StoryCorps: Kate Hartnett and Rachel Stuart

Kate: I got married because I was tired of not fitting in. And I thought, growing up where I did in a suburban Connecticut setting in a very blue-collar family, that if I was able to pick up and follow the trappings of what I saw around me, with somebody I didn’t love, but I liked a lot, who’s a very very nice man, that perhaps other things would fall into place as well.

Of course, what I discovered, in addition to the stifling experience of trying to be a wife and not having it work because of the presumptions of the time, was that in fact I am now, have been and always was a lesbian. Though in those days it wasn’t obvious to me and I only discovered that later.

Rachel: After you left your husband?

Kate: Yes

Rachel: When did you realize it wasn’t right and when did you leave?

Kate: Well, I knew it wasn’t right before I got married, but I thought that didn’t matter if I married a friend and my canoeing partner. That it would be okay, and that I wasn’t someone who would ever really fall in love. So I could just have a friendship. And I realized very soon after that it was just not good for him and not good for me. So I was really only married functionally for about six months, and I left after nine, and got divorced after a couple of years.

So it was traumatic because I’d made a commitment, but it was also very, very expansive once I started to break loose of trying to fit in and just try to go off and discover who I was and how I was going to craft my path in the world. I think the ‘70s was a very different time. I also identify as a feminist and that was the early, early days of women defining and coming to expect the right of being a whole person in the world. That was just starting up again in the 70s.

I feel very lucky to be 58, and be able to have the perspective of the evolution of this institution. And I can’t imagine how it will continue to evolve in the future. But I think it’s great what’s happening now. And one of the things we had talked about was, okay, now that this has happened and there is the concept of marriage equality out there in New Hampshire. So you suggest, what about getting engaged? How does that fit in? And how does the part that’s the civil part, and the part that’s the emotional part, and the part that’s the public part all intertwine or not? It just becomes much more customizable.