating.

EVELYN BAILEY: Where did you go to college?

SUE COWELL: SUNY New Paltz.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Was that around about '69, '70?

SUE COWELL: '70 to '74.

But again, I liked it so much that I stayed around

for an extra year.

It was kind of wild times, because my friends that I--

my friend Kathy-- that was my Joni Mitchell hair,

and that was my friend Kathy.

And so we both were able to--

we both wanted to go to SUNY New Paltz.

KEVIN INDOVINO: You almost look like twins.

SUE COWELL: I know.

And we were actually able to share,

to get the assignment we wanted, which we wanted

to share a room together.

And so I don't know.

New Paltz was just really--

it was in the Woodstock days.

And we had the Tripping Fields, so people would just

drop acid and go listen to Joe Cocker and The Airplane

and whoever else was coming through town.

And it was just kind of really wild times.

And then I had been interested in journalism.

So in high school, I had taken a journalism class.

And then in college, we took one.

There was a group of us.

And we put together an alternative newspaper

to the regular one, and--

EVELYN BAILEY: It wasn't banned?

SUE COWELL: No.

I mean, it wasn't really banned.

I mean, the journalism person sort of stood up for it.

I mean, it wasn't like all that ridiculous.

But there were some satiric pieces

that maybe they didn't appreciate,

like we were trying to just explain that--

I did a column about cooking the iron board.

Because basically, the only place

you could really have the strong enough outlets to have anything

that you could really put up a frying pan on

would be where you could plug your damn iron in.

And we would just mock the fact that they

think the place is so safe, and everybody in the whole freaking

university is blowing out these thing.

So serious but kind of stupid also.

KEVIN INDOVINO: But it was alternative politically,

socially.

SUE COWELL: Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

KEVIN INDOVINO: It wasn't a gay newspaper, right?

OK.

SUE COWELL: Yeah, no.

I don't know-- I wish I'd-- that's the one thing I

don't think I have is a copy of it.

It was called The Anduril.

EVELYN BAILEY: The what?

SUE COWELL: Anduril.

I don't know.

It was something from one of those crazy Tolkien

or whatever that people were into back then.

I don't have it.

From my high school journalism I do

have my layout sheets for the Cowell Courier,

and writing about the Chicago people

and when Easy Rider came out.

And I don't know.

See, and then you didn't have computers.

So you actually wrote each word.

And you could cut things out of newspapers

if you wanted a comic or something.

But you had to do the headlines and write the copy

and everything.

It was kind of fun.

KEVIN INDOVINO: God, I can't imagine.

EVELYN BAILEY: What was your degree in when

you graduated from New Paltz?

SUE COWELL: Psychology.

I was going to go into teaching, because like I said,

I had a lot of good teachers, and I enjoyed that.

But I took one education class, and I couldn't stand it.

I feel immediately-- it's like just because I might want

to teach kindergarten doesn't mean

I want to be treated like one.

Again, it was just very--

I just have a streak if I don't want to do something,

then I just won't do it.

And then the psychology was-- they

were always cooler professors anyway.

So I did that.

But then I just realized that back then, things

were all more behavior mod stuff,

so we'd go to institutions with children,

and just make it simple.

Give them M&M's, they'll do whatever you want.

And it's sort of like, this is ridiculous.

This is not what I want to spend my life doing.

I did do an internship at the children's

psychiatric hospital.

And that was different, because it wasn't this big state

institution.

But then I wasn't really exactly sure

what I was going to do when I graduated.

So I took a year off.

I knew what I was going to do, which was to have fun,

because I had--

there was a group of friends who were a year younger than me.

So my cohort left.

Actually, Kathy stayed around for a while.

But then I thought, well, let me just hang out here

for the summer and go be a waitress,

and did the twenty-four hour waitress thing.

And I don't even know when I had the epiphany that--

because I always did like sciences.

I liked biology and all that kind of stuff

when I was going through school.

So I had this flash of well, what about nursing?

Because that seems like a perfect combination,

because you have to have the technical skills.

And you have to have the medical background.

But you also have to be able to deal with people.

And that's just as big a part of that.

So I just got this idea.

And I swear to God, I don't even know exactly where or when

or how at any point.

So I'd already graduated.

So I started to do research and figure, OK--

because then nursing was really militaristic.

It's like you have to get your bachelor's before you're

a nurse.

So you have to--

and it has to be in nursing.

It can't be in any other field.

So when I did the research, there were three places

where you could take a bachelor's

in something that was somewhat related,

maybe not bioengineering or some crazy thing,

but that you could go and you could

get a master's in two years, and would be for the nurse

practitioner program.

And what they would do is--

it was a stepped-up program.

So you were heavy-loaded sciences the first year.

And then they start to build in the practical part of it.

And it was Yale, Case Western, and Pace University.

Those were the three programs at the time that would give you

that opportunity.

And then you'd do an internship.

So I spent the summer in Santa Rosa

in between when I graduated.

I went out to Santa Rosa, because my friend

from the nursing program had friends there.

And they had a family medicine area.

And some of my friends from New Paltz

had gone out to San Francisco.

So I figured, well, what better place to do that.

And then we also--

my friend that I went up to Santa Rosa with--

we went and took the nursing boards down in LA

on the St. Mary's cruise ship, because that's

where they were doing it.

(laughter)

It was a repurposing.

It wasn't moving.

So it kind of worked out.

I went to the program, and it was good.

You had different placements, so we were in Flower Fifth Avenue

Hospital.

We were in the VA Hospital.

We did public health nursing, home visits and stuff.

And so for me, it worked out really well.

EVELYN BAILEY: So from there, you came here?

SUE COWELL: Mm-hm.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, I wanted to step back, though,

before we get that far yet.

I want to first touch base on your coming-out experience.

Was it in college?

Was it after college?

When did you first start realizing it?

SUE COWELL: Well, I realized it in college

when I was an undergraduate.

But I didn't really act on it until after I had graduated.

And I was still--

that time when I was going to just be carefree.

And there was also a thing that-- because I

had boyfriends.

And of course, they all turned out to be gay.

KEVIN INDOVINO: That's usually the case.

(laughter)

SUE COWELL: Danny and Larry and Pedro.

But yeah, then it was actually when

I was doing the night shift at the diner, these group of women

come in.

And it's like, oh, so there actually

could be others like me around here.

We had more than one.

And so I just somehow hooked up with one of them.

And then it was obvious to me that that's what was missing.

Even though before you came--

the straight women at the time-- because it was also

the whole overlay of just the whole feminist movement

was emerging.

But the straight women, they weren't really--

I don't know-- accepting, but they basically

didn't believe that I could be gay, because I had long hair.

So it's like, all right, well, I guess maybe I'll have a drink

and then maybe just mosey on down the road here.

But for real, it was just a different time.

I mean, people were just feeling their way through all of that.

EVELYN BAILEY: And the images were really significant,

though.

I mean, the fact that you weren't gay

because you had long hair speaks volumes

of what women thought gay women or lesbians or dykes

would look like.

KEVIN INDOVINO: During that time,

did you ever either experience or hear

about any kind of tension or animosity

between what was the women's rights movement

and what was, maybe then, gay and lesbian rights movement?

SUE COWELL: No

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

Yeah.

SUE COWELL: No

KEVIN INDOVINO: Because I've heard some rumors

here and there--

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

SUE COWELL: No.

No.

KEVIN INDOVINO: --that the women's liberation movement

wasn't always that accepting.

SUE COWELL: Right.

Because-- yeah, I think that they just

felt that if it was known that there were

lesbian activists within the group,

that it would sort of handicap or it would just make it more

difficult for them to get their message out

and received in a proper way.

But the reality of it is that we were there.

The first NOW conference down in Houston or wherever the hell

it was--

maybe we were involved.

We've been involved with every social movement.

My partner marched in Selma.

I worked around AIDS stuff.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.

So what brought you to Rochester and why?

When and why?

SUE COWELL: Well, the job.

So I graduated in '74.

I play around for a year.

And then it was time to go to graduate school.

So after I was done with Pace University

and I was in my internship out in the West Coast--

my partner and I were still together.

Just we were separated for the summer.

And the nurse practitioner movement was very early.

And the nurse practitioner movement actually

sort of grew out of Rochester.

I don't know if you caught the story about Loretta Ford.

But she was the dean of the School of Nursing

for many, many years.

And she was inducted into the women's hall of fame

this past cycle, because the nurse practitioner

movement was really born out of Colorado and Rochester.

And it was just the whole concept

that women could do more, nurses could do more than just fluff

pillows and give you Jell-o.

And so at that time, it's why I'll say--

not maybe like a priest, but I feel like I got called here

because where else would I find two jobs for nurse

practitioners in the same city and in Rochester of all places?

So Holly got a job at the Anthony Jordan Health Center.

And then I got my dream job at the University of Rochester,

because I wanted to work with young, healthy people

because I wanted to have fun and not be in a--

KEVIN INDOVINO: So Holly was your partner?

SUE COWELL: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: What year was that?

SUE COWELL: That was in '77.

So you know, I was out on the West Coast.

And then I get this letter saying

that she took a job at Jordan Health Center in Rochester.

And I cried.

It's like what the fuck?

(unintelligible)

Rochester?

You gotta be kidding me?

But I thought, well, I can be alone, or I could say,

all right, I'll try, and if I don't like it,

I guess I'll have to make a decision then.

But it wasn't--

I really was more interested in Boston,

because I had a group of friends who went up there.

I was more interested in being in a city

than being in the hicks.

But again, fate has a way of trumping what you want.

I don't know.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, if you didn't get here until 1977,

then you pretty early on got involved in gay activism here.

SUE COWELL: Oh, yeah, just about immediately,

because I lived around the corner from the co-op.

So what happened is--

so I come from my interview.

Holly's in town.

And we know that we're going to be looking for an apartment.

And I turn on the TV.

And the gay alliance was picketing city hall

over CETA funding.

So I'm like, now a different kind of WTF,

like, what is this all about?

So in between that happening and then just driving

around and looking for the cool parts of the city that

would be the hippie whatever, we found a place over there

by the Co-op.

And once I sort of got settled, I went over and checked it out.

And Pat Collins was there.

And Pat talked with me for a while

and just gave me the lay of the land.

And then I was at the University of Rochester then.

And so I was in the health service

over in the medical center, but I also did a lot of stuff

with student affairs staff because we had a student

advisory committee and we did different types of health

promotion trainings at that point.

And we developed a whole series on sexuality, brochures that--

contraception and other things, too, and

worked to just be able to provide good sexuality

services there.

And she called me up at work and said, can we go to lunch?

So we went to lunch.

And she threw the potato, and I grabbed it.

(unintelligible)

But only because it's fun.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Because I don't want

to just jump over this, your initial impression

or involvement in the gay community here in Rochester--

in your talk with Pat or in your first kind of trying to scope

things out, what was your initial impression

of who we were as a community, particularly a gay community?

SUE COWELL: Well, I wouldn't say completely heaven,

but it was pretty damn good compared

to what I had even when I was down in Westchester.

So that's more towards the city, but it really

has a big rural overlay.

You have to go into bars along Route 9,

and it's not really a sense of community.

And I dated one woman for a little bit of time there.

But I didn't really click with the people there.

And this certainly wasn't a sense of community.

And it was also a little different.

I mean, not that people don't organize around alcohol,

but it was pretty much like drinking fast.

And I had my one straight friend at college just

tell me, "Well, it sounds like it's good

that you don't fit in."

So I had that balance.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So by 1978, you're with the Gay Alliance.

You're writing for The Empty Closet,

doing commentaries and stuff.

Just kind of talk about those early days for you.

SUE COWELL: Well, there's a lot of stuff in here.

I was on the board.

I was-- I don't know--

maybe only twenty-five or twenty-six

when I became the president the first time.

I can ever do the math.

KEVIN INDOVINO: What year was that?

I forget.

SUE COWELL: Well, I came here in '77, and I was born in '52.

KEVIN INDOVINO: That's twenty-five.

SUE COWELL: Twenty-five.

So I was twenty-five.

And then--

EVELYN BAILEY: You were president after Pat.

SUE COWELL: Um-hm.

EVELYN BAILEY: After Pat Collins.

SUE COWELL: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: And that would have been '78.

SUE COWELL: Yeah, probably right around that time, too,

just the precursor to the Rally for Rights.

Yeah, because the other thing was I just

worked in a really supportive environment at the University

of Rochester at that point.

But at a certain point between coming here with Holly

and then Holly leaving because we separated--

I was with somebody else then-- but they were always

really cool to any of my friends and things like that.

And there would be little work parties.

And people were accepted.

And they were a site for residents to come and do

training and learn things.

So they were accepting.

But it wasn't like I wore a rainbow

flag to work or whatever.

But then when this Rally for Rights

came around based on the whole Anita Bryant coming

to town and that craziness, I thought, well,

I should at least tell my boss before she just sees me on TV.

So I did that.

And it was like a non-event.

And then my administrative person was Ruth Hopkins.

And she was a feminist.

I mean, she probably could have been a lesbian.

But she named her daughter Susan B., Susan B. Hopkins.

So I was just really fortunate to be

around a really great group of people

so that I didn't feel any threat to my life or my work

or anything.

If anything, it just enhanced.

And my boss, the head of it, was Cliff Reifler,

who was a psychiatrist.

And he could look kind of intimidating and kind

of gruff, whatever.

But I would say having my father that I had, who was Italian--

he was kind of old-fashioned.

I just always say if I didn't make my own way,

I'd still be home listening to the radio.

So I was always--

if somebody says I can't do something,

then I'm going to do it.

He wouldn't take my training wheels off

because the boy across the street got his off.

He said, well, I'll take them off,

but I'm not putting him back on.

Well, I waved to him.

"Thanks Daddy."

Just stuff like that.

And that kind of stuff is just sort of, I guess, just nature.

KEVIN INDOVINO: This Is a totally off subject,

but how do you have an Italian father

but with a name like Cowell?

SUE COWELL: Because of Ellis Island,

and it anglicized when they came.

It was my dad's dad.

It was actually originally Callo, like C-A-L-L-O.

And it's funny because now with everything so computerized,

my sister and I actually went to the website at Ellis Island.

And we have the manifest and everything.

KEVIN INDOVINO: I did that with my grandparents.

One of my-- my grandmother's brother, when he came over he

changed his name from (unintelligible) to Richards.

Going through the obits, I'm like,

who the hell's this Christopher Richards?

SUE COWELL: I know.

There are sometimes I wish--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Anyway, It was totally off-subject.

SUE COWELL: --my name was Italian.

Yeah.

So I don't know.

So I just got involved and--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, just talking about those early days

of, again, the Rally to Rights.

What was the atmosphere like?

What was the sentiments like in the community?

What were you trying to achieve?

SUE COWELL: Well, in some ways, it

was a little bit controversial.

It was sort of like you had the lesbian feminists.

And then you had gay men.

And then you had some women, like lesbians,

who were trying to just bridge the whole thing.

And I wanted to call it the Rally for Human Rights,

not the Rally for Gay Rights.

Well, all the radical women didn't like that

and whatever, whatever.

But that was the whole point, is why do we

have to be the only ones advocating for our rights

and freedoms?

Other people could come help.

God knows we've helped plenty of other movements.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Were you one of the people heading it up?

SUE COWELL: Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's even a picture here of crazy George Moore.

Not the-- there were the two George Moores.

But the one that really was psychotic.

Yeah.

And we did things like this.

That was Mike Macaluso from the Citizens

for a Decent Community.

they call it the original CDC.

Yeah, I don't know.

This is a lot of stuff here.

Oh, and we went big with it.

We brought Leonard Matlovich, who

had been discharged from the Air Force.

We brought Kate Millett.

One of the men in the community had a little prop plane

and went down to Poughkeepsie and picked her up

and brought her in.

Karen DeCrow, who was still sort of

closeted, but she was the president of NOW for the state.

EVELYN BAILEY: Was that Kate?

Kate DeCrow?

SUE COWELL: No, Karen DeCrow.

Yeah, I'd have to go back and get some more of the names.

OK, so here's one of the pictures

from the Rally for Rights.

And over a thousand people came to this thing.

And it was basically conceived as an answer

to Anita Bryant's visit to Rochester.

The rally marked the beginning of the community

through the enlargement of our understanding of oppression,

according to Kate Millett, 1970.

Other speakers were Leonard Matlovich,

Adam (unintelligible), national gay lobbyist Karen DeCrow,

former NOW president, Dr. Ken Smith, Colgate Rochester

Divinity School.

And perhaps Matlovich said it best

when he said, "If Anita Bryant is a born-again Christian,

she should try, try again until she gets it right."

KEVIN INDOVINO: Love it.

SUE COWELL: Yeah.

So that was a pretty big thing, to get that many people out

there.

And we got a lot of media attention.

And Bill (unintelligible) spoke at it.

EVELYN BAILEY: And she came to the--

Henrietta--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Dome Center.

EVELYN BAILEY: The what?

KEVIN INDOVINO: The Dome.

EVELYN BAILEY: The Dome Arena.

Do you know the Dome Arena has no record of her coming?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Did she actually come?

I had heard somewhere along the line

that she canceled out that event.

SUE COWELL: No, I'd have to really go back and look and see

if we have that in here.

KEVIN INDOVINO: That's something we have to question,

if she actually came or not.

EVELYN BAILEY: Well, the Dome says

that there was no such rally.

KEVIN INDOVINO: No rally?

This rally.

EVELYN BAILEY: No, she never--

she did not appear at the Dome.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Which makes me question even more if she

actually came or not.

Because if she didn't, if she cancelled out, then no,

they wouldn't have any record.

EVELYN BAILEY: Did she actually--

KEVIN INDOVINO: What was the date of that rally?

Because if you can just do a search in the DNC

and see if she actually came or not.

EVELYN BAILEY: It's in that Rochester chronology, too.

SUE COWELL: Looking for the bumper stickers.

KEVIN INDOVINO: That's OK.

We can find out later.

Just do a search on the DNC.

EVELYN BAILEY: It would have been 1979 and 19--

SUE COWELL: Yeah, OK, yeah, it says here, too,

Sue Cowell, George Moore elected co-presidents in January

of '79.

And then--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, the whole Anita Bryant thing

was in '79, right?

SUE COWELL: Yeah, the Rally for Rights was in '78.

KEVIN INDOVINO: '78?

SUE COWELL: It does--

it says, "Anita Bryant performs at the Dome."

EVELYN BAILEY: But when I sent Nicole,

the first archival consultant, over to the Dome arena

to ask them and to talk to them, they

said they have no record of her being there.

SUE COWELL: Well, maybe they don't have a record,

but I'm just thinking somebody who

does the Ride for Pride with Jeanie is managing the Dome.

He was interested in me going out there and looking

at what spaces they have in case we ever wanted to rent.

So maybe I can have Jeanie--

EVELYN BAILEY: There are--

(unintelligible) has video clips from the Rally for Rights

and from Anita Bryant.

I'll check on those again.

But it would be interesting to find out if she didn't come,

why she didn't come.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, it sounds to me like she did.

SUE COWELL: Yeah, yeah, because this is our information.

I don't think we would have made it up.

EVELYN BAILEY: No.

It comes from The Empty Closet.

SUE COWELL: Right.

EVELYN BAILEY: You know?

SUE COWELL: Yeah.

So--

KEVIN INDOVINO: So let's move forward.

EVELYN BAILEY: So in '78, it was the Rally for Rights.

And in '79, you were elected president of the Gay Alliance.

That election wasn't public, though.

Did people vote at that point?

SUE COWELL: Oh, I don't know.

I can't say, really, they did things legitimate. (pause)

But I'm just looking for that picture

that we had already seen.

1980 board-- well, no.

EVELYN BAILEY: I don't think we sent out a mailing or anything.

I think it was the slate was presented,

and the board voted on it.

SUE COWELL: Right.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, it's usually just a board vote,

right?

SUE COWELL: Mm-hm.

Especially in those days, it's not

like when you're a member of an organization, a membership--

KEVIN INDOVINO: So '78 you're active with the gay alliance.

You are doing rallies around town.

SUE COWELL: And marching with the women,

Take Back the Night crew, too.

Flower City Fights Back Peacefully.

EVELYN BAILEY: And were you a part of Women Against Violence

Against Women?

SUE COWELL: No, I mean, I wasn't a member of it.

I supported what they were doing.

But they were also--

the things came back around.

They were also kind of the more radical

and really wanted to focus their energy on women's issues.

And that's why I just felt like, well,

it's really about everybody having rights.

EVELYN BAILEY: So what was Take Back the Night about?

SUE COWELL: Basically, just women taking to the streets

to protest violence against women, rape of women,

and that women don't feel safe walking the streets.

And there was also tied to different ads that were out

at that time, like when alcohol played an even bigger role,

so Black Velvet ones with all the sexy women and all.

So that women would go out repasting--

they'd climb up there.

They'd throw paint.

Or we'd paste over offensive images.

And it was just the dynamics of women waking up and saying,

you know what?

I have a brain.

I can have more out of my life.

I don't need to let other people define who I am

or what I can do and when I can do it.

And so it was just--

it was that kind of thing.

EVELYN BAILEY: So that was '70--

you were president '79 and '80, and then--

SUE COWELL: And again in '85, I thought.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

Were you still at the U of R?

SUE COWELL: Yeah, I was at the U of R until--

I was there eleven years, '77 to '88.

Because at that point, then, it was

a couple of different things.

One, I sort of had done everything

I felt like I could do at the U or R. I established--

at the infirmary where kids would stay overnight

if they were sick, we established a nurse manager

there.

Instead of just having the different nurses float

in and out, you do a shift.

And then nobody's in charge of anything.

And it was one of those things I talked

to my administrative boss, because things were just

getting kind of screwed up a little bit.

And she said, well, that's a great idea.

Do you want to be the manager?

Well, I'll get it going.

I don't really want to be the manager manager, but--

so I did that.

And then I started the health education program.

And I left as the chief of the health education unit.

And then with all the AIDS stuff that I was doing,

I became involved with the area task force.

And we developed on that with Bill Valenti, myself,

John Altieri, some other people, the first regional plan

that really addressed the issue of AIDS.

So I got to work with the deputy director of the Health

Department, Mark Merkens, because he

was involved with that.

And there were changes going on at the health department.

Because we actually-- the early days of AIDS Rochester,

it was really Jackie Nudd, myself, a few people.

And we were always trying to get into the Health Department

to talk to people about testing and what are they doing

to address the issue, and--

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.

I'm going to pull you back, because I don't

want to rush through this.

Let's start at the beginning when AIDS reared its ugly head

in Rochester.

You were still at the U of R. Where did the beginning start

with you and Bill?

And how did that all come about?

Because from what I understand, the first meeting

was on your front porch or something like that.

SUE COWELL: Well, yeah, we named it on my porch,

but we probably met in some other places.

So Bill Valenti had two positions.

He was in the infectious disease unit,

but he was a hospital epidemiologist.

And then the other part is that he also

worked down in the University Health Service.

And the thing that was just so valuable to me

working in that setting is that they would have Journal Club.

So people would bring different articles

that were contemporary of issue, and that's

when those early Center for Disease Control reports

started to come out.

And see, I already knew in the late seventies--

I was writing stuff about increased rates

of syphilis in gay men.

And so the medical community knew that, but--

not that it's a great thing to have,

but it could be treated with an antibiotic.

But as more and more evidence surfaced that, well, there

seems to be even more going on than just syphilis,

I had already been writing about that.

So when the first official reports came out through the--

the morbidity and mortality reports.

We needed to start addressing that locally.

And Bill Valenti told somebody else up

in the infectious disease, because Bill was more

dealing with hospital-acquired infections and things

like that.

He wasn't really doing the research part of things.

So he told one of the people up there to come down and see me,

because they had gotten to the point where

they wanted to start doing a screening clinic locally

to see if--

is this an issue in this community and if so, where

are we going with this?

So Tom came down and talked to me.

And this is the other thing that's

so cool about where I worked because they allowed

us to then, after hours, do a screening clinic that we

publicized in the community that they could come in.

At that time, it was just pretty simple stuff.

You could do a blood draw, and you could

look at the t-cell counts.

But you still really didn't know exactly what it meant.

And that's this whole part of it here.

Because Tim Sally--

I don't know if you remember Tim?

EVELYN BAILEY: Um-hm.

SUE COWELL: But Tim and I went to the Red Cross

when they were going to not allow gay men to donate blood.

We said, well, we've got to go talk to them,

because they at least have a responsibility

to educate the community, not just say, no thanks.

And so this was the first piece of literature.

It's the only one I have left.

But look at the number on it.

It's the Gay Alliance number.

And--

EVELYN BAILEY: Well, the hotline was here.

And Jackie Nudd was president--

SUE COWELL: Um-hm.

Right.

EVELYN BAILEY: --of the Alliance.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, but we jumped ahead a little bit,

because initially we didn't even have a name for it yet, right?

SUE COWELL: Right.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So through the screening clinics

that you started developing, what, then, came out of that?

SUE COWELL: Well, we started to--

I guess the turning point was there

was one fellow who had moved back to Rochester to be

with his family.

He had been in New York.

And he was seeing friends get sick.

And he was thinking that he was getting sick.

And he was getting sick.

But his family did not welcome him with open arms.

And so he had an apartment.

And it became evident that the medical establishment was not

going to take him shopping or pick up

his prescriptions to him.

So now we need something else to help people

like that in that situation.

And that's where Helping People with AIDS kind of developed.

Although initially it was kind of more fundraising.

But it wasn't as involved with HPA.

EVELYN BAILEY: HPA happened after AIDS Rochester

came into existence.

SUE COWELL: Right.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

And HPA took care of costs that could not be

covered by medical insurance.

SUE COWELL: Right.

EVELYN BAILEY: And for many men--

at that time, it was mostly men--

when they lost their job, they had no place to go.

And they couldn't pay their rent.

And they couldn't pay for prescriptions.

They couldn't pay for AZT, because it was so expensive.

So HPA arose, came into existence

because men in the community-- the community needed the money

to help these people survive for as long as they could.

But AIDS Rochester started--

that hotline began on your front porch with you and Holly.

Was it Holly (unintelligible)?

SUE COWELL: Don (unintelligible),

who is a psychologist at the U of R, Mark Allenwood

and his partner, Randy.

I think Valenti was there.

He probably was.

KEVIN INDOVINO: I think he was because he mentioned that,