In mid-career, Mary Alice Stout left a successful professional job in Tennessee to follow her heart to rural South Carolina and off-the-grid Alabama.

Martine Giguùre looking cool in 1985, at the New England Women’s Musical Retreat. Photo by Beth Karbe

Martine’s Pagoda memories: the ocean, carpentry, and collaboration with lesbians there, which “got me on my feet and gave a direction to my life.” 

Dore Rotundo

Dore Rotundo, an original, broke barriers in architecture, created community, loved women, and always found ways to spread joy.

Bonnie Netherton in the rowboat she used to travel back and forth to her Chinese junk, Ming Meng

The very best years of my life were the years that I lived on the water, on the boat. I think of those years as the best, the best I ever lived.