Oral Interview History with Toby Finkelstein

The Eugene Lesbian Oral History Project collection consists of interviews of 83 people for the Eugene Lesbian Oral History Project, conducted by Professor Judith Raiskin and Curator Linda Long at the University of Oregon starting in the summer of 2018.; Toby was born in 1946 in Brooklyn, New York. She grew up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, Crown Heights. She discusses the constraints of the neighborhood and racial tensions. Toby attended Hunter College from 1963 through 1969. She discusses traveling around the United States and settling on a lesbian communal farm in Missouri. There, she met Clare Kinberg, and together they travelled to the Pacific Northwest and visited Eugene. Toby discusses the City of Eugene anti-gay Referendum 51. She talks about moving to Eugene, lesbian social life, and alternative businesses in town. She discusses her interview at Starflower Natural Foods & Botanicals and describes the difficult consensus meetings there. She describes the butch/femme dynamic in the lesbian community, sexual relations, the practice of non-monogamy, marriage equality, and how women communicated with each other within the community. She discusses her work at Lane Community College. Toby married her longtime partner, Aggie Agapito, and talks about parenting with her. She concludes her interview by talking about aging and about the range of jobs lesbians had in Eugene.